Doctor In Discussing Digestion And Foods You Have Frequently Spoken Of Dietetic Errors. Would It Not Be A Good Idea To Enumerate Them?

"Perhaps so, but one scarcely knows what to give the greatest prominence. For convenience, I will begin with one of the most general faults, and enumerate them as follows:

1 - Overeating.

2 - Eating fried foods.

3 - Drinking an excess of fluids during meals.

4 - Drinking cold drinks at meals or during digestion.

5 - Drinking an excess of liquids, especially beer, or ice water.

6 - Excessive use of strong tea or strong coffee.

7 - Haste in eating, resulting in imperfect mastication, and the insufficient admixture of saliva with the food.

8 - Excessive meat eating, including wild game.

9 - Excessive sugar eating.

10 - Eating doughy bread, pancakes and pastry.

11 - Eating vegetables hastily, without chopping the fibres.

12 - Eating tough, raw vegetables.

13 - Irritating foods, pungent vegetables, pepper, salt, mustard, and other irritating substances.

14 - Taking foods and drinks excessively hot.

15 - Pickles and vinegar.

16 - The admixture of starches and acids.

17 - Incompatible foods such as strong tea, and eggs, acids or vinegar and milk, tea, cheese and acids.

18 - Eating fruits with seeds or skins, especially blackberries, raspberries, grapes, currants, gooseberries, raisins and cranberries.

19 - Eating green and overripe fruits.

20 - Excessive cooking of meat.

21 - Insufficient cooking of starches.

22 - Excessive consumption of fats.

23 - Eating too little food.

24 - Eating food containing too little waste such as: milk, eggs, white bread, potatoes, butter, sugar, meat.

25 - Eating food containing too coarse waste, such as green, dried or canned corn, and the tough skins of peas and beans.

26 - Excessive consumption of starch, such as a diet of white bread and potatoes.

27 - Diet deficient in mineral matter.

28 - Eating an excessive quantity of sour fruits.

29 - Foods containing Ptomaines from decay.

30 - Eating too many kinds of food at the same meal.

31 - Eating too frequently, and not allowing the stomach time to empty itself.

32 - Irregularity of eating.

33 - Going too long without eating.

"Most of these have been discussed, and those that have not, will be treated at greater length under causes of indigestion."

Doctor, Who Requires The Most Food?

"Growing boys sixteen or seventeen years old, who do the hard physical labor of mature men."

What Do You Call Hard Labor?

"Harvesting, clearing land, chopping cord wood, digging ditches, brick and stone masonry, plastering, handling freight and heavy material in foundries, factories and mills, and other labor requiring great activity and use of strength."

How Are The Needs Of The Different Classes Estimated?

"You will remember that foods are divided into two general classes: Tissue-forming and heat-producing. The variation of amount of food needed is mainly of the latter class, and is estimated by units of heat called calories or rather by kilogram degree calories."

What Do You Mean By Calories?

"Foods have been tested for their heat or force-producing power, by scientific methods, and the term calorie is the unit measure of heat produced. Now one thousand calories make one kilogram degree calorie, which is ordinarily understood when the term calorie is used."

"Then the heat and force producing value of food is estimated according to the amount of work or exertion it sustains measured in calories."

"Yes that is it. Fats are the greatest heat producers, and butter produces 220 calories to the ounce, and tomatoes only five. Next to fats sugar and starch produce the highest calories - flour producing 103, and sugar 113 calories to the ounce."

What Should The Diet Contain?

"Our daily diet should contain three to six ounces of protein, and heat-producing material to make from two thousand five hundred to 5,000 calories (exceptional cases may require more than 5000 or less than 2500), mineral matter, and some waste - a large amount for the sedentary and constipated."

"I see the value of this. One could not eat enough cabbage or tomatoes to produce one-fourth enough calories for a hard day's labor."

"That is true, and here is where the vegetarian diet has failed., when relied on for hard labor, because it made too much bulk to produce the calories necessary. Butter, ground nuts or meats, must be added to a vegetable diet to raise the calories without making too great bulk.

"Old age is almost synonymous with physical discomfort and disease, as if it were not enough to see the light of life fading away, nature is inclined to inflict all the overdue penalties for the transgressions on her for the entire life. But the aged are not without hope, for such illustrious examples as Gladstone and others clearly show human possibilities. Those who are too thin to cast a shadow, can scout the idea that they will '"dry up and blow away," likewise the fat rheumatic and gouty, can disprove that excessive fat is but another name for folly. The digestive organs are often the first to weaken, and with poor blood, the system is well-nigh defenseless against disease. Those who have been large eaters, usually continue so, notwithstanding the lessened demands of the system. This may overcrowd the blood vessels, which their weakening walls will not stand, and apoplexy is the result. The most common fault in the dietetic habits of the aged, is eating an excess of sugar and meat. This clogs the system with nitrogenous waste, and causes rheumatism, which is well nigh universal among the aged well-to-do. Those who would be free from disease, must bear in mind the lessened needs of the system that follow from a less active life, common to old age, and that it becomes less and less able to dispose of any excess of food.

They must also bear in mind that besides the weakness, incident to advancing years, digestion is also weakened by general inactivity of the body.

What Not To Eat

Fried meat, nor fried foods of any kind. Fresh bread, as ordinarily made, hot bread, saturated with butter or gravy, hot biscuit, cakes of every kind, pies with shortened pie crust, pickles, vinegar, saner kraut, salt meats, sausages, salt fish, dried meats, raw onions, raw vegetables, strong tea and coffee.

Foods that may be sparingly (occasionally) used:

Sugar, molasses, syrup, honey, boiled ham, breakfast bacon, sweet potatoes, cabbage boiled without fat, rhubarb, if no rheumatism or disease of digestive organs, astringent fruits, such as cranberries and raspberries.

Suitable Diet

Stale or dry light bread, wheat foods according to taste and condition, but particularly gluten biscuit, or gluten meal, rolled oats, pearl barley, rice, hominy of all kinds, eggs, milk, cream, butter, fresh fish, fresh beef, mutton and fowl, but not oftener than once a day; puree made of peas, beans or potatoes, stewed celery, string beans, cauliflower, asparagus, cooked onions, beets without vinegar; all fruits, except astringent ones, such as raspberries, blackberries and some varieties of pears; quinces.

If old people want to avoid rheumatism, they must avoid eating much meat. They must also be careful about eating fatty foods and sugar, as such a diet will be too fattening, and throw the diet out of balance. For those not engaged in hard labor, two meals a day is all that is permissible. These should be at eight or nine in the morning, and three or four in the afternoon, but should be regular. Nothing must be eaten between meals. If food be needed at night before bed time, a cup of hot milk or a baked apple may be eaten, and will often cure sleeplessness. Tea and coffee are bad for all ages, but particularly so for the aged.