Milk diet

“ The tendency to costiveness caused by a milk diet can be largely overcome by the use of salt with the milk, or of some solid food, as toast or crackers, to prevent coagulation and the formation of masses resistant to the digestive fluids. Barley water and lime water in small amounts are also useful for assisting mechanically in the digestion of milk. Milk at ordinary prices is one of the cheapest foods that can be used. ”

“ The absolute milk diet is not so satisfactory as a mixed diet composed of meat, strong broth, milk and a small quantity of bread and refined cereals. The patient should be fed at frequent intervals, and as much as he can digest. ”

“ Milk is, in fact, by no means a perfect food, so far as its vitamine content is concerned. First, because the presence of the vitamine in milk is so dependent upon the diet of the mother or the animal, second, because the pasteurization temperatures used to insure cow’s milk of purity from a bacterial standpoint, destroys in it the greater part of its antiscorbutic power. Either of which makes it necessary to supplement the formula of the artificially fed infant, and, in case of the former, the mother’s milk of the breast-fed baby, with orange, or canned tomato juice. ”

“ When the child is big enough to thrive on undiluted, unmodified cow’s milk, it should not only be allowed, but urged, to continue on a diet in which this, the best of all foods, is the most essential part. An excellent form in which to feed milk to the growing child is junket. Eaten slowly with a spoon as a pudding, it is exposed to the action of digestion much better than milk swallowed by the glassful in a hurry and even if it is cold there is no danger of defective rennet action in the stomach because such action has already taken place. ”

“ Is is not too much to say that a fitting supply of milk is at present too seldom secured even by families who can well afford to pay for it. The full value of milk as an article of diet is not yet sufficiently appreciated by people who ought to be aware of it. Many adults regard it mainly as food for children, and many believe that they can not digest it, and state that it "curdles on the stomach," and makes them "bilious." The ordinary milk-supply to many establishments is just sufficient to allow their tea and coffee to be colored with it. ”

“ Pure blood is the basis for pure milk, therefore nutritive articles of diet are of more permanent use.
It is well to bear in mind that a scarcity of milk during the month should never be taken as an excuse for refusing to nurse the child; for if it can get but a spoonful a day, it greatly encourages the chance for increasing it. The mother’s milk is the fountain of life to the babe, and therefore seldom dries up unless there be some unnatural obstruction. It has been said by many close observers, that when the milk goes away without some perceptible cause, the child is not to live. ”

“ It is a glorious food for the young, and must never, on any account whatever, in any case be dispensed with. "Considering that milk contains in itself most of the constituents of a perfect diet, and is capable of maintaining life in infancy without the aid of any other substance, it is marvellous that the consumption of it is practically limited to so small a class; and not only so, but that in sick-rooms, where the patient is surrounded with every luxury, arrow-root, and other compounds containing much less nutriment, should so often be preferred to it."—The Times. ”

“ If the child is bottle-fed and it is demonstrated that it is impossible to maintain normal development on cow's milk, a wet-nurse should be obtained. After the child is weaned, or put upon a more liberal diet, milk should continue to be the chief article of diet. From the first to the third year a child should take one quart of milk daily in addition to the other food. There are some children, however, who seemingly cannot take milk without getting indigestion; they should be put on skimmed milk, to which may be added a small quantity of sugar to make up for the loss of fat. ”

“ Milk contains all the elements necessary in a balanced diet for the adult and furnishes an almost perfect food for the suckling. Milk is lacking in iron and roughage and is therefore not suitable for the sole diet of adults. This is compensated for in the infant by a large amount of iron which is contained in the spleen and furnishes this necessary element during the suckling period. There is no other single food that will so well promote the growth and development in young children. Milk is easily digested, is palatable, and forms one of our best and most important articles of food. ”

“ After the meat has been borne well in small quantities for a while, I gradually increase the quantity taken per day until it reach a pound or two.
You cannot be too careful and should instruct the patient to return to the strict milk diet as soon as any pain is felt, no matter how nicely he may have been getting along up to the time. Not until the patient has been entirely free from pain for several weeks is it advisable to allow the use of cereals boiled in milk, such as rice or tapioca. ”

“ Again, an abundance of milk is not always good. An infant may thrive better on a scanty supply of good milk than on an abundance of bad milk. Milk derived from drinking ale, porter, or alcoholic drinks of any kind, though abundant, is very far indeed from good, that produced by plain and simple diet is always best.
Again, the state of the mother's mind has a great deal to do with the quality of her milk. A fright, or continued worry, may transform good milk into most injurious food for the child. ”

“ There is almost none in meat and bread, none in common fats and sugars, and comparatively few common foods can be taken alone and digested in large enough quantities to insure an adequate supply; whereas a pint of milk (whole, skim, or buttermilk) will guarantee to a grown person a sufficient amount, and a quart a day will provide for the greater needs of growing children. Whatever other foods we have, we cannot afford to leave milk out of the diet because of its lime. ”

“ I sipped the milk, and tasted it for all the taste there was in it, and I learned to be so fond of it that it was with some difficulty that I went back to a varied diet when the experiment called for a change. Good, fresh milk is an exception to Nature's dislike for monotony in food. Milk is the one perfectly-balanced food material; and while it may not be always the best food for grown persons, it is the most acceptable as a monotonous diet, and always is good, sufficient and safe nutriment, if sipped, tasted, and naturally swallowed. ”

