WHAT NOT TO GIVE CHILDREN.

Otago Witness, Issue 3347, 8 May 1918, Page 51

WHAT NOT TO GIVE CHILDREN.

Sugar.— Sugar is a necessary pgrt of the diet of children, but very often they are given a good deal more of it than is good for them. Sugar makes acidity, and it often makes peevishness, because it upsets the stomach. Many children would be greatly benefited by being trained to do with less sugar. The habit of covering porridge thickly with brown sugar is a very bad one—it is wasteful and unnecessary. During digestion the starchy part of porridge is converted into sugar. Eating sugar with porridge is—from the point of view of nourishing the body—much the same as carrying coals to Newcastle. Fruit.— The giving of fruit and vegetables to children is often greatly overdone under the impression that they can hardly have too much of these excellent things. This is a great mistake. Too much fruit often causes a great deal of acidity, which gives rise to many an the cause of which is sometimes quite unsuspected. As an instance, a child’s cough can sometimes be cured merely~hy leaving off fruit. V egetables.— Vegetables are very necessary, but they too can be overdone. Children kept on a too exclusively vegetable diet often suffer from flatulence and stomach troubles.