This section is from the book "Twenty-Five Cent Dinners For Families Of Six", by Juliet Corson. Also available from Amazon: Twenty-Five Cent Dinners.
Very poor families sometimes spend every day for beer enough to buy them a good, wholesome meal, because they think it mafces them strong. Beer, like all other liquors, is of no ra)ue whatever in making strength; it only nerves you up to spend all you can muster under the excitement it causes, and then leaves you weaker than before. What you need when you crave liquor is a good, warm meal. The best doctors say that a man cannot drink. more than about a pint and a half of beer a day without injuring his health; and that healthy people, during youth and middle age, do not need it at all. Let it, and all other liquors alone entirely, and you will be better off in health and purse.
It is generally believed that women who drink malt liquor are able to nurse children to greater advantage than those who do not use it. The fact is that while the quantity of milk may be increased, its nourishing quality will be impaired. There may be more milk for the child, but it will be poor. The effect of all malt liquors is to promote the secretion of the fluids of the body, but not to enrich them. Do not drink beer for the sake of your child, but try milk, or milk and water instead, and see if after a fair trial you do not have plenty for the baby, and if it does not grow strong and fat. If milk does not agree with you, or you cannot afford it, use barley water; it will not only give you plenty of milk, but it will nourish you as well as the baby. You will get from it all the nourishment that you may fancy you get from malt liquor, with this advantage: in the barley water you will get all the nutriment of the grain unchanged, while in the form of beer the fermentation has destroyed part of it. The following is a good receipt: <
 
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