“ Take the teeth as an illustration, which are formed within the gums, and there stop, as their further development would incommode the process of sucking, by which the infant is for some time to be nourished. The milk itself too. It is secreted just at the moment it is wanted, and, above all, is found to contain those ingredients that are best adapted for infantile aliment. No substitute is equal to a healthy mother's milk. Its properties seem to undergo some alteration with the age of the child; any irregularity of diet, or ill health of the mother, affects its salubrity. ”

“ In Acute Disease, the diet is often limited to milk and beef tea. Inexperienced persons imagine that every liquid food is insufficient nourishment, and that the patient should be persuaded to take some solid. So far from this being true, milk is the best of all foods, the only food we could live on for a length of time without admixture of anything else. A patient who can take milk has at once a greater chance of prolonging life or recovering health. ”

“ Where a lady is very thin, good fresh milk (if it agree) should form an important item of her diet. Milk is both fattening and nourishing, more so than any other article of food known; but it should never be taken at the same meal (except it be in the form of pudding) with either beer or wine: they are incompatibles, and may cause disarrangement of the stomach and bowels. Milk would often agree with an adult, where it now disagrees, if the admixture of milk with either beer or wine were never allowed. ”

“ Where it is so disagreeable as to cause great disgust or nausea, the addition of enough of tea or coffee or caramel or salt to merely flavor it may enable us to make its use bearable, and we may by degrees abandon these aids. Another plan, rarely needed, is to use milk with the general diet and lessen the latter until only milk is employed. If these rules be followed, it is rare to find milk causing trouble ”

“ When the mother’s milk, though apparently not deficient in quantity, proves unsatisfying to the child, great attention should be paid to varying the diet of the mother, while such staple foods should be taken as are most easily and thoroughly assimilated into milk. The unsatisfying quality of the milk will generally be remedied by taking a more varied diet, together with three or four half pints of milk in the course of the day, accompanied with farinaceous matter, as in the shape of well-made milk gruel ”

“ But even in diets containing the protein from milk, young animals do not develop normally unless the salts of milk are added too. No perfect substitute for milk has ever been found. During the first year of life, a child lives on it almost exclusively; for the first five years it should be considered the most important article in the diet; and throughout the period of growth it should be freely used if children are to become vigorous men and women. If not liked as a beverage, it can be used in cocoa, or cereal coffee, in soups, puddings, and other dishes. ”

“ Never will he double his weight so rapidly again.
Cow’s milk is the safe staple throughout the second year. Milk is easily assimilated; its protein furnishes nitrogen in the best form for muscle building, and its fat provides the valuable vitamines. The mineral salts, so necessary to bone formation, are also found in this valuable food. Great care must be exercised to maintain clean, pure milk.
Eggs, cereals, orange juice, tomato juice, or other mild fruit juices (a few spoonfuls at a time) , round out the diet. ”

“ Although milk furnishes a useful food, it is not essential to a diet required for active bodily exercise. It is seldom given to athletes while in active training. Adults who are able to eat any kind of food are kept in better health by abstaining from milk, except as used for cooking purposes. An occasional glass of hot milk taken as a stimulant for tired brain and nerves is sometimes beneficial. [30] Milk is composed of water, salts, fat, milk sugar or lactose, albumen and casein. Average milk has from 8 to 10 per cent. of cream. Good milk should form a layer of cream about 2-1/2 in. ”

“ The truth is probably that strong pasteurization at a temperature above 157° and holding the heated milk unnecessarily long at such high temperature do change the properties of the milk so as to make it harder to digest, but that the main difficulty is in the change of diet from raw to pasteurized milk or vice versa. Let the child get used to the change by making it gradual, diminishing the amount of one and increasing the amount of the other from day to day in a week, until the change is completed, and there will usually be little if any trouble. ”

“ We have often observed that patients taking large quantities of milk daily, together with eggs and vegetables, and little meat, soon begin to look better, and sometimes even younger. We have also observed upon ourselves the great advantage of such a diet in comparison with other diets.
It is not surprising that persons using large quantities of milk daily look fresher and younger if we consider that when we take much fresh raw milk we are also taking extracts of various ductless glands, and especially of the thyroid. ”

“ Large amounts of filled milk, much of it shipped and sold in bulk, are purchased by hotels and boarding houses, and by manufactures of food products, such as ice cream, to whose customers labeling restrictions afford no protection.
3 There is now an extensive literature indicating wide recognition by scientists and dietitians of the great importance to the public health of butter fat and whole milk as the prime source of vitamins, which are essential growth producing and disease preventing elements in the diet. ”

“ All lying-in women ought not to be treated alike in regard to DIET, etc. While a light, unstimulating diet is best at first in ordinary cases, the weak and delicate require good, nourishing food from the commencement, such as beef tea, chicken broth, mutton chops, eggs, etc., (F. 57, 58, 59.) Oatmeal gruel increases the secretion of milk, is nourishing and easily digested, at the same time it is simple and bland, and proper for those that are corpulent, or strong and robust, and the same may be said of good cow’s milk. ”

“ Good cows’ milk contains about 35 grammes of albumin, 40 grains of milk-sugar, and 35 to 40 grammes of fat to the liter. Thus if a person takes 2 liters of milk a day, or even less, 3 to 4 eggs, a little butter and several rolls, he can live comfortably without meat. We have made an experiment on ourselves by taking 11⁄2 liters of milk, 4 eggs, 2 rolls, and 20 grammes butter a day as our only food, and after two weeks of such a diet, with a bodyweight of 68 kilos, we felt very well, and even lost no weight at the end of the trial. ”