The meats most adapted to children are so-called white meats, that is, in the first place, chicken, then veal; also the light flesh of fish, (sole, pike, cod).
After the age of four, filet of beef may also be introduced into the diet, but never heavy and fat meats like that of the pig, the capon, the eel, the tunny, etc., which are to be _absolutely excluded_ along with mollusks and crustaceans, (oysters, lobsters), from the child's diet.
Croquettes made of finely ground meat, grated bread, milk, and beaten eggs, and fried in butter, are the most wholesome preparation. Another excellent preparation is to mould into balls the grated meat, with sweet fruit-preserve, and eggs beaten up with sugar.
At the age of five, the child may be given breast of roast fowl, and occasionally veal cutlet or filet of beef.
Boiled meat must never be given to the child, because meat is deprived of many stimulating and even nutritive properties by boiling and rendered less digestible.
_Nerve Feeding Substances._ Besides meat a child who has reached the age of four may be given fried brains and sweetbreads, to be combined, for example, with chicken croquettes.
_Milk Foods._ All cheeses are to be excluded from the child's diet.
The only milk product suitable to children from three to six years of age is fresh butter.
_Custard._ Custard is also to be recommended provided it be _freshly prepared_, that is immediately before being eaten, and _with very fresh_ milk and eggs: if such conditions cannot be rigorously fulfilled, it is preferable to do without custard, which is not a necessity.
_Bread._ From what we have said about soups, it may be inferred that bread is an _excellent food_ for the child. It should be well selected; the crumb is not very digestible, but it can be utilised, when it is dry, to make a bread broth; but if one is to give the child simply a piece of bread to eat, it is well to offer him the crust, the end of the loaf. Bread sticks are excellent for those who can afford them.
Bread contains many nitrogenous substances and is very rich in starches, but is lacking in fats; and as the fundamental substances of diet are, as is well known, three in number, namely, proteids, (nitrogenous substances), starches, and fats, bread is not a complete food; it is necessary therefore to offer the child buttered bread, which constitutes a complete food and may be considered as a sufficient and complete breakfast.