Starch, as a food, refers more to the needs of childhood, than to mature age. The accelated growth of early life requires an amount of body-fuel, which, to the fully developed man would spell excess and malnutrition. Furthermore, in the stage of childhood, the liver, by its enormous size - (more than twice in proportion to that of the man) - possesses advantages in dealing with starches, which are unavailable to later life. Of the cereals, wheat and rye - owing to their nuclear compactness - most readily lead to nutritional excess. Hence, whenever it is possible or practical, these grains should be substituted by baked pota toes, pumpkins, rice, oats, groats, corn, lentils, peas and occasionally - as in the low temperature of the north - the dry lima or navy bean. A rule, however, never to be forgotten, is to refrain from adding sugar to starches in any form.