Dietetic Fallacies

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 117, 9 April 1887, Page 2

Dietetic Fallacies

1 . That there is any nutriment in beef tea made from extracts. There is none whatever. 2. That gelatine is nutritious. It will not keep a cat alive. Beef tea and galatine, however posses a certain reparative power, we know not what. 3. That an egg is equal to a pound of meat, and that every sick person can eat eggs. Many especially those of nervous or bilious temperament, cannot eat them ; and to such eggs are injurious That because milk is an important article of food, it must be forced upon a patient Food that a person cannot endure will not cure. 5. That arrowroot is nutritious. It is simply starch and water, useful as a restorative, quickly prepared. 6. That cheese is injurious in all cases. It is as a rule, contradicted, being usually indigestible ; but it is concentrated nutriment, and a waste repairer and often craved. 7. That the cravings of a patient are whims, and should be denied. The stomach often needs, craves for, and digests articles not laid down in any dietary. Such, are, for example fruit, pickless, jam, cake, ham or bacon with fat, cheese, butter, and milk. 8. That an inflexible diet may be marked out, which shall apply to every case. Choice of a given list of articles allowable in a given case must be decided by the opinion of the stomach The stomach is right, and theory wrong, and the judgment admits no appeal. A diet which would keep a healthy man healthy might kill a sick man ; and a diet sufficient to sustain a sick man would not keep a well man alive. Increased quantity of food especially of liquids, does not mean increased nutriment, rather dacrease, since the digestion is overtaxed aud weakened. Strive to give the food in as concentrated a form as possible. Consult the patient's stomach in preference to his tastes ; and if the stomach rejects a certain article do not force it. — Journal of Reconstructives.