Milk is considered one of Nature's most perfect foods. It contains practically all the elements required by the economy of man to build bone, muscle, nerves, and brain; in sugar of milk are found the elements which furnish heat and energy sufficient to keep the human machine functioning. It is a far more complete food than meat. When meat is used as a basic food, it is necessary to combine with it other foods which contain the elements which meat does not have, such as the organic mineral elements, vitamins, and energy-creating material. It is also essential that fruits and vegetables be added to a meat diet in order that these may help eliminate the acids, toxins, and urates contained in the meats.

Besides being an almost perfect food (lacking only in cellulose), milk is a remedial agent whose use alone has been the means of eliminating various ailments, particularly those caused by the toxins and acids with which the system has become filled by the use of too much meat and denatured foods.

Milk contains the organic mineral elements and an abundance of the vitamins, both of which are essential to the normal health and growth of children; it is also the ideal basic diet for those who are suffering from "deficiency" or "wasting" diseases, but when prescribed for these ailments, the whole milk must be used as most of the vitamins are contained in the butterfat.

Though a perfectly balanced food, milk alone is too concentrated to maintain health in grown people - cellulose is needed and eliminating agents; these are secured by the free use of vegetables, and of fruit between meals.

THE ORGANIC MINERAL ELEMENTS: These elements, termed cell salts, are tissue builders, tissue preservers, creators of vital energy, stimulators of the ductless glands, and the preventors of disorganization and putrefaction, in much the same manner as ordinary table salt - chloride of sodium - preserves meats and other foods.

These elements are found in abundance in many vegetables, grains, legumes, fruits, and nuts, but are contained in their richest state in cow's and goat's milk. In countries where milk is unobtainable, fish, natural rice, soy beans, millet, barley, cocoanuts, etc., may be substituted. Although these substitute foods are rich in organic mineral elements, they cannot take the place of milk as a child's food and this is the reason why the death rate is usually extremely high among children who are deprived of milk. In a quality of milk there is found nearly one per cent of the organic mineral elements per hundred weight, in the form of calcium, potassium, sodium, magnesium, iron, etc., cell salts required for the normal functioning of the body. Deformity in a young child or animal, except when caused by accident, indicates that during the period of gestation the mother subsisted on food deficient in these vital elements, this lack preventing the unborn body from developing harmoniously.

In the animal kingdom, the feeding of the female while with young, has almost reached a science, so that deformities seldom occur. There are of course exceptions and, setting aside accidents, these exceptions, despite the fact that the mother's food was rightly selected and combined, are due to the fact that the organic elements were not present in the food. This fault could be obviated if all feed were first analyzed.

In the human kingdom, man is as yet unenlightened or refuses to believe that diet is of supreme importance to human welfare - he is far more concerned with the appearance and taste of what he eats than with its relation to health, normal development of the body, spirituality, success, and happiness; therefore there are being born an increasing number of deficient and deformed children whose parents, otherwise enlightened and cultured, are ready to blame any and every cause for the tragedy, except the right one: food.

The organic mineral elements are rich in milk even when part or all of its cream has been removed, and in cases of weak bones, rickets, or non-development of the bony structure in children, a need for more than the usual amount of milk is indicated, and skim-milk is better than whole milk; when whole milk is give in large quantity in addition to other foods rich in fat, the system receives too much fat in proportion. Torpidity of the liver will result from this error, followed by indigestion, mal-assimilation, malnutrition, and other ailments thus offsetting all the benefit the milk can render. When milk is used as a basic food with but little else containing fat included in the diet (as, for example, a menu composed of milk, baked whole potatoes, or whole cereal bread with plenty of vegetables), then whole milk should be used. And right here enters a delicate and important dietetic question, one which frequently receives little or no attention and the result is that the science of diet has ben condemned. Too many who claim to understand dietetics, have made the mistake of prescribing whole milk in ample quantity and with other foods rich in fats, or of prescribing skim-milk without other basic foods rich in fat. In either case, results are disastrous, and the diet is condemned rather than the real cause - the food combinations.

Very young children up to the age of two or three years, should be given entire fresh milk, reducing this whole milk with water to the strength desired. After that age, part of the butterfat may be removed and less water added - this, however, only in proportion as other foods containing fats are added to the skim-milk and vegetables.

