Milk may spoil even before it has soured. Pasteurizing delays souring but not spoiling. Unscrupulous dealers sometimes add preservatives to prevent souring. Such milk is dangerous. Clean, freshly soured milk is harmless, but should not be given to children under three except as buttermilk. With young children and babies, buttermilk can sometimes be retained and digested when sweet milk cannot be taken. The special tablets containing the Bulgarian bacillus should be used, and usually, with the whole milk, in making buttermilk for young children. These tablets may be obtained from the druggist.
Skimmed milk has all the value of whole milk except the cream. Whey contains the minerals, sugar and fats. Bottled commercial cream has a very high bacteria count and should never be used for children. Ice cream should be freshly made of fresh, pasteurized milk, with scrupulous cleanliness.
Principles of Cooking. Before food can be utilized by the body, it must be made soluble—changed into substances that are dissolved so they can pass readily through the walls of the food tube into the blood. In the digestive tract fats, carbohydrates, and protein must first be separated, as different digestive fluids are provided to act upon each of these. Cooking for children should (1) make foods easily soluble; (2) produce little mixture of protein, carbohydrates and fats; (3) improve the flavor, and (4) raise the temperature to about blood heat (98° F.), when served.
The degree of development of the digestive fluids, the stomach, and the teeth must be considered in preparing food for an individual child. In infancy the digestive system is undeveloped, lacking in digestive fluids, stomach small, and there is no provision for chewing.
Until nine months of age babies do not have digestive fluids for starch, or for protein except the curds of milk; their teeth are not yet serviceable for chewing, and solid food of any kind is so indigestible that it often causes convulsions, if given.
After nine months, starches thoroughly cooked and without cellulose may be given cautiously.
All food must be easily soluble until two years of age, that is, until enough of the first teeth have developed for adequate chewing of soft cellulose.
For children under 18 months, cellulose and fibers strained out of vegetables.
For children 18 months to 3 years (before first teeth are all cut) vegetables mashed or chopped fine; coarse cellulose removed.
At three years, all the first teeth (20) should be cut, and the child can chew the cellulose of vegetables and fruits.