BREAKFAST FOR THE CHILD.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 67, 12 December 1907, Page 3

BREAKFAST FOR THE CHILD.

To the child at school, breakfast is a meal that is of tho utmost importance, especially when there is to be nothing but a light lunch to help in tiding over the working hours of the day. In spite of this fact there are many homes in which little thought is givon to tho first meal. Tho mother may havo no appetite for breakfast. The other adult members of tho -family may feel just as she does about it, so, if it Should chance that tile children are hungry, they aro given just enough £0 stay'the cravings of the appetite, and are sent to school entirely unprovided with grist to keep We physical and mental mills going. Tho dulness that is shown by many children is not so much actual dulness as it is lack of proper fuel, and the pathetic nervous breakdowns that are so common among school-children may in many instances bo traced to the scanty or badly prepared breakfasts with which they have been accustomed to'bejdn the day. In arranging a dietary for a child tho mother should try to make some elfort to discriminate -between the foods that are moroly filling and thoso that, arc nourishing. For example, it is not at all impossible that a child might eat,so much as to be really uncomfortable, and yet actually be starved, for it is only tho nourishing food, the food that is properly assimilated, that supplies the great force that is required to keep both the body and' the mind growing. Difficult as it is t9 prescribe a general dietary for children, it is still safe to say that a school-child's breakfast should comprise some such articles as the following: Tlioro should be some fresh, seasonable, and not over-ripe fruit; a thoroughly cooked cereal, which should ho sorved with unskimmed milk, or, bettor yet, with pure, fresh cream; eggs prepared in some easily digestible form—never fri,ed; a broiled lamb chop, or a piece of tender steak, with toasted bread, or whole wheat muffins, and plenty of'good, sweet milk. If tho child-does not like milk; a cup of cocoa will bo found agreeable and nourishing as well as mildly stimulating.'