There is no food substance known which is in any way better for a growing child than plenty of fresh milk with vegetables of almost all varieties. To this combination there should be gradually added whole-grain breads with butter, and whole baked potatoes, though these two starches should not be served at one meal. Serve milk, bread and butter, and vegetables at one meal; milk, baked potatoes and vegetables at the next. These foods supply all the vital mineral elements, material for nerve and brain development; growth proceeds normally, and it is practically impossible for mental or physical weaknesses to develop.

The ideal food for all normal children from the age of three to eighteen is in the various combinations of whole-grain bread in limited quantities, milk and butter, eggs and cheese, vegetables and fruits - all fruits being eaten between, never with, meals. Meat is unnecessary, undesirable, and to be included only when a need for stimulating food is indicated. Milk contains warmth and energy-creating material, protein and casein, which renew or build nerves and tissues, and the large percentage of cell salts vital for repair and equalization of the entire organism. Young animals fed on milk develop rapidly and normally, show strength and vitality; those fed on substitutes for milk, however perfect these substitutes appear to be, are usually more or less weak, sickly and in some manner undeveloped. However much we may dislike the idea and deny the fact, the human body is essentially an animal body and is governed by the one law which governs the growth of all the animal bodies.

ALBUMEN: This is an important food element contained in milk. It is called the muscle-builder, as from it the muscles of men and animals are built and kept in repair. It is in milk in the form of protein. Albumen is found also in the white of eggs and if the eggs are fertilized, it is even more vital and concentrated, provided the eggs are fresh.

Albumen, whether given to children, young animals, or grown people, should never be boiled. Heat coagulates it and may partly or totally destroy its value as a protein or albuminous food. A farmer who boiled or sterilized the milk intended for a calf would be adjudged more or less insane or wholly ignorant - not fit to be a farmer. An authority on this subject, H.N. Parker, has said: "To obtain the required effect of pasteurizing, a temperature of 142 degrees Fahrenheit is required, and it varies between 135 and 150 degrees. If the milk contained tuberculosis germs, I should expect some of them to survive the process. The albumen in the milk would probably be partly coagulated." In other words, according to this authority - and his statements have been widely accepted - pasteurizing at this degree of heat would not kill all the tuberculosis germs and would partly or wholly destroy the food value of the milk, and, unquestionably, of the vitamins therein as well. The process therefore is proved to be useless and destructive.

SUGAR: Mothers who have fed their babies on bottle milk are more or less familiar with sugar of milk. This sugar is obtained from the milk of cows and goats, and not, as frequently supposed, from vegetables or chemicals through a process of refining. Sugar of milk is one of the most desirable of all the energy-producing agents, because, like whole milk, it does not long remain in the stomach but mixes readily with water and albumen, and the system quickly absorbs it. In this respect it is radically different from all manufactured sugars which are only partly absorbed and are actually, in most cases, treated in the system as foreign substances.

Honey, though a sugar, cannot be considered in the same list with the various refined sugars but is to be classified with sugar of milk. Among other mineral products it contains sulfur which is not a part of sugar of milk to any perceptible degree. In the restoration of youth and the change of the intestinal flora, sugar of milk and whey are much more valuable than gland transplantation, although being common substances and easily obtainable, they are ignored and refused the consideration they deserve.

Because casein has been classified with albumen found in milk, it has been considered mainly as a muscle builder, whereas it is a most important nerve and brain-builder. If the American people could be induced to accept this one fact and give to common cottage cheese the place on their daily menus which it deserves, it would be the direct agency of making them probably fifty per cent more efficient, and the stigma of our country being a "nation of neurasthenics" would soon be removed.

Casein in the form of cottage cheese is easily digested and quickly and perfectly assimilated. It repairs and builds tissue, stimulates the cells of the body to greater activity and acts as a natural tonic without stimulation; to the nerves and brain it is a food beyond compare. In neurasthenia, anemia, nervous irritation, the debility present in organic and inorganic diseases, malnutrition, nervous disease, tuberculosis, rickets, pellagra, as a basic food for most chronic invalids as well as for elderly people, casein is a food-medicine. It is found in skim-milk and fresh uncreamed milk. Casein easily replaces all other forms of protein and this is the reason for its great value as a fundamental constructive agent in the diseases mentioned. It must, of course, be well combined with vegetables as it is low in vitamins because of the withdrawal of butterfat, the vitamin carrier, and the whey in which is found most of the organic mineral elements.

