Frances Cope Hummel

The influence of a daily serving of spinach or its equivalent in oxalic acid upon the mineral utilization of children

Summary 1. One hundred and twenty-one metabolic balances for each nitrogen,calcium, and phosphorus have been made on ten growing children. The individual physiologic response characteristic for each child on the different dietary regimens has been determined for sixty to eighty-five successive days by five-day balance periods. Each child served as his own control. 2. Control periods of twenty-five days on the ordinary mixed dietof common foods showed the children to be storing nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. The storage rates of these elements were not significantly altered by the daily consumption of 100 grams of spinach; more-over, they were compatible with normal variations observed in growth. 3. No cumulative toxic or untoward effects could be determined either in the average daily retentions, or in the progressive storage curves of nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus either during the period of consumption of spinach and oxalic acid or during the control period immediately following. 4. The supplementation of an already adequate diet with a generous serving of spinach daily, even for as long as forty consecutive days, did not change the rate of calcium storage in growing children when their calcium intake was adequate to cover the precipitating effect of the oxalic acid and provide for their fluctuating growth needs. 5. The practical conclusion drawn from the data recorded herein is that spinach is not harmful even in servings of 100 grams daily, at least in preadolescent children, but because of its richness in vitamins, minearls, especially iron, and other nutritive essentials it should retain its customary place along with other green leafy vegetables.

Influence of raw banana and apple upon disappearance of complex carbohydrates from the alimentary tracts of normal children.

The disappearance of unavailable carbohydrates from the alimentary tracts of 9 normal children, ages 5 to 8 years, was determined during pre-experimental periods of 30 to 55 consecutive days for each child and experimental periods of 20 to 50 consecutive days immediately following for each subject. The diets of the children were composed of the same foods but the quantities varied according to the size and activity of the individual. All of the children received an additional 100 grams of banana per day in the experimental regimen although the added fruit was substituted for bread and cereal in the diets of 5 subjects and one subject received the additional banana plus more potato, bread and butter in the experimental period diet.