This section is from the book "The Relation Of Food To Health And Premature Death", by Geo. H. Townsend, Felix J. Levy, Geo. Clinton Crandall. Also available from Amazon: Clean Food: A Seasonal Guide to Eating Close to the Source with More Than 200 Recipes for a Healthy and Sustainable You.
"Yes; the reason why people do not succeed better with these processes is from the fact that after sterilizing the milk they put it in vessels that are not sterile; whereas they must not have been only sterilized, but the cover also must be sterile. In addition to this they must be sealed up air-tight as soon as they are taken out of the sterilizing apparatus. It is not much use to sterilize milk and then pour it out and let it stand in an open vessel."
"Its principal uses will be discussed under various diseases, but milk has great value as an article of food in health, as well as disease. It is not, however, suitable for an exclusive diet for grown people, because it does not furnish a sufficient quantity of heat-producing material, but being rich in tissue-forming substances- there is no food equal to milk for growing children; it also furnishes the most available and one of the most desirable additions to either cereals or vegetables."
"There is some foundation for this charge from the fact that milk does not contain sufficient waste material for most people, and as it is usually drunk in bulk, a glass at a time, it is apt to form large curds in the stomach, whereas if it is only sipped, a spoonful or swallow at a time, the difficulty would be entirely overcome, and if treated by any of the methods described, there are very few people with whom milk cannot be made to agree."
"There is no particular objection to flavoring it with anything that may be agreeable, such as nutmeg or cinnamon, and if necessary to use it extensively, it may and should form the principal part of puddings."
"It is not a good drink for many people, although if equal parts of hot water and milk be mixed, there is no other drink that can be taken at meal time that can be compared with it. The merit, of course, is in the milk, and the hot water merely prevents the formation of large curds."
"Goat's milk, jennet's milk and mare's milk. Koumiss was originally prepared from the latter in Russia, but its use has extended over all Europe and America, and it is now made of cow's milk."
"Yes; butter is the most favorably known. Some one has remarked that if bread be the staff of life, butter is its golden head."
"Butter is to be preferred to any other fat in general use except cream, although a very great amount of digestive disturbance results from the improper use of butter."
"Well, if butter be poorly worked a considerable amount of milk remains in it which soon becomes rancid. This is of course easy to detect and the people ordinarily refuse to eat it. But while this is true, it is a common notion that rancid butter is all right for cooking purposes, and it is no uncommon thing to hear people inquire of produce dealers for cooking butter."
"No wrong, I suppose, in inquiring for it. The wrong is in using it. In the first place, butter ought not to be used for cooking at all."
"Because heat bursts its fat globules and sets free both lactic and butyric acid, and if any one wants to be certainly dyspeptic all they need to do is to eat plenty of fried food cooked in rancid butter, or, for that matter, butter of any kind.
"How about buttermilk? Some people say that buttermilk is more wholesome than sweet milk."
"It contains about the same properties found in sweet milk, except, of course, that it is partly fermented and has lactic and acetic acid."
"That would depend upon the kind of bacteria that caused the fermentation."
"Only for this reason: that in becoming sour, the particles of casein are much more evenly distributed than if taken into the stomach and curdled there by the acid of the stomach; so that sour milk has the curd broken and might be more easily digested on that account."
"It is; but it is always more or less difficult to know just how sour it is, so that too much or too little soda may be used."
"Cheese is made of milk with or without cream. The milk is curdled by rennet, which is taken from the stomachs of slaughtered animals."
"Doctor, cheese is said to be a very rich food."
"So it is, for it contains some thirty to forty per cent of tissue-forming substance and from seven to thirty-five per cent of fat. It also contains a small amount of milk sugar and ordinarily about four per cent of mineral matter."
"It has been well said:
'that cheese is a, bewitching little elf, Digesting everything except itself;' and I have siphoned out the contents of stomachs six hours after meals and found everything digested except the cheese."
"Well, cheese is a decayed food and probably excites a greater flow of gastric juice than any other common food. The reason it is not easily digested is because it is thoroughly infested with bacteria that have passed through an acid fermentation, and are, therefore, not readily acted upon by the gastric secretions."
"Yes, more so; this is especially true of tannic acids found in blackberries and raspberries. Cheese eaten with these will often cause an attack of catarrh of the stomach. Very strong tea is incompatible with both cheese and milk-on account pi its tannic acid."
"Doctor, it looks as though you had cut cheese out of all dietaries."
"So I have; it is not suitable to eat with starchy vegetables; but a small quantity might be eaten with meat, beans or peas."
"No. If a meat and egg diet be necessary, cheese might be occasionally added to an advantage; but it does not deserve an important place as a food, and must not be used at all when the stomach is inflamed."
"Pot cheese contains about twenty-five per cent of tissue-forming elements, about seven per cent of fat and considerable mineral matter. When freshly made, it is said to be very wholesome and digestible, and quite similar to buttermilk."
"Condensed milk is made by evaporating ordinary milk at a low temperature until it is about the consistency of honey. It has all the properties of milk and usually has about forty per cent of sugar added to it."
"The sugar preserves it and makes it keep better than it otherwise would."
"Properly sealed, it will keep almost indefinitely."
"It is used extensively on voyages and under other circumstances when it is not convenient to get fresh milk. It should not be substituted for fresh milk except when unavoidable, but it is preferable when good milk is not obtainable, or cannot be kept sweet."
"Malted milk is made by evaporting milk similar to the method of condensing it and then adding the malt, which is a digestive agent made from barley and wheat. Malted milk has great value in many diseases."
"Evaporated cream is the same as evaporated milk, except that only half or two-thirds of the cream is removed, whereas, in ordinary evaporated milk, it is all removed."
"There is much discussion about the healthfulness of ice cream."
'that can easily be, because it is used to considerable extent in diseases of the stomach, especially ulcer; at the same time, it is also the source of many digestive disturbances."
"Well, it is this way: Ice cream is made of wholesome and nutritious ingredients and where there is inflammation, and the stomach in a condition that no solid food can be taken, it has a soothing effect; but ordinarily, ice cream is eaten with much other food and entirely too quickly, because pleasant to the taste, and easily swallowed. The stomach was never intended for a refrigerator, and when so used, it is often very disastrous, because it arrests digestion, and to a certain extent paralyzes the nerves of the stomach, causing languor and headaches, and very often catarrh of the stomach and diarrhoea."
"Well, certainly as it is now used, it does much more harm than good; but if eaten very slowly on an empty stomach, or with very little other easily digested food, like dry crackers, there is no reason why ice cream should seriously injure any one, but to people who will swallow a spoonful at a time and eat two or three dishes, there is almost certain to be ill effects following its use."
"Milk shake is made from ordinary milk, to which various flavoring substances have been added to suit the taste. It is then agitated at a very rapid rate, usually with a machine constructed for the purpose, until it is thoroughly aerated."
"It is; the aeration adds much to the digestibility of the milk. It is very palatable, wholesome and nutritious."
 
Continue to: