Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/146

Rh of the stomach is necessary; that is, for example, if all the food necessary for twenty-four hours could be condensed into three boluses, or pills, these pills would not nourish the body like the same food taken in the ordinary form. From this, it is easy to see that fish is a desirable article of food, as it satisfies the cravings of appetite; and, though taken in considerable quantity, is so deficient in nutritive matter, as compared with meat, that it does not largely tend to replace the fat used up in the body. It is true that a person, by change of diet from one containing much starch that is, articles like potatoes, bread, oatmeal, etc.) to one of meat chiefly, loses his fat. This loss, however, is due to the natural consumption of the fat in consequence of exercise, and the fact that it is not replaced by the food taken. From the starchy foods come the sugar, and on the sugar is largely dependent the formation of fat.

But, even at risk of repetition, I cannot too strongly urge the use of good judgment in this matter of reduction of fat. Fat is useful, it is essential, and it is too common a practice to endeavor to get rid of it all. Yet, in so far as it is reduced beyond its proper ratio to the rest of the body, just so far does the body fall short of the perfect machine sought to be developed. As it is, however, at the start, generally in excess, the diet, in the matter of fat-producing foods, should be restricted. Not over one pound of bread or potatoes, out of a whole diet of forty ounces, should be eaten.

The method of cooking has much to do with the nutritive qualities of a given food after it is eaten. Meats should be roasted or broiled, rather than baked or fried or boiled. In this way their juices are best retained. Starchy foods and fish should be thoroughly cooked, while meats should be a little underdone.

The list of foods mentioned above should furnish sufficient variety; indeed, a very small portion of the list would furnish all the essentials; but variety itself is an essential. The long-continued use of a single article inspires disgust, and, in consequence, a smaller amount of food is taken, and even that amount less readily digested, as the fluids necessary to that