Milk
Milk is called a complete food. It is a perfect food for the sustenance of its own species,—the milk of the cow for the calf, the mother’s milk for the infant; yet the milk of the cow is not perfect for the child,—it is lacking in the proper proportion of sugar, and when fed to the child a little sugar is added.
There has been a tendency among certain classes, to recommend an all-milk diet, because the proteins, carbohydrates and fats are in proportion to sustain life indefinitely, but experiments have shown that healthy, digestive organs do their work better when a part of the food is solid. Moreover, if an all-milk diet were followed, the adult, in order to get sufficient nutriment, would be compelled to take a larger proportion of water than necessary, the proportion of water required by the system being about sixty-seven per cent, while milk contains eighty-seven per cent.
In order for the adult to get the proper quantity of carbohydrates and fat, from an all-milk diet, it would be necessary to drink from four to five quarts of milk a day (sixteen to twenty glasses). Therefore, although an exceedingly valuable food, containing nutriment elements for repair and to supply heat and energy for an indefinite time, milk is not a desirable, perfect food for an adult.
If the mother’s milk contains eighty-seven per cent water it seems not too much for the infant. Young babies, on a milk diet, are almost always fat. This is not because the fats, sugars and starches are in too large a proportion to the protein, but it bears out the theory, which is fully demonstrated in actual experiments of the writer with over twenty thousand women, that the free drinking of liquid at a meal aids digestion and a better absorption and assimilation of food.
One advantage of drinking milk with the meal, is that it is not taken as cold as water and it supplies a portion of actual food.
TABLE X.
Milk and Milk Products.
| Food Materials | Water | Proteins | Fats | Sugar | Salts | Lactic Acid |
| Milk | 86.8 | 4.0 | 3.7 | 4.8 | 0.7 | ...... |
| Skimmed milk | 88.0 | 4.0 | 1.8 | 5.4 | 0.8 | ...... |
| Buttermilk | 90.6 | 3.8 | 1.2 | 3.3 | 0.6 | 0.3 |
| Cream | 66.0 | 2.7 | 26.7 | 2.8 | 1.8 | ...... |
| Cheese | 36.8 | 33.5 | 24.3 | ...... | 5.4 | ...... |
| Butter | 6.0 | 0.3 | 91.0 | ...... | 2.7 | ...... |
Reference to the above table shows that the thirteen per cent of organic foods are about equally divided between fat, sugar and protein. The protein is casein. There is no starch in milk. The digestive ferment, which acts upon starch, has not developed in the young babe and the infant cannot digest starch. The salts promote the growth of bone.