Other foods which are rich in protective substances are fresh fruit, egg-yolks and glandular organs, as liver and sweetbreads.
Nearly all of the common foods are deficient in some respect, but as the shortcomings of the various groups are different, we can arrange entirely satisfactory diets by combining foods which supplement each other’s deficiencies. This explains to us why the meat-potato-peas-beans-bread-and-pie type of meals fail to supply adequate nourishment. These foods belong in the same general group and are deficient in about the same kind of food factors, thus tending to duplicate, rather than supplement each other.
If such a fare is enriched by the addition of the protective foods, milk and leafy vegetables, we have a well rounded diet in which the deficiencies of one group of foods are supplied by the properties of the other groups. In fact, it is only by such a supplementing combination that an entirely satisfactory diet can be secured.
It is generally agreed that the two big problems of babyhood are proper nutrition and the prevention of infection, but nutrition is perhaps the greater problem, since any form or degree of malnutrition lessens the baby’s powers to resist and to recover from infection. Whether breast-fed or bottle-fed, therefore, it is imperative that the baby be nourished in the complete sense of being given all of the food materials which are essential to normal growth, development and protection against disease.
If your baby is artificially fed on milk that has been heated you will understand why the doctor adds such protectives as cod-liver oil and orange juice, since the protective properties of milk are impaired by heating. If he is breast-fed, you will be able to supply to your baby the requisite nourishment and protective substances only if you yourself are adequately nourished and in good condition.
That is the point of this discussion; the fact that you must be on a satisfactory diet or you cannot satisfactorily nurse your baby. Satisfactory nursing means to give to your baby, from the beginning, through your milk, the materials necessary to build well and securely that temple, in the form of his body, which he will occupy throughout life; a structure so substantially built, from the foundation up through each successive stage, that it will be able to withstand the attacks of disease and weather the inevitable storm and stress of life, for perhaps even more than the allotted three score years and ten.
“The race marches forward on the feet of little children.”
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
- Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.
- Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
- Re-indexed footnotes using numbers.