Are There Not Other Influences Which Affect The Prenatal Life Of The Child?

"Yes; this is especially true of dress. A well-known author, when asked when a prospective mother should discard the corset, very pithily answered, 'two hundred years before her child is to be born;' but this does not belong to foods."

No, I Am Sorry; But In The Companion Volume You Can Sing The Undying Dirge Of The Waist-Constrictor And Pain-Producer Of Female Apparel. But What Are The Faults Of The Mother's Diet That Make Her Children So Imperfect?

"The unborn child receives its nourishment direct from its mother's blood, necessitating good health on her part."

Is There Any Particular Kind Of Food Required?

"There is a theory advocated in Tokology, and other books, that child-birth is made easy by a fruit and starch diet. It is argued that acids dissolve mineral matter and prevent the bones of the unborn child becoming solid, and that when fruits are used in connection with foods containing but little lime and other mineral substances, the bones of the child at birth will be extremely flexible, and birth, therefore, very easy."

You Don't Endorse The Theory?

"No; because the bones of all children at birth are soft, and when they are deficient in lime, the child will be in a diseased condition called rickets. In health, nature always preserves its own balance, and when it cannot do this we have disease."

Probably The Good Effect Is Due To The Fruit Diet?

"That is it. A wrong theory did not spoil the good effects of the diet when it happened to be particularly adapted to the person using it."

Then You Endorse The Fruit And Starch Diet, But Not The Reason Given For It?

"Not entirely - it is a good thing carried too far. As already explained, fruit is an internal cleanser, which gives life and elasticity to the tissues of the body and prevents constipation and uric acid concretions, and it is these effects which have given such satisfactory results to prospective mothers."

What Is It That You Condemn?

"It has several faults, chief of which is the indiscriminate use of fruit acids and starches. To give you an example of the effect of acids and starch, I recently emptied a man's stomach eighteen hours after eating tapioca. Now, tapioca is practically pure starch and easily digested, but in this particular case there was an excessive secretion of acid, and the tapioca was not digested in eighteen hours, but the particles were much larger than when swallowed. In another case, I found undigested and unchanged grains of rice five hours after the lady had eaten rice and two oranges."

Might That Not Have Occurred With Meat?

"No; I have emptied stomachs where there was excessive acid secretion and found meat digested within one hour from the time when eaten."

Then You, Favor A Meat Diet?

"Only to a limited extent. I favor a fruit diet, but not such incompatible foods at the same meal as rice and oranges and rhubarb and toast."

You Must Know Of Some ILL Effects To Unborn Children?

"Yes; excessive or imprudent use of fruits derange digestion and bring dyspeptic and crying babies into the world."

"Some people think they cannot have too much of a good thing."

"I am not one of them. It has been my constant study to find out the use of foods from a practical standpoint, rather than follow the speculative theories of either scientists or 'faddists,' and my original investigation makes me an enthusiast in the use of fruit."

What Diet Would You Advise For The Pre-Natal Development Of The Child And The Health And Comfort Of The Mother?

"The welfare of the unborn child and its mother are inseparable. Her largest meal should be breakfast and her lightest one supper. The daily diet should consist largely of fruits and cereals - wheat, oats, and rice, with entire wheat bread for the staple part of the diet. Broiled or stewed chicken, baked fish, broiled, boiled or roast beef or lamb may be eaten for one meal, breakfast or dinner, on alternate days. The meat must be powdered by grinding or great care taken in its mastication. Fried or tough meat must be wholly excluded. One or two soft-cooked eggs for breakfast or dinner may be eaten on alternate days, when meat is not allowed. The general rules laid down for the use of fruit apply to all conditions. A model dietary would be something like the following:" Pre-natal Dietaries.

Breakfast - For tissue-forming foods use one or two of the following, according to taste and convenience: Eggs soft-cooked at low temperature.

Fresh beef, mutton, chicken, venison, quail, pheasants, stewed or roasted - no canned or salt meats - fresh fish, boiled or baked, oysters (fish and shell-fish are so often contaminated that they are more or less dangerous), peas and beans ground and thoroughly cooked, or boiled and passed through a colander, powdered nuts or nut foods, wheat gluten, milk when not used with sour fruits, so as to form large curds.

For Starches

Dry toast, dried and then browned by hot coals or very hot oven. Roast grains that have been well boiled before roasting.

Vegetables To Suit

Stewed celery, boiled onions, stewed asparagus, spinach, well cooked, tomatoes (occasionally), squash, lettuce, string beans, green peas, radishes (only in small amount when in good health), rhubarb (occasionally, in small amount).

Fruits

Sour fruits should be used with the meal containing the least starch; for that reason we class them with the meat or egg meal. Baked or stewed apples, such varieties as

Ben Davis, Wine Sap, Northern Spy, and Bellflower. Oranges may be eaten at breakfast or an hour before, with small cup of hot water. Grapes, without skins and seeds, strawberries, plums of the large varieties, but not the astringent kinds, peaches, pineapple juice, but no fibre.

Fats

Cream, butter, nut butter, powdered nuts or nut foods, breakfast bacon - broiled. Butter is often more or less rancid, and is worse in this respect than cream. Good cream and nut butter are the best of all tats.