_. The building foods are those which help largely in
forming new muscle and blood or other parts of the body. _Proteids_ is
another name for building foods.

_Sugars_ and _starches_ are placed in one group because starch changes
to sugar within the body. If you chew a starchy food like bread for a
few minutes, it will begin to taste sweet because the starch is
becoming sugar.

Fats are got not only from fat meat but also from eggs, butter, milk,
and many other foods. There is some mineral matter, such as potash and
soda, in many of the vegetables and meats eaten, and we use much table
salt to season other foods.

[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Good foods for building muscles, blood, and
bone.]

=Body-building Foods.=--A person with all the sugar, molasses, starch,
butter, and lard he could eat would starve to death in a few weeks
because none of these foods would help to build up the dying parts of
the body. A large amount of body builder is found in lean meat, eggs,
milk, peas, beans, corn meal, and bread. Bread and milk is a good food
to make the body grow. If the body takes in more building food than it
needs for repairs, it may store it up in the form of fat or burn it to
help the body do its work.

=The Fuel Foods.=--The fuel foods are the sugars, starches, and fats.
These are the foods which the body can easily burn to keep it warm and
give it power to act. Candy, molasses, or sugar in any form, taken in
small quantities, is a good food. Starch, which the body quickly
changes to sugar, is a much cheaper food. Meats contain very little
starch, but nearly all vegetables contain much starch. Three fourths
of corn meal, rice, wheat flour, and soda crackers consists of starch.
More than one half of white bread, dried beans, and peas is made of
pure starch, and there is much starch in potatoes.

_Fat_ is more abundant in animal than in vegetable food. Castor oil
and cotton-seed oil are fats from vegetables. The fat of the cow is
called _suet_ or _tallow_, while the fat of the hog is known as
_lard_. _Butter_ is the fat collected from milk. Cream and eggs
contain much fat. When persons eat too much of the sugars, starches,
or fats, the body may store them up as fat. For this reason thin
persons wishing to gain in flesh eat eggs, nuts, and rich milk.

=The Mineral Foods.=--The body must have not only lime to help form the
bones, but iron, salt, soda, and potash for other parts of the body. All
these minerals except sal