BUTTERFAT: The fat of milk is a compound of many substances and forms, on an average, four per cent of the milk, if cows have been correctly fed. It is rich in carbon and hydrogen. As an energy producer it furnishes more than twice as much to the ounce as does sugar of milk. It is a food of great value to children and adults not only because of its energy-producing power in concentrated and easily digested form, but also because it is the carrier of an animal or vitalized vitamin which is found in sufficient abundance in no other fat; vegetable and nut fats contain it to a slight degree.

Butterfat is of greatest value when taken with milk before the cream has had time to separate itself. A chemical change takes place during this process, both in the milk and the cream, after which they no longer are the same as when they formed the primary natural mass. When milk and cream are separated and then remixed and given as a food, digestion is somewhat retarded, because the fat is then retained in the stomach with the casein, and the digestion is much slower. Due to this fact, it is best that fresh milk be served to children and invalids, and if it is still so fresh as to be warm from the cow, it is at its best for all cases in which vitality is extremely low. Babies and calves suckle warm milk from the mother's breast; Nature knows what is best for their normal development.

MILK AND OTHER FATS: the difference between milk fat and other fats in their relation to the growth of the young and the health-controlling qualities in the case of adults, is due to the presence in the mild fat of a larger proportion of the elusive but active substances known as vitamins, as well as of a more abundant supply of organic mineral elements.

Peanut oil, cocoa butter, and cocoanut oil, nut butters made from a combination of the fats of cocoanuts and other nuts, are valuable in the dietary. They are free from disease-creative constituents but are deficient in the important elements contained in milk fats and other fats, and become dangerous to health if wholly substituted for dairy butter in the dietary of children and invalids. These butter or fat substitutes, find their most important place when used in cooking and baking. Real butter should be served with breads, muffins, and potatoes. When it is impossible to obtain a sufficient amount of butterfat, the consequent shortage in vitamin and the organic mineral elements must be offset by the use of a greater amount of milk and a larger proportion of fresh vegetables and fruits; children should be served more tomato and fruit juices between meals. If milk and butter are entirely unobtainable, then animal fats and the richest kind of fish should be plentifully supplied as a basic food to old people, invalids, and even children; fish, especially, will help to make up the deficiency.

MILK FOR THE HEALTHY: Many people have come to the conclusion that milk is valuable as a food only for the young, or as a food-medicine for invalids and those suffering from tuberculosis, anemia, neuritis, rheumatics, and for nervous wrecks and neurasthenics. This is erroneous. Milk is as valuable a basic food for the well as it is for the ill and on the family table readily takes the place of meat. As an example, let us consider the menu usually served for a family lunch: meat in some form, potato, bread and butter, a vegetable. The eaters would do well from every point of view if they would take instead: a glass or two of milk - instead of the meat, whole-grain bread, and butter, two or three vegetables. These combinations are identical with the meal based on meat save that the toxins and ureas found in meat are absent, and the meal more perfectly balanced. If soup is liked, a vegetable soup may be served first, and then the milk, potato or bread (not broth), and vegetables. The mistaken idea that milk is not solid or heavy for a basic food and that meat, being more substantial is needed, should be discarded. Milk, being coagulated by the digestive juices as a first process of digestion, is actually a more "solid" food than meat. The idea that milk is a "light" food is due to the fact that ignorance has always considered milk to be only a drink - a mere fluid - and not "solid" nourishment.

MEAT SUBSTITUTES: From all that we have said the conclusion may be arrived at that it is always necessary to serve the whole milk if it is to be a complete substitute for meat. This is not entirely true. Skim-milk may readily and correctly be compared to the lean cuts of meat, while milk with all its cream is comparable to the richer cuts. The fat in milk is a more than desirable substitute for the fat in meat. On the other hand, skim-milk is a more than good substitute for lean meat because in it is found the organic mineral element which meat lacks. When skim-milk is used as a basic food, a fat must be supplied, but this is equally true when lean meats are served.

