The fat-making foods include sugars, starches, fat meats, butter and oil. It is not safe to deprive the body entirely of these groups of food substances, since proper nutrition depends upon a wholesomely balanced diet, but the amount of them taken by the average person can be very greatly cut down without any danger to health. It is not unusual for a single meal to include a cream soup, bread and butter, potatoes, macaroni, a starchy vegetable, such as beans, a salad dressed with oil, and a rice or cornstarch pudding,--a list of articles which, as may readily be seen, contains a much larger amount of fat-making food than is required by the actual needs of the body.
The woman who is in earnest to reduce her weight, then, should eat at each meal as little of the sweet or starchy articles of food and of the fats and oils as is compatible with health. Soup is best omitted altogether, not only because the cream soups and purées contain much fat-making material, but also because as little fluid as possible should be taken with meals. Among fish, salmon, bluefish and eels contain more fat than the other varieties of sea food. Fat meats and all forms of pork should be avoided. The potato is eaten so universally, appearing upon our tables at almost every meal, that its omission from the diet often seems a severe deprivation; however, it is one of the starchiest of foods, and should be cut entirely out of a menu planned for the reduction of weight. Most of the other vegetables grown below ground are also undesirable for the stout person; this class includes turnips, carrots, parsnips and beets,--not, however, onions or radishes. Peas and beans also contain a good deal of starch. It is almost impossible to eliminate bread-stuffs from the diet, yet much indulgence in the "bread and butter habit" is fatal to the woman who desires to grow thin. Bread has least flesh-forming power when thoroughly toasted; whole-wheat bread contains less starch than that made of the ordinary white flour, while gluten bread contains still less, and is the most desirable form for the stout person's use. Macaroni and spaghetti, rice, and the breakfast cereals are all included in the list of very starchy foods, and should, therefore, be avoided. Sweets of every sort--cakes, pies, puddings, ice cream, confectionery, chocolate, jam and preserves--are forbidden to one who is engaged in a flesh-reducing campaign. Very little butter should be eaten; no mayonnaise dressing or olive oil in any form, no cream, and not much milk,--none at all with meals.