How to Regulate our Diet.

Our food must contain certain elements, and in proper quantity, if the body is to be well sustained, renewed and nourished. These are mainly as follows:

1. Protein to form flesh, build muscle, and produce strength.

2. Fat and Carbohydrates, to provide heat and energy.

3. Salts and minerals (such as phosphates, lime, iron, citrates, etc.) to build bones and teeth, feed the brain and nerves, and purify the body.

No hard-and-fast table or rule can be laid down concerning the proper proportions in which these elements should be combined, because the amount needful for each individual varies according to his size, the sort of work he does, the amount of physical or mental energy he puts forth, and the temperature of the atmosphere surrounding him.

Until Professor Chittenden made his extensive and conclusive series of experiments in America, in 1903-4, to determine the real amount of Protein and other elements required to keep the body in perfect health, the average estimate for a person of average size, who does a moderate amount of physical labour, was about 4-ozs. of Protein per day.

But these official experiments, conducted with scientific precision, extending over a long period, and made with thirty-four typical and carefully graded representatives of physical and mental work, demonstrated that half this amount of Protein is sufficient, and that strength and health are increased when the quantity is thus reduced; also that a smaller amount of Carbohydrate food (bread, etc.), than was previously thought necessary, is enough.

One may therefore now safely reckon that men of average size and weight (say 10 to 12 stone) doing a moderate amount of physical and mental work, can thrive under ordinary circumstances on a daily ration containing about 800 grains of Protein (nearly 2 ozs).

The following food chart will enable the reader to calculate (approximately) how much food of any particular kind is necessary to provide the above amount. Adult persons below the average size and weight, and living sedentary rather than an active physical life, will naturally require less than this normal standard. The relative cost and economy of the different foods can also thus be ascertained.

If care is taken to secure a sufficient quantity of Protein the requisite amount of Carbohydrates is not likely to be omitted, and hunger will prove a reliable guide in most cases. It is advisable, however, to see that enough Fat is taken, especially in winter, and by persons lacking in nerve force.

The table of food-values will easily enable the reader to ascertain the proportion of Fat in each kind of food.

The following indications of dietetic error may prove useful:—

Signs of Dietetic Mistakes. Excess of proteid matter causes a general sense of plethora and unbearableness, nervous prostration or drowsiness after meals, a tendency to congestion (often resulting in piles, etc.), headache, irritability, and bad temper. A continuous deficiency of it would tend to produce general weakness and anÆmia.

Excess of carbohydrate matter (starch), especially if not sufficiently cooked and not well masticated, produces dyspepsia, flatulence, pain in the chest and abdomen, acidity (resulting in pimples and boils), and an inflammatory state of the system. Deficiency of it (or its equivalent, grape sugar) would produce lack of force and physical exhaustion.

Excess of fat tends to cause biliousness. Deficiency of it results in nervous weakness, neuralgia, and low temperature of the body.

Food for Brain Workers. It is important to remember that the more physical energy we put forth, the larger is the amount of proteid we require in our diet—and vice versa. Brain workers of sedentary habits require but little proteid, and quickly suffer from indigestion if this is taken too freely. For such, a very simple dietary consisting largely of dried and fresh fruits, nuts (flaked or ground), milk, eggs and cheese, and super-cooked cereals (such as wholemeal biscuits, and toast, Granose and Kellogg flakes, and well baked rice dishes) will be found to be the most suitable.

In order to supply the brain with phosphates it is very important that mental workers should take whole wheat bread instead of the emasculated white substitute which is provided almost everywhere. It is the outer part of the grain that provides brain-food (combined with an easily assimilable form of protein), and many of our urban bread winners break down because they are deprived of the essential food elements therein contained. To take 'standard' bread does not meet the case, and every food-reformer who wants to keep really fit should demand and obtain well baked and unadulterated wholemeal bread. I feel convinced that if every growing child and every mental toiler could always be supplied with bread of this type, the deterioration of our British race would soon be arrested and we should witness signs of physical regeneration. 'Artox' and 'Ixion' brands of pure whole wheatmeal are the most perfect I know of at the present time, and delicious bread can easily be made from them if the recipe printed on page 114 is followed.