Part 11 (2/2)

Excellent soups are those consisting of purees of vegetables (beans, peas, lentils). To-day one may find in the shops dried vegetables especially adapted for this sort of soups. Boiled in salt water, the vegetables are peeled, put to cool and pa.s.sed through a sieve (or simply compressed, if they are already peeled). b.u.t.ter is then added, and the paste is stirred slowly into the boiling water, care being taken that it dissolves and leaves no lumps.

Vegetable soups can also be seasoned with pork. Instead of broth, sugared milk may be the base of vegetable purees.

I strongly recommend for children a soup of rice boiled in broth or milk; also cornmeal broth, provided it be seasoned with abundant b.u.t.ter, but not with cheese. (The porridge form--polenta, really cornmeal mush, is to be highly recommended on account of the long cooking.)

The poorer cla.s.ses who have no meat-broth can feed their children equally well with soups of boiled bread and porridge seasoned with oil.

_Milk and Eggs._ These are foods which not only contain nitrogenous substances in an eminently digestible form, but they have the so-called _enzymes_ which facilitate a.s.similation into the tissues, and, hence, in a particular way, favour the growth of the child. And they answer so much the better this last most important condition if they are _fresh_ and _intact_, keeping in themselves, one may say, the life of the animals which produced them.

Milk fresh from the cow, and the egg while it is still warm, are a.s.similable to the highest degree. Cooking, on the other hand, makes the milk and eggs lose their special conditions of a.s.similability and reduces the nutritive power in them to the simple power of any nitrogenous substance.

To-day, consequently, there are being founded _special dairies for children_ where the milk produced is sterile; the rigorous cleanliness of the surroundings in which the milk-producing animals live, the sterilisation of the udder before milking, of the hands of the milker, and of the vessels which are to contain the milk, the hermetic sealing of these last, and the refrigerating bath immediately after the milking, if the milk is to be carried far,--otherwise it is well to drink it warm, procure a milk free from bacteria which, therefore, has no need of being sterilised by boiling, and which preserves intact its natural nutritive powers.

As much may be said of eggs; the best way of feeding them to a child is to take them still warm from the hen and have him eat them just as they are, and then digest them in the open air. But where this is not practicable, eggs must be chosen fresh, and barely heated in water, that is to say, prepared _a la coque_.

All other forms of preparation, milk-soup, omelettes, and so forth, do, to be sure, make of milk and eggs an excellent food, more to be recommended than others; but they take away the specific properties of a.s.similation which characterise them.

_Meat._ All meats are not adapted to children, and even their preparation must differ according to the age of the child. Thus, for example, children from three to five years of age ought to eat only more or less finely-ground meats, whereas at the age of five children are capable of grinding meat completely by mastication; at that time it is well to _teach the child accurately how to masticate_ because he has a tendency to swallow food quickly, which may produce indigestion and diarrhea.

This is another reason why school-refection in the ”Children's Houses”

would be a very serviceable as well as convenient inst.i.tution, as the whole diet of the child could then be rationally cared for in connection with the educative system of the Houses.

The meats most adapted to children are so-called white meats, that is, in the first place, chicken, then veal; also the light flesh of fish, (sole, pike, cod).

After the age of four, filet of beef may also be introduced into the diet, but never heavy and fat meats like that of the pig, the capon, the eel, the tunny, etc., which are to be _absolutely excluded_ along with mollusks and crustaceans, (oysters, lobsters), from the child's diet.

Croquettes made of finely ground meat, grated bread, milk, and beaten eggs, and fried in b.u.t.ter, are the most wholesome preparation. Another excellent preparation is to mould into b.a.l.l.s the grated meat, with sweet fruit-preserve, and eggs beaten up with sugar.

At the age of five, the child may be given breast of roast fowl, and occasionally veal cutlet or filet of beef.

Boiled meat must never be given to the child, because meat is deprived of many stimulating and even nutritive properties by boiling and rendered less digestible.

_Nerve Feeding Substances._ Besides meat a child who has reached the age of four may be given fried brains and sweetbreads, to be combined, for example, with chicken croquettes.

_Milk Foods._ All cheeses are to be excluded from the child's diet.

The only milk product suitable to children from three to six years of age is fresh b.u.t.ter.

_Custard._ Custard is also to be recommended provided it be _freshly prepared_, that is immediately before being eaten, and _with very fresh_ milk and eggs: if such conditions cannot be rigorously fulfilled, it is preferable to do without custard, which is not a necessity.

_Bread._ From what we have said about soups, it may be inferred that bread is an _excellent food_ for the child. It should be well selected; the crumb is not very digestible, but it can be utilised, when it is dry, to make a bread broth; but if one is to give the child simply a piece of bread to eat, it is well to offer him the crust, the end of the loaf. Bread sticks are excellent for those who can afford them.

Bread contains many nitrogenous substances and is very rich in starches, but is lacking in fats; and as the fundamental substances of diet are, as is well known, three in number, namely, proteids, (nitrogenous substances), starches, and fats, bread is not a complete food; it is necessary therefore to offer the child b.u.t.tered bread, which const.i.tutes a complete food and may be considered as a sufficient and complete breakfast.

_Green Vegetables._ Children must never eat raw vegetables, such as salads and greens, but only cooked ones; indeed they are not to be highly recommended either cooked or raw, with the exception of spinach which may enter with moderation into the diet of children.

Potatoes prepared in a puree with much b.u.t.ter form, however, an excellent complement of nutrition for children.

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