Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1867-07-22
FLESH As FOOD FOR CHILDREN:
NJ xns. ABIGAIL A. WOODWARD.

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There is no room for doubt that .
very large proportion of the children
who die in this country before they are
Eve years Of age, die in consequence of
bad habits Of eating; and there is scarce
ly another single thing in their dietic
management so injurious as feeding
them the flesh of animals. Whatever
grown-up persons may think of their
own need of eating meat, there q be
no excuse for feeding it to their chill
dren.
A little child does not need meat to
cat. As a rule, children who are
brought up without it are healthier, and
every way less liable to sickness than
are those children to whom it is fed.
No boy or girl should on any account
be allowed to eat meat habitunlly be-
fore fifteen years Of age, whatever may
be done after that time; and they would
be better by far never,to touch it at all
not ever to know how it tastes-until
that age. Pork is poison to a child,
and so is beef, even, for the meats
which people generally eat are BY no
means obtained from healthy animals.
The flesh Of the wild buffaloes on u
Western prairies, Of the prairie her,
and of other wild game, is healthy, be-
cause the animals from which it is OBJ
tanned are in q state Of health. But
the hog, which is the grossest kind OF
animal, and made to be a scavenger-
to eat up all sorts of decayiug things and
flth-which is shut up and fed all
that its g~luttonous appetite will permit
it to eat, until it becomes fat and measly,
is q sickly animal. Hogs are not so fat
and lazy by nature as persons sometimes
suppose. If they are left to 60 accord
ing to their own instincts, aud to obey
the laws of health which belong to them,
they will roam over the fields and woods
and will DE active and lean. Then they
are in health. The very process Of fat
teniug is a sickeuing process. AS with
a man, so with a swine. The least
movement of any muscle wears out par
ticles Of the substance Of the body, and
these are carried off as waste matter.
Hogs, running at large, throw of, every
day, q great deal of waste matter in this
way, supplying its place By the food
they eat. But, shut up in pens, they
cannot exercise this old worn out ma
terial can not be eliminated from the
system, aod as they keep eating, it ac-
cumulates /; and this is what we call fat
tening. 1t is simply the accumulation
Of effete, poisonous particles, and the
animals become security, and have ulcers
on their ~livers, and their lungs become
diseased oftimes, and their blood, Of
course, is diseased, and yet men kill
them aud eat them not only this, they
feed them to little children; and when
the children are sick and die, the parents
cannot imagine what was the matter
with them.
It ia not so strange that parents do not
perceive how detrimental the flesh Of
tatted animals is to their children, be-
cause the effec. are not always readily
apparent. Indeed, the injury which the
child suffers is often to be looked for in
its liability to take on disease, rather
than in any actual appearance ofdisease.
Some children who are allowed to eat
meat may be as strong, round and rosy,
and in apparently as good health as
those who are fed on bread and milk,
fruits, etc., but with the former there is
a much greater liability to sickness uu-
der exposure. Their blood is impure ;
and when any epidemic disease comes,
or dysentery is prevalent, or they are
exposed to take cold, they cannot resist
the tendencies to disease, and they be-
come sick and die whereas, if they had
been kept on healthy food, they would
have escaped with very slight sickness.
I would say 10 parents, then, ifyou wish
to have. your children healthy and free
from a tendency to disease, and might
also add, if you wish to have them good
tempered and free from %irritaoility, keep
all flesh meats away from .hem.-LaUs
Of Life.