After fifty the mid-day luncheon should be dispensed with or reduced to a mere bite, and twice a day is enough for a hearty meal. As I said before, twice a week is often enough to dine; let the other dinners be mere frugal repasts. The elaborate mid-day luncheon as usually set for families or partaken of at the restaurant is an abomination for those over fifty. I am speaking now of those who breakfast in the morning and dine in the evening. For those who dine in the middle of the day the tea should be only a formal one.

In hot weather we must modify somewhat our diet as compared with our winter diet. Alcohol is more dangerous in summer than in winter, especially to those exposed to the heat of the sun or to artificial heat. It is converted into heat and energy in the system and also increases for the time the blood-pressure. It is better to take more sugar and less alcohol. If we take ice-water, we should take it slowly, not gulp it. So we should be careful of large quantities of ices and other cold eatables. From fifty to sixty degrees Fahrenheit is the proper temperature for summer drinks, unless they be merely sipped. In hot weather also diminish the quantity of food we eat. We get heat and energy from food. The lower the outside temperature, of course, the more food we need. We need one-fourth more in winter than in summer. Fruits and green succulent vegetables are given us for summer food, and are proper foods. In summer get your fuel and energy from these, and your tissue-building material more from the legumes, as peas, beans, and such, and from bread rather than from too much flesh. We eat too much meat anyhow. I am sure of this, especially after we have reached twenty-five years of age. We are omnivorous and must balance our diet.

Professor Chittenden, of Yale College, has been experimenting with an eating squad, as Dr. H. W. Wiley has been experimenting with his so-called "poison squad." The average man in the United States consumes daily seventeen grams of proteids. Many experimenters think twelve grams sufficient. Professor Chittenden says his squad show him seven grams are enough. At this rate we consume as much again meat as we should, and this excess is particularly hard on the kidneys. We will refer to Professor Chittenden's experiments again.

Dr. Wiley suggests we should never allow the stomach to be entirely empty. This is not likely to occur even on two meals in twenty-four hours, for everything we take is not always cleared, on digestion time, as it were. Such vegetable foods as potatoes and rice and hominy keep up distention in winter, and the more succulent vegetables, in addition to these, in summer. Concentrated essences from vegetables would not be enough; we want the debris, or that which eventually passes off as debris, joined with the essences to keep up a good condition of the stomach and intestines. From a combination of causes, but, after all, on account of the general increase of intelligence among the people at large, and their more general intermingling, there is a tendency at the present time to fads in food and diet far beyond what there formerly was. People should depend more on their medical advisers, remembering that "he who is his own lawyer generally has a fool for a client"; and I will add to this by declaring as my opinion that the amateur doctor is usually a knave or a fool, or worse. The effect of a fanatical pursuit of matters pertaining to one's diet - i.e., of the diet of one who does and should in a measure diet - is to produce a real fear of food, which in the end may produce a genuine disease, a genuine neurosis.

It is not well to think too much over what one eats. We must observe the general principles of diet according to our condition of health, as I have endeavored to impress upon my readers all along; but after these hygienic food principles have been observed, the appetite and the food furnished us may be more or less trusted, indeed must be trusted, to retain our proper appreciation of food. The child teaches us many things, and he teaches us something in diet. The stomach of the child is delicate, as is the stomach of advancing age; yet one reason why the child can eat and digest certain things which the older person cannot is because the child never gives it a thought after swallowing, whilst the older person, especially the one who has fads about eating, will have it disagree with him because he thinks about it, and expects it to disagree and give him discomfort. The lesson to be learned from all this is, do not become fanatical in matters of diet; do not make it a matter of too general discussion, and rely more upon your physician than you do upon your friend who has visited all the great health resorts of Europe and America, and who, to use a slang expression, "knows it all." Above all things, take no advice from newspapers, quacks, or amateur doctors.

We hear much of red meats, beef, mutton, etc., and of white meats, such as poultry; the white meats being popularly considered as the lighter diet. There is much fallacy here. Roast ribs of beef contain 16.9 per cent. of proteids and 26.8 of fats. Sirloin steak holds 18.3 of proteids and 20.2 of fats. Beef liver, 21.6 of proteids and 5.4 only of fats. Loin of pork, 16.8 of proteids and 30.3 of fats. Beef tongue, 21.5 of proteids and 23.2 of fats. Loin of veal, 19.4 of proteids and 10.4 of fats. Loin of lamb, 17.6 of proteids and 28.3 of fats. Leg of mutton, 18.2 of proteids and 18 of fats. Loin of pork, 16.8 of proteids and 30.3 of fats. Bacon, 10 of proteids and 67.2 of fats. Pigs, feet, 16.1 of proteids and 14.8 of fats. Pork sausage, 12.8 of proteids and 45.4 of fats. See the great amount of fats in pork, hence more or less indigestible.

Now let us take up some of the so-called white meats. Roast chicken, all edible parts, 22.8 of proteids, - sirloin steak, remember, holds only 18.3 of proteids, and the fats in chicken are low, 1.8. Roast turkey, 20.6 of proteids and 22.9 of fat. Sirloin steak has only 20.2 fats. Goose, 13 of proteids and 49.9 of fats. Quail, 21.8 of proteids and 8 of fats. Most game is high in proteids. So we see much fallacy in regarding poultry and white meats as a lower diet than beef and other red meats.