Essentials of a Normal Diet. - Mode of Constructing Diets. - Expensive Diets and Cheap Diets for Maintaining Health. - Tables and Analyses.

Essentials of a Normal Diet

A healthy adult man of average stature, taking moderate exercise, will require and can consume, daily, from 32 to 40 ounces avoirdupois of dry nutritious food, which should have the following characters: -

1. About 1/200 must be mineral matter.

2. From 2/5 to 1/2 may be water, leaving 3/5 - or not less than 1/2 - or from 15 to 20 ounces of anhydrous solid alimentary material.

3. Three or four ounces of plastic matter must be combined with three or four times that quantity of heat-giving material.

4. The heat-giving constituents must contain a mixture of fats (hydro-carbons) with saccharine materials (carbo-hydrates), in the proportion of about 1 of the former to three of the latter.

5. These heat-giving constituents should supply from 6 to 10 ounces of carbon, the exact amount required varying with season, exercise, etc.

6. The Articles of Food must be sufficiently varied to meet the requirements of the taste and of the appetite, and their Mechanical and other Conditions must be suited to the digestive powers of the stomach.

In addition to these characters, every complete diet must contain some potash-vegetable or fruit; and the total amount of water taken in 24 hours, including that contained in the dry food, must not be less than 70 ounces avoirdupois.