Babies - Diet and Nutrition : Part 2

The Mother and Her Child
by William S. Sadler, M.D., Lena K. Sadler, M.D.

(Page 36 of 42)

Starches

The starches are by far the most abundant of all elements in human food. They enter largely into the composition of nearly all plants and seeds. Under the influence of the sunlight, the green-colored plants gather up the CO2 of the air and, with the water absorbed from the ground, build up starch. The plant takes all the carbon from which starch is made from the air, but while the atmosphere contains almost eighty percent of nitrogen, the plant is unable to use it; it must secure its nitrogen from the decaying refuse of the soil. Therefore the plant utilizes the waste products found in air and earth in the building of its food substances.

Starch exists in the form of small granules. Since each little starch granule is surrounded by a woody envelope of cellulose, it becomes necessary to cook all starches thoroughly in order to burst this cellulose envelope and therefore enable the saliva to begin, and other secretions to continue, the work of digestion.

Fruit Sugars

The sugar of fruits represents a form of food requiring practically no digestion; while the sugar found in beets, the cane plant, and the maple tree, must be acted upon by the digestive juices of the intestine before their absorption can take place. During the winter, the maple tree stores its carbohydrates in its roots in the form of starch. With the advent of spring Mother Nature begins the digestion of this starch - actually turns it into sugar - and in the form of the sweet sap it finds its way up into the tree trunk to be deposited in the leaves and bark in the form of cellulose, a process very similar to that performed by digestion in the human body, where starch by digestion is first turned into sugar, and afterwards deposited in another form in the liver and muscles.

Dextrin is a form of sugar resulting from thoroughly cooking or partially digesting starch. There are about twenty-five stages or forms of dextrin between raw starch and digested starch or fruit sugar. Dextrin is found in the brown-colored portions of well-toasted bread.

Fats

Fat is a combination of glycerin and certain fatty acids. As a food, it is derived from both the animal and the vegetable kingdom. Animal fat consists of lard, suet, fat meat, etc., while fat of animal origin is represented by cream, butter, and the yolks of eggs. The vegetable fats are found in nuts, especially the pecan, cocoanut, Brazil, and pine nuts; also in the grains, particularly oats and corn. The peanut also contains a considerable amount of fat. Of the fruits, the banana and strawberry contain a trace of fat, while the olive is the only fruit rich in fat.

As a food, fat is used in three forms. The emulsified form is represented by cream, olive oil, and nuts. When the tiny globules of fat, which are each surrounded by a little film of casein, are crushed - united into a solid mass - we have a free fat. This form is represented by butter and other animal fats. Another form is fried fat - fat which has been chemically changed by heat with the development of certain irritating acids.

Mineral Salts

The mineral elements comprise but a small part of human food as regards weight, but they are extremely important to the health of the child as well as the adult. As found in the food, they are not in the form of mineral salts, like common table salt. The salts of food are living salts, organic or organized salts, such as are found in the growing plant. These salts are of great value to the various fluids of the body, and also as stimulants to nerve action, but more particularly in the work of building up the bones.

Salts are found largely in the cereals. A small amount is also found in vegetables, particularly the potato, as well as in most fruits.

Cellulose

Cellulose represents the great bulk of all vegetables and fruits. It is digested by most animals, but in man it is digested only to the extent of about thirty percent. The presence of a large amount of cellulose in the food enables us often to satisfy the appetite without injury from overeating. It serves to give bulk to the food, and thereby possibly acts as a preventive to constipation.

Water

Water fills an important place in the nutrition of the body. The food changes in connection with digestion, assimilation, and elimination, can take place only in the presence of water. Water constitutes from fifteen to ninety-five percent of the various foods. The watery juices of vegetables and fruits consist largely of pure, distilled water, in which fruit sugar is dissolved, with added flavoring substances. Water is absolutely essential to the performance of every vital function connected with human metabolism.

Animal Heat

The source of heat in the animal body was the subject of much superstitious speculation on the part of ancient scientists. It is now known that animal heat is derived from the food we eat by means of a peculiar process of vital oxidation - effected in the presence of oxygen - by the action of water and enzymes upon the food elements absorbed by the living cell. This process of oxidation liberates the heat and energy stored by the sun in the food, and therefore the body is kept warm by this constant combustion of the digested foodstuffs. The starches and sugars, together with the fats, represent food elements which serve as the body's fuel. By this means we are able to maintain a constant body temperature of almost one hundred degrees.

The average human body produces enough heat every hour to raise two and one-half pounds of water from the freezing point to the boiling point. This is equivalent to boiling about seven gallons of ice-water every twenty-four hours. Differently expressed, the body gives off each hour the same amount of heat as a foot and a half of two-inch steam coil. This is the same amount of heat which would be produced by burning about two-thirds of a pound of coal.

About the Author

Dr. William S. Sadler M.D. was a well-known American psychiatrist and college teacher in the school of medicine at the University of Chicago. For over sixty years he practiced his profession in Chicago, thirty-three years being associated in practice with his wife, Dr Lena Kellogg Sadler. The doctors were pioneers in the research on the mysterious Urantia Papers.