Page:Food and cookery for the sick and convalescent.djvu/82

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ILK is an ideal food. This statement is plainly demonstrated by the fact that it furnishes the nourishment for the young of all mammalia during the period of their most rapid growth. While its value must not be overestimated in the dietary of the healthy adult, it is a matter of fact that in many countries the inhabitants live for the most part on it. This is true of the peasants of Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland, the Bedouins of Arabia, and the peoples dwelling in the mountain regions of Asia and on the pasture lands of the Sahara. It would be necessary for the man at work in the United States to consume four quarts daily in order to get the necessary quantity of protein, and by so doing he would be furnished with an excess of fat and a limited supply of carbohydrates. No one food can meet all the requirements of the body except during infancy.

Milk should be regarded as a food rather than as a beverage. While it is a liquid outside the body, as soon as it enters the stomach it is made solid by the action of rennin, which causes it to become clotted. Milk is of most value in a mixed dietary, when taken between meals with a cracker or piece of bread, and it should be sipped rather than drunk. If taken quickly in large quantities, so dense a curd is formed in the stomach that it is with difficulty that the gastric juice acts upon it. As has been stated, each food calls forth a special kind of gastric juice, and in the case of milk it is in moderate supply and of moderate strength. Children absorb ninety-six per cent of the total solids of milk, while adults absorb eighty-nine per cent. With the aged, as digestion becomes impaired, milk should hold a prominent place in the daily dietary.