Roasted young chicken and veal are tender, easily masticated, and easily and rapidly digested in the stomach. This is one reason why the white meats are considered a good diet for the invalid, though veal is usually avoided in cases of dyspepsia, as, if too young, it may cause diarrhea; if too old, it is less digestible than beef.
Fat meats remain in the stomach a much longer time than lean meats; thus, gastric digestion of pork, which usually contains much fat, is especially difficult, requiring from three and one-half to four hours (see page [22]).
Preserved and canned meats should be eaten with the utmost caution, care being taken to know that they are put up by firms which use extreme care in their preparation. Inferior meat is sometimes used in the preparation of these foods. If meats are not fresh and the canning not carefully done, they may become putrid after being put up.
Fish and sea foods are, many of them, rich in protein, as noted in Table [IV]. They should never be used unless absolutely fresh.
The idea is prevalent that fish is a brain food. Fish is easily digested and builds brain as well as other tissue, but no more readily than beef does, or any easily digested, absorbed and assimilated food which contains a goodly proportion of protein.
Lobsters are difficult of digestion and contain little nutrition, so are not valuable as a food, though they are relished by many on account of their flavor.
Oysters, raw, are easier to digest than when cooked. Oysters should not be eaten during the spawning season from May to September.
Mussels are nutritious when well prepared and are rapidly gaining in popularity.
Clams furnish a valuable and nutritious food when prepared in chowder form. Clam broth will often be retained on an irritable stomach when other food is rejected by it.
Care should be taken to ascertain the method of their production as typhoid fever has been contracted from eating shell fish whose feeding beds were near or in polluted water.