Lesson XVI

ADAPTING FOOD TO SPECIAL CONDITIONS

INFANT, OLD AGE, AND ATHLETIC FEEDING SEDENTARY OCCUPATIONS, CLIMATIC EXTREMES

Diet may be divided into three distinct classes—normal, preventive, and curative. In order to understand the application of diet to these several conditions, it is necessary to observe the following rules:

  1. Foods must be selected which contain all the desired nutritive elements.
  2. They must be so combined as to produce chemical harmony, or should at least produce no undesirable chemical action.
  3. They must be proportioned so as to level or balance their nutritive elements; that is, to prevent overfeeding on some elements of nourishment, and underfeeding on others.

Many fine specimens of men and women have been produced without knowledge of these laws, but in nearly every case it may have been observed that the person was normal as to habits, and temperate in eating, therefore led aright by instinct.

If one lives an active life, spending from three to five hours a day in the open air, the body will cast off and burn with oxygen much excess nutrition, and will also convert or appropriate certain nutritive elements to one purpose, which, according to all known chemical laws, Nature intended for another. Much better results, however, will be obtained by giving Nature the right material with which to work, thus pursuing lines of least resistance.