Drinks

Not more than four ounces of fluid is allowable of one of the following:

Hot water, hot water and milk mixed, caramel cereal, cocoa and chocolate in small quantities are permissible where there is active exercise. Breakfast should contain from one and a half to two and a half ounces of protein

- tissue-forming food - and should give from one thousand to fourteen hundred calories. (See tables giving composition of foods.)

Dinner

Dinner should not, under any circumstances, be less than five nor more than seven hours after breakfast, and should be regular. Six hours is the best, and may include one or two articles from the following list, for each meal:

Corn bread, whole wheat bread, Ralston Health Club Breakfast Food, wheat germ grits, Granola, Crystal Wheat, rolled oats, rice, beans, hominy and other cereal foods. All may be served with milk.

Vegetables

Potatoes - baked, boiled, stewed, roasted or mashed though mashed potatoes are objectionable, because they do not get sufficient saliva in eating, and become too easily swallowed. Boiled cabbage, without fat, celery, raw or stewed, greens, spinach, cauliflower, pumpkins, squash, green peas, string beans, green corn, tomatoes.

Fruits

Apples - sweet or sub-acid, baked or stewed and eaten without sugar; peaches that are not rich in acid, sweet grapes, figs, stewed, dates, stewed with skins removed, pears (with exceptions of those that are puckery - they are astringent and not allowable), prunes with skins removed.

Fats

Same as breakfast.

Dinner'should furnish one or two ounces of protein and about twelve hundred calories of heat. This is not arbitrary, but a guide to diet properly balanced.

Supper

Stale, dry bread, dry or milk toast, boiled rice - preferably boiled and roasted - wheat foods, tapioca or sago, baked potatoes, honey and molasses (sparingly), baked or stewed apples, sweet grapes, watermelons.

Dessert

Fruit pudding, custard, corn-starch, rice pudding, gelatine pudding, ice cream, in small quantities, slowly eaten.

Fats

Same as breakfast, only in less quantity.

Drinks

Milk, if it agrees, otherwise same as breakfast. The breakfast meal may sometimes be made the dinner (noon) meal, and the dinner meal the breakfast. Sugar should be avoided so as to allow the largest use of fruits and starches. The astringent fruits, such as blackberries, raspberries, dew-berries, cranberries, pomegranates, wild cherries and quinces are to be avoided, except when there is a tendency to diarrhoea. If bowes are too free, leave off the coarse vegetables, the cereals containing bran, and the sour fruits. The general rules heretofore explained should govern. The amount of food must be adapted to the needs as governed by size, exercise or labor, weather and peculiarities. Prevent constipation without drugs.

Caution

Never eat many different foods at one meal. Three different foods at one meal are better than a large number., Craving very unusual or unseasonable foods is unnatural. Keep the thought of food, and for that matter all thoughts of self out of mind. It is of greatest importance that the will be exercised to keep well and pleasant and not be disturbed by the disagreeable things of life. The mind should be occupied, in a useful way. If there be great desire for something unusual it should be gratified in such a moderate way as not to do harm." Diet In Confinement And For Nursing

Mothers

"The bringing of a new life into the world is a great responsibility, and as the health and character of the child is dependent upon its parents, the time must be near when they will see that it is far more important to have children that are fit to live, than it is to leave them wealth. In ordinary cases, no food will be needed during labor, but in protracted cases it is better to sustain the strength by a cup of hot meat broth or hot milk. It was formerly thought that puerperal women should be fed for several days on broths and gruels, under the belief that it kept down puerperal fever, which was much more common, before the danger of bacteria was known, than it is now under modern aseptic surgery. After her delivery, the mother should drink water freely, and after a few hours' rest she may then be given a cup of hot bouillon or other meat broths, but they must not contain a large amount of fat. If the patient is disposed to eat anything, she may again be fed a small amount of milk toast, in four or five hours, if made according to directions. Some physicians allow meat and solid foods, but it would seem to be better to confine the diet to soft and easily digested foods until the bowels have moved two or three times.

Among the foods allowable for the first two or three days, are: broths, milk if it agrees with the patient ordinarily; one egg at a meal, if cooked but little, without fat, or an egg may be stirred in any of the broths, only moderately hot, but not boiling. Wheat, breakfast foods thoroughly cooked, boiled rice, cooked four hours, baked sweet apples, cream, a little butter or nut butter, and any of the drinks allowed before childbirth. On the second or third day, she may resume her ordinary diet, unless there is some particular reason for not doing so. After a child is born, a mother has two lives to feed from one set of digestive organs. Her own health must be considered and also that of her child. And in this connection it will be useful to consider what affects the mother's milk. The medical profession believe that acids ingested by the mother, cause colic in her babe and sometimes griping and purging, and therefore forbid the use of ordinary fruits, but the sweet fruits are not only allowable, but beneficial. Potash salts, eaten by a nursing mother act as a diuretic in the nursing child. Large quantities of potatoes eaten by the mother would likely act as a diuretic in the child, but no experiment of this kind has ever been reported, and no apparent injury has ever been observed.

The greatest danger is from the indigestion of the mother. The human system being a sort of laboratory, if it be thrown out of balance, it may poison itself, and some of the poison must necessarily appear in the mother's milk. Violent exercise or great emotion or mental strain on the part of the mother endangers her nursing child. This is not all the danger to which the child is subject, for an overdose of laudanum taken by a mother has been known to kill her nursing child. Antimony and iodide of potassium are said to pass most readily into milk, while senna, rhubarb, sulphur, castor-oil, turpentine, copaiba and anise; the salts of mercury, lead, arsenic and zinc are excreted in the milk. Nursing mothers must be careful about taking drugs. Diet must be adapted to secure good digestion, and constipation must be avoided by proper regulation of diet, which should be done according to the rules heretofore laid down. Menstruation during nursing is likely to change the mother's milk, and make it necessary to feed the child in some other way.

At weaning, the mother should eat a dry diet, and drink as little as possible, to keep in health."