Page:Foods and their adulteration; origin, manufacture, and composition of food products; description of common adulterations, food standards, and national food laws and regulations (IA foodstheiradulte02wile).pdf/539

 PART X.

INVALIDS' AND INFANTS' FOODS.

One of the most important subjects in connection with the food supply is the study of the foods which are offered for the use of infants and invalids. The demands of modern society, unfortunately, have deprived the American infant in many cases of the food which Nature intended it to have. It is, therefore, a condition, rather than a theory, confronting the feeding of the American infant. It often is a choice between starvation and an artificial food. A most self-evident fact in connection with infant food is that until an infant reaches the age when it is naturally weaned it should have as a food only milk. The common substitute for mother's milk is cow's milk. The important point in this connection is that the milk should be from a healthy cow, kept in a sanitary condition, and the milk should be secured in thoroughly sanitary ways. These methods of preparing milk are, in fact, the practical result of modern sanitary theories. The composition of cow's milk is not that of mother's milk. It contains more protein and less milk sugar than the normal milk of the mother. For this reason the cow's milk is often modified to bring it into nearer relationship to the natural mother's milk. When this is done under scientific directions and according to a prescription furnished by a competent physician or physiologist there is no objection to its use provided it is accomplished without exposure of the milk to bacteria or other contamination. The addition of drugs to milk in its preparation for infants' use cannot be generally commended. The citrate of lime or limewater is one of the substances which is often added to milk, and that, too, by the direction of a physician. There are conditions of disease in infants where such a modification is advisable, but it is doubtful if it is ever so in the case of a healthy child. The same remark may be made respecting the limewater.

Composition of Modified Milk.—Proteids and ash in cow's milk are much higher than in human milk and are brought to the proper degree of reduction by blending with other milk and diluting the milk with water.

+-+-+-+-+-         |       |         |         |  |          |  |  |  |    |           |  |    |   |   | +-+-+-+-+- Proteids, | 4.00  | 2.00    | 1.35    | 1.00    | 0.80 Ash,     | 0.70  | 0.35    | 0.23    | 0.18    | 0.14 +-+-+-+-+-