The Care and Feeding of Children 1015 



with cereal or in bread and milk. Sweet jellies may be given to the younger 

 children at some meal and preserves to the older ones. Simple desserts 

 and cooked fruits may be well sweetened. Then the child eats the other 

 foods along with the sugar and the diet is not a one-sided affair. When 

 we say that constant candy eating results in poor teeth we are describing 

 a more deeply seated evil than we realize. If poor teeth are caused by 

 too much candy, it is usually because the use of the sugar has so satis- 

 fied the child's appetite that the child has been unwilling to include the 

 blander bone-building materials in its diet. If the teeth are affected as 

 a result, what about the harmful effects on the more obscure tissues which 

 are hidden from us? Concentrated sugar solutions are very irritating 

 to the mucous membranes and may give rise to gastric disorders, hence 

 the further desirability of having the sugar used in the dietary diluted 

 with other foods. 



Some of the men most learned in the conditions best for little children 

 believe that the use of meat in the dietary of the child until after the fifth, 

 sixth, or seventh years is not advisable. The main reasons given for this 

 are: Meat is more subject to decay in the intestines than other protein 

 foods. Clean, wholesome milk tends to prevent this decay. Meat con- 

 tains stimulating substances which, though they may be of use in the older 

 organism, are not needed by the younger one. The baby or child should 

 be vigorous enough not to need any stimulant. These substances give 

 rise to waste products in the tissues which, though they may not be di- 

 rectly harmful, are certainly not beneficial to the child. The kitten is 

 often cited as an illustration of this principle. While cats live healthily 

 and well on a rich meat diet, if kittens are fed largely on meat they become 

 subject to convulsions. Meat is a highly flavored food. A diet rich in 

 meat is likely to be a diet poor in milk, for the higher flavor tempts away 

 from the milder one. Such a diet may be deficient in lime. 



Some physicians believe that it is an unwise practice to eliminate meat 

 from the child's diet because meat is a useful source of iron. An intel- 

 ligent knowledge of foods soon shows how this disadvantage may be over- 

 come by using eggs and certain vegetable foods relatively rich in a form 

 of iron more available than that which occurs in meat. Meat has one 

 decided advantage in that it necessitates the use of the powers of masti- 

 cation. 



ATTRACTIVE SERVING 



It is impossible to overestimate the importance of serving food in an 

 attractive manner. Food may be of the right kind, carefully prepared, 

 may be clean and wholesome and good, but at the last it may be presented 

 in such a way as to appeal neither to eye nor to appetite. If a child does 



