In the early stage of various diseases, where toxins are hoarded in the system, it is often advisable to abstain from food for from one to three days, according to conditions. As previously stated, where the system is not properly eliminating the waste, it is wise to abstain from food, to take brisk exercise, breathe deeply and drink freely of water, until the waste is eliminated. A laxative is also desirable.
The above suggestions are for abnormal conditions. To keep the body in health, eat at regular periods.
It is the purpose here to give diets for chronic cases, which the average person attempts to regulate without a physician in regular attendance.
The foundation education in regard to foods, belongs in the public schools. How many lives are lost on account of the lack of knowledge of food values will never be known.
The system readily excretes an excess of vegetable products, and, as a rule, no acute difficulties result; however, such chronic difficulties, as Constipation, Torpid Liver and Indigestion, frequently result from an excess of starch, over that consumed in energy. On account of the readiness to putrefaction of protein products, care should be taken not to consume these in too great proportion.
Broadly speaking, a diet largely of protein, which is digested in the stomach, rests the intestines, and a diet largely of carbohydrates, rests the stomach, because the gastric juice is not active in starch digestion. In case sufficient saliva is not swallowed with the food to digest the starches and sugars in the stomach they are passed into the intestines for digestion. In the absence of sufficient saliva, water with the food is desirable to dissolve the starches, that they may more readily pass the pylorus.
A study of the habitual taste for foods, in connection with the physical ailments of eighteen thousand women, shows that by the constituents in the blood, and the condition of the different organs of the digestive system, one can usually determine which food the individual has formed a habit of eating, because the blood will show a lack of the elements which that patient has denied himself on account of his likes and dislikes.
It is necessary to change the mental attitude toward certain foods before the system will assimilate them; thus a taste for the foods which the body requires should be cultivated.
Every mother, with growing children, should be a thorough student of the chemistry of food. If the child’s bones do not grow to sufficient size and strength, care in the selection of foods, rich in proteins, lime, magnesium and phosphates, may correct it. Such a child should have meat, whole wheat bread and eggs.
Where the child stores up too much fat, care in the amount of exercise, and of oxygen consumed, as well as the regulation of diet, are of vital importance. If one is thin and undernourished, chemical analysis of the contents of stomach, intestines and kidneys should be made, the nerves be rested and proper food, exercise and breathing should accompany medical treatment, if medicine is needed.