The following daily average diet is taken from the book, "Diet and Dietetics," by A. Gauthier, a well known authority on the subject of the nutritive needs of the body. Mr. Gauthier averaged the daily food intake of the inhabitants of Paris for the ten years from 1890 to 1899, inclusive. He takes it for granted that this is the average daily food requirement for a person:
420.0 grams bread and cakes,
216.0 " boned meat,
24.1 " eggs (weighed with shell),
8.1 " cheese (dry or cream),
28.0 " butter, oil, etc.,
70.0 " fresh fruit,
250.0 " green vegetables,
40.0 " dried vegetables,
100.0 " potatoes, rice,
40.0 " sugar,
20.0 " salt,
213.0 C. C. milk,
557.0 C. C. of various alcoholics, containing
9.5 C. C. of pure alcohol.
So long as the Parisians consume such quantities of food they will continue to suffer and die before they reach one-half of the age that should be theirs. The French eat no more than do other people, in fact, they seem moderate in their food intake as compared with some of the Germans, English and Americans, but they eat too much for their physical and mental good.
The lists given above are from sources that command the respect of the medical profession. They are the orthodox and popular opinions. It would be an easy matter to give many more tables, but they agree so closely that it would be a waste of time and space.
Quantitative tables from vegetarian sources are not so common. The vegetarians say that meat eating is wrong, being contrary to nature. Whether they are right or wrong, they make the same mistakes that the orthodox prescribers do, that is, they advocate overeating. Medical textbooks prescribe a too abundant supply of starch and meat in particular. The vegetarians prescribe a superabundance of starch. Read the magazines advocating vegetarianism and note their menus, giving numerous cereals, tubers, peas, beans, lentils, as well as other vegetables, for the same meal. It is as easy to overeat of nuts and protein in leguminous vegetables as it is to overeat of meat.
Starch poisoning is as bad as meat poisoning and the results are equally fatal.
The following are suggestions offered by a fruitarian. They give the food intake for two days:
120 grams shelled peanuts, raw,
1000 " apples,
500 " unfermented whole wheat bread.
120 grams shelled filberts,
450 " raisins,
800 " bananas.
In the first day's menu it will be noted that over two pounds of apples and over one pound of whole wheat bread are recommended, also over four ounces of raw peanuts. The writer says that this food should preferably be taken in two meals. There are very few people with enough digestive and assimilative power to care for more than one-half of a pound of whole wheat bread twice a day, especially when taken with raw peanuts, which are rather hard to digest. The trouble is made worse by the addition of more than one pound of apples to each meal, for when apples in large quantities are eaten with liberal amounts of starch, the tendency for the food to ferment is so strong that only a very few escape. Gas is produced in great quantities, which is both unnatural and unpleasant. Neither stomach nor bowels manufacture any perceptible amount of gas if they are in good condition and a moderate amount of food is taken.