Especial attention should be given to simplicity in feeding:

  1. Avoid giving too many things at the same meal; from three to four articles at one time are sufficient
  2. Mothers should be especially cautioned against giving a child bread made with yeast, or baking powder, and against the old diet of milk toast
  3. All meat, flesh food, stimulants or narcotics of every kind should be omitted from the diet of children
  4. The crowning mistake of the doting mother is often made in feeding her child from the conventional table, on such things as weakened coffee or tea, meats, and condiments
  5. The custom of giving children an excess of sweets has ruined millions of little stomachs, and has given them a heritage of dis-ease and suffering before they have entered their 'teens
  6. All condiments, such as pepper, salt, vinegar, pickles, and all pungent things should be eliminated from the diet of children—the taste of the child is very susceptible to cultivation, and with very little encouragement it will accept things that have no place in the human economy, and which are positively harmful
  7. When a child begins teething, it may be given a small piece of hard water-cracker with safety

If the above rules are observed, it is reasonable to assume that normal hunger of the child will guide it very correctly in selecting, proportioning, and combining its food through the period of childhood until it enters the period of youth.

OLD AGE

Necessity for old age diet

There seems to be two critical periods in every life—the ages of thirty and sixty. If the sixtieth year can be turned with good digestion, normal assimilation and excretion, it is fair to assume that with reasonable care the century mark may be easily reached. It is also reasonable to assume that experience will have taught most thoughtful people what to eat and what not to eat, but the mortality tables of nearly all civilized countries, of which the writer has made a careful study, prove that a majority of people do not reach their sixtieth year, and but a very small per cent of those who do are blessed with good digestion. Therefore an old age diet is quite as important to the student as infant feeding.

For purposes of convenience, I will put all cereal products, legumes, and white potatoes in the starch or bread class, and henceforth they will be referred to as such.

Meat and bread produce old age