It is not necessarily true that milk must be taken as a drink in order to substitute it for meat. Many soups may be prepared with milk as a base but care should be taken that the milk is added just before serving; if it boils, the albumen is coagulated and over-heating might also destroy the vitamin though it would have little or no effect on the organic mineral elements.

When skim-milk is used as a food without the addition of butterfat, then about a tablespoonful of some substitute - cocoanut butter or cocoanut oil, nut butter or other vegetable fat - should be added to a cup of milk to make up the deficiency.

CHEESE: Cheese is one of the most perfect substitutes for meat and if a fairly good grade is selected, it contains between one-sixth and one-fourth of its weight in fat, and more than one-third of its weight in vital casein. It is well to use frequently a good cheese in place of meat or other meat substitutes. And, since cheese contains a fairly large proportion of fat, it is not necessary that fat of any nature be added at a meal, with the exception of butter for the bread or potatoes that are served also. Bread and butter, cheese and several creamed or fresh vegetables, form an ideal meal, a perfect combination of foods for the brain or sedentary worker. Those who are engaged in more strenuous labor may require the addition of heavier foods.

A DESIRABLE HOME PRODUCT: In country districts, the value of cottage cheese as a good food is well recognized and the wise housewife is certain to use all surplus skim-milk for its production. The skim-milk is allowed to sour or clabber and then heated to body temperature until it separates from the whey; it is drained, salted to taste, and softened with a little sweet milk or cream. It can be spread on bread in place of butter. Some add a good honey. This is a delicious combination and a splendid nerve builder. Children naturally prefer it to other foods and it should always be served in place of cake made from denatured flour, refined sugars, irritating spices. If this truth about cottage cheese were more generally known and observed, the United States would not be accursed as now with an average of four million defective children.

Since cottage cheese contains about one-third pure casein, acid fruits should not be served with it. Acid, of whatever nature, affects the albumen and casein, destroying at least in part the nerve-and-brain-building qualities even though already coagulated in cottage cheese. This is true with all milk products. Many of the world's greatest physicians and chemists recognize and warn against combining acid fruits with preparations mostly composed of albumens and casein.

BUTTERMILK: Many have the mistaken idea that buttermilk is not a food but a more or less refreshing "drink." buttermilk differs but slightly from skim-milk. It has undergone a chemical change in which lactic acid is a product, and it contains a somewhat greater proportion of butterfat.

The casein content of the buttermilk does not vary greatly from that found in skim-milk; the amount of organic mineral elements is about the same; therefore, practically in all respects it is just as valuable as a food, is more readily accepted by some stomachs than skim-milk, and, due to the greater neutralizing qualities of the lactic acid not present in skim-milk, is more desirable in the treatment of some ailments. In malnutrition, tuberculosis, intestinal affectons and especially toxo-absorption, if skim-milk is not easily accepted by the digestive organism, buttermilk is the ideal food-drink.

Buttermilk is frequently of great benefit to invalids, elderly people and children above the age of six months. It should be served between meals or as a meal in combination with baked potatoes of whole-grain bread and fresh vegetables. (When given to children of tender age, the baby's bottle should be thoroughly cleansed after its use, so as to avoid all possibility of souring the fresh milk at the next feeding.)

WHEY: By-product of cottage cheese. When correctly used, it quickly changes the intestinal flora, destroys noxious germ life in the intestinal canal, and is abundantly supplied with mineral elements.

FOOD VALUE: One quart of fresh milk containing all its native butterfat, is equal in food value to any one of the following:

Three-fourths pound of beef
One-half to three-fourths pound of fowl
One-half pound of nuts
One pound of peas, beans , or lentils

It is to be noted that the food-value difference in beef and fowl cannot be precisely estimated since they lack the organic mineral elements and vitamins. Eggs, peas, beans and lentils contain these elements but they are not as easily digested not as readily assimilated. The vital value of a quart of good milk may be estimated to equal that of one pound of the best beef.

As already stated, cottage cheese is almost a pure casein and is rich in all the essential elements such as the organic mineral elements and vitamins. It contains no toxins or ureas. It is a blood, nerve and muscle-builder, and regulator of bodily functions. One pound of cottage cheese is equal to one pound of beef, pork, lamb, veal, game, or fowl. Fat is absent but this is readily supplied by additional butter or cream, or in soups served with it. Cottage cheese costs less than one-half the price charged for meats and, considering its food value, would be cheap if three or four times the price of meat were charged for it. There is not one objection to it as a food for everyone, beginning with the child of ten months or a year to the very aged.

-----------------------------------------------------
(1) Many so-called milk idiosyncracies are due to the body's lack of lactase to digest lactose (the sugar of milk). Lactase can now be obtained from a Natrura physician for those with this problem.
-----------------------------------------------------

FOR EXAMPLE: "I know of a child about one year old who seems to be poisoned whenever she takes cow's milk. A rash breaks out on her body, with itching, and she has gone into convulsions, even when milk was modified according to the prescribed formula."

Despite the fact that there are occasional individual idiosyncracies like the above, milk is the natural food for babies and children. When mother's milk, which of course is best, is unavailable, goat's milk should be substituted; failing this, cow's is the next best. Whenever there is an indication that such substitution for mother's milk may cause trouble, care should be exercised to secure good milk from one goat or cow and use none but that.

At first glance, the above case may appear to be unusual but it is not - usually one or more such instances are met by every physician who treats children. The condition is not unknown in adults. Unless one has had experience with these cases, the conclusion is apt to be that the milk is a poison - or acts as such - and should be discarded. The real cause is seldom found in the milk, though occasionally a stomach is found which will not tolerate it and in which toleration cannot be established.

Milk is a sub-acid food and if the system is in a sub-acid state then it is not acceptable and may not even be coagulated in the usual manner by the digestive juices, the digestion being so long delayed that it becomes almost like a poison. To overcome this, it is only necessary that a drink prepared from the juice of grapefruit or tomatoes - not oranges - be taken one-half hour before the milk, then the digestive juices will be prepared for it and it will be readily coagulated and digested.

In the majority of case, the system is super-acid and the degree of reaction is in proportion to the acidity. Sometimes the milk at first induces a feverish condition followed by a rash, and if its use is continued the symptoms are aggravated. At this point, the average person concludes that the milk is not a good food and discontinues its use. A physician who has had experience will know that instead of being a poison, the milk is actually acting beneficially for the patient. The symptoms of poisoning and fever with raising of temperature even to 103 degrees, indicate the normal action of the milk in neutralizing the bodily acids and toxins, eliminating the poisons which had resulted from this neutralization, and equalizing the vital forces. Therefore, if the milk is wisely continued for a sufficient length of time, the symptoms will gradually subside, rash disappear, temperature go to normal, and it will be found that toleration has been established. This is what took place: When first imbibed, because of the condition of the system, as stated, the milk was an opposing force. The acid present caused too rapid coagulation with excessively large lumps of curd; and this condition may be so severe as to cause gas and the distension of the stomach, which in turn induces fever and convulsions. As the milk is continued, it gradually counteracts the acid, establishing balance. However, it is not necessary that milk taken into a super-acid system induce this condition. A test may be made and the exact state of the system known. When super-acidity is indicated, a sub-acid fruit such as orange of pineapple, eaten half an hour previous to the milk, will in part counteract the extreme acidity. For children, the usual procedure is to give lime water directly or add it to the milk. The theory is the same.

The test referred to above is readily made by the use of litmus paper, first using the blue for saliva and urine. If the paper turns a decided red, acidity is present. In the case of a child, we proceed to reduce whole milk to almost the strength indicated by age and general condition, adding one or more tablespoons of lime water without the milk and an hour afterwards feed milk and lime water. Should the stomach still reject the milk, prepare barley water and to this add lime water and feed as usual. Then one-half hour before the next feeding give the lime water and when it is time for feeding, give the milk and lime water, This method, plus a little patience and common sense, will overcome the worst case.

When children of one or more years of age cannot take milk, the procedure is more simple, fruit juices being used in the same manner as for adults.

When there is no acid-reaction, the test should be made for sub-acidity. If this is indicated, a few drops of grapefruit, lemon or lime juice may be given in water half an hour before feeding time, then followed by the milk. Baked sour apples, tart berry juice, or the juice of other tart fruit may be used.

In some cases of milk intoleration the action of the liver may be at fault, being either sluggish or over-active. Whatever the cause, it must be found, removed or neutralized, and this being done there will be few cases of intoleration.
|Top|