Fourth Year

Beginning with the fourth year: For breakfast, toasted bread and butter, which must be eaten dry, then follow with fruit; or give fresh fruit and all the milk desired.

At noon, toasted bread, vegetable soup made without meat or milk, and combination vegetable salad; or fruit salad (apple, orange, grapes), or any combination desired; in winter, the Delicious apple.

At dinner in the evening, toasted whole-wheat bread, Shredded Wheat, corn bread, or baked potato, with a reasonable amount of unsalted butter; follow with vegetable puree, or vegetable or fruit salad. Prepare the puree as follows: Cook equal parts by weight of spinach, cabbage, carrot, potato, and celery; run through, or rub through, a sieve or fruit-strainer; no dressing is necessary. A puree can be made of any combination of vegetables. Evening meals may vary: corn bread, butter, and salad; baked potatoes, or any toasted or dry bread, and unsalted butter, combination salad, ground or not, no dressing, or a salad of fruit if desired. Vegetables should be cooked tender and made into a puree, or the child may eat the vegetables without making them into a puree.

Dry or toasted whole-wheat bread should be the regular bread for children. Change occasionally to Shredded Wheat or other dry breads.

Children must be taught to eat dry breads before eating other foods at a meal, and positively no drinking should be allowed while eating. Americans will become toothless unless they learn to masticate and insalivate the foods, and unless they learn to feed their children in such a manner as not to produce intestinal putrescence, which cultivates "diseases peculiar to children"; keeping in mind that putrescence is built by feeding starch and protein in the same meal. Putrescence is at the bottom of early breaking-down of the teeth.

If the child is of good weight, the above starchy dinners may be alternated with a meat meal. Well- cooked lamb-stew, eggs, chicken, or fish, being the lighter meats, are the best for children. The meat should be followed with a large combination salad, and perhaps one cooked vegetable. Use the meat meals for about four nights a week, and the starch dinners for about three nights, where the weight is good. If the child is thin and needs weight, the starch dinners more often would suit better.

It is generally understood that meat should not be fed to children. This is true when it is taken in the same meal with starch, but the combinations of meat or milk and bread, or cottage or cream cheese and any food made from grains are altogether to blame for any bad results.