PART X.

INVALIDS' AND INFANTS' FOODS.

One of the most important subjects in connection with the food supply is the study of the foods which are offered for the use of infants and invalids. The demands of modern society, unfortunately, have deprived the American infant in many cases of the food which Nature intended it to have. It is, therefore, a condition, rather than a theory, confronting the feeding of the American infant. It often is a choice between starvation and an artificial food. A most self-evident fact in connection with infant food is that until an infant reaches the age when it is naturally weaned it should have as a food only milk. The common substitute for mother's milk is cow's milk. The important point in this connection is that the milk should be from a healthy cow, kept in a sanitary condition, and the milk should be secured in thoroughly sanitary ways. These methods of preparing milk are, in fact, the practical result of modern sanitary theories. The composition of cow's milk is not that of mother's milk. It contains more protein and less milk sugar than the normal milk of the mother. For this reason the cow's milk is often modified to bring it into nearer relationship to the natural mother's milk. When this is done under scientific directions and according to a prescription furnished by a competent physician or physiologist there is no objection to its use provided it is accomplished without exposure of the milk to bacteria or other contamination. The addition of drugs to milk in its preparation for infants' use cannot be generally commended. The citrate of lime or limewater is one of the substances which is often added to milk, and that, too, by the direction of a physician. There are conditions of disease in infants where such a modification is advisable, but it is doubtful if it is ever so in the case of a healthy child. The same remark may be made respecting the limewater.

Composition of Modified Milk.-Proteids and ash in cow's milk are much higher than in human milk and are brought to the proper degree of reduction by blending with other milk and diluting the milk with water.

The ingredients commonly employed for modified milk are (1) cream containing 16 percent of fat; (2) centrifugally skimmed milk by which the fat has been removed; (3) milk sugar or a standard solution of milk sugar of say 20 percent strength; and (4) lime water.

Formula. It is obviously impossible to establish formulæ universally applicable even to healthy infants, but the following may be regarded as typical, representing the composition of a modified milk, to suit the needs of an average growing infant during its first year:

Solid Infant's Food.-A large number of infant foods in the solid state are upon the market. These have been studied very carefully by many observers with a view not only of determining their chemical properties but also their relative digestibility. These prepared infant foods are not always made in harmony with the natural demands of young children. As has just been indicated, they are not, as a rule, suitable for infants before the time of weaning, being better adapted to the use of young children. In the following tables are the data representing the chemical composition of some of the common infants' foods.

Invalid Foods.-The term "invalid foods" is applied to almost every kind of a concoction containing a food substance which is administered to an invalid or convalescent, often for medical purposes rather than for real nutrition. Chief among these invalid foods may be mentioned the meat extracts containing that portion of the meat soluble in hot water. These bodies consist chiefly of meat bases together with certain soluble salts and it has long been recognized that they have very little nutritive value. They are also found in concentrated or even a dry state. The unconcentrated invalid foods of this class sometimes contain glycerol (glycerine) or alcohol as a preservative. There are also many forms of meat juice supposed to be the direct extract by pressure or otherwise of the natural juice of the meat. Since these bodies could not be preserved otherwise than by sterilization, which would coagulate the albuminous portion, they are often preserved by the addition of glycerine or some other antiseptic substance. It is doubtful

if any of these preserved bodies are proper food for a deranged stomach either in the case of a real invalid or of a convalescent.

In addition to these there are a great many so-called predigested or precooked foods which are largely advertised for certain forms of deranged digestion or malnutrition. The market is flooded with brain foods, nerve foods, etc., which, if they were as poor as their advertising claims are exaggerated, would be sorry substitutes for the natural food which grown people eat. Fortunately these foods are often far better than one would suppose and many of them are wholly unobjectionable in character in so far as composition is concerned, though the price which one must pay for these nutrients seems out of all proportion to the actual cost of the raw material. Following are data showing the composition of some of the more important foods which are advertised as having curative or medicinal qualities or as suitable for infants and invalids, and thus are brought prominently to the attention of the invalid or convalescent.

The above data give a general view of the relations of nutrient in foods of this class. The percentage of mineral matter varies chiefly in proportion to the varying content of common salt. The fat varies from one to about nine percent. Protein exists in quantities from nearly six to 15 percent. Sugar constitutes the predominant nutritive component of almost all these bodies, only one showing a small percentage thereof. It is evident that if any one of these types of food be regarded as a standard nearly all the others would prove objectionable. The foods in the following table are largely farinaceous in composition.

APPENDIX A.

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY-Circular No. 19.

STANDARDS OF PURITY FOR FOOD PRODUCTS.
SUPERSEDING CIRCULARS Nos. 13 AND 17.

SUPPLEMENTAL PROCLAMATION.

Referring to Circular No. 13 of this Office, dated December 20, 1904, and to Circular No. 17 of this Office, dated March 8, 1906, the following food standards are hereby established as superseding and supplemental to those proclaimed on the dates above named.

JAMES WILSON, Secretary of Agriculture.

WASHINGTON, D. C., June 26, 1906.

LETTER OF SUBMITTAL.

THE HONORABLE THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE:

Sir: The undersigned, representing the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists of the United States and the Interstate Food Commission, and commissioned by you, under authority given by the act of Congress approved March 3, 1903, to collaborate with you "to establish standards of purity for food products and to determine what are regarded as adulterations therein," respectfully report that they have carefully reviewed, in the light of recent investigations and correspondence, the standards earlier recommended by them and have prepared a set of amended schedules, in which certain changes have been introduced for the purpose of securing increased accuracy of expression and a more perfect correspondence of the chemical limits to the normal materials designated, and from which standards previously proclaimed for several manufactured articles have been omitted because of the unsatisfactory condition of trade nomenclature as applied thereto; and also additional schedules of standards for ice creams, vegetables and vegetable products, tea, and coffee. They respectfully recommend that the standards herewith submitted be approved and proclaimed as the established standards, superseding and supplementing those established on December 20, 1904, and March 8, 1906.

The principles that have guided us in the formulation of these standards are appended hereto.