Key to The Calories

Any food eaten beyond what your system requires for its energy, growth, and repair, is fattening, or is an irritant, or both.

If a food contains much fat, you will know that it is high in food value, for fat has two and one-quarter times the caloric value that proteins and carbohydrates have. Dry foods are high in value, for they are concentrated and contain little water. Compare the quantity of two heaping teaspoonfuls of sugar, a concentrated food, and one and one-half pounds of lettuce, a watery vegetable, each having the same caloric value. A moderate sized chocolate cream is not only concentrated but has considerable fat in the chocolate.

It is not necessary to know accurately the caloric values. In fact, authorities differ in some of their computations. The list is not mathematically correct, but it will give you a good idea of the relative values, and is accurate enough for our purposes. I have purposely given round numbers, where possible, in order to make them more easily remembered.

A mixture of foods should be used, in order to get the different elements which are necessary for the human machine. It is not wholesome to have many foods at a meal; but the menu should be varied from day to day.