THE BEST KIND OF DIET. 
151 
2. “Oh, yes, Miss Brooks, I am sure I can answer 
that!” replied May. “A single food — except milk 
for babies — would not do, because it would not 
have the flesh-formers, the heat-givers, the salts, 
and the water just in the amounts that we need.” 
3. “You are quite right, May. If we were fed 
upon one kind of food only, we should soon not only 
lose any appetite or desire for it, but should actually 
dislike it; and, even if we continued to swallow it, 
our stomachs would cease to be able to digest it 
well, and we should become ill. 
4 . “If we eat too much of either starchy food or 
flesh-forming food, what is not needed for warming 
our bodies in the one case, or for repairing them in 
the other, is wasted or else turned into fat.” 
“ I do not care much for eating meat,” said May. 
“I like yams and cassava and bananas much better.” 
5 . “ That is mostly the case with people who live 
in warm countries,” said Miss Brooks; “but if you 
lived in the polar regions, you would crave for the 
blubber or fat of the seal and whale. So you see 
that the climate of a country has much to do with 
the sort of food that is most commonly taken.” 
6 . “If we were fed on nothing but heat-givers, 
such as pure starch, sugar, or fat,” said May, “ I 
know we should not live long, because there would 
be nothing to make up for the wearing away, which 
you say is always going on within us.” 
“ Neither should we be likely to live long if we 
