When my children were younger, I always worried that they would get sick from eating too much candy after trick or treating.  I wondered –  how much candy is too much? And, should I be firm and ration the candy they’d collected? . . . or was it okay if I let them binge? Here’s what a hundred-year-old home economics textbook says:

Small children are better without candy, but it may be used by older persons if it is eaten in reasonable amounts. Candy is more easily digested at the end of a meal than between meals. Candy contains a large proportion of sugar, and sugar when eaten alone is irritating to the digestive organs.

Elementary Home Economics (1921) by Mary Lockwood Edwards

A hundred years ago people believed that food should be well-chewed before swallowing, and that eating food too rapidly was not healthy. Here is what it said in a 1921 book:

Hasty Eating

 Digestion begins in the mouth. But when food is improperly masticated, it enters the stomach with only slight alteration. The ptyalin of saliva is not present in sufficient quantity, under such conditions to produce any effect on the preliminary digestion of starches, with the result that the food passes through the duodenum practically unchanged, and in coarse particles, where it is likely to produce irritation. One authority says: 

“Although much of the mechanical preparation and mixing of foods is of a necessity done in the stomach, some of it may advantageously be done in the mouth. The stomach should not be required to perform the function of the gizzard of a fowl.” –Human Foods, page 227.

Hasty eating, or bolting of food, is a fruitful cause of over-eating. The food does not remain in the mouth long enough under this condition, to give the satisfaction that it gives when thoroughly masticated; so, in an effort to satisfy the craving for food, more is taken than the body requires. This habit leads, moreover, to the taking of too large a quantity in too short a time, which serves to paralyze, as it were, the nerve impulses that communicate with the brain, and as a result the important message “Enough” does not reach the brain until an excess of food has been consumed.

When farinaceous foods (breads, cereals, potato, etc.) are well chewed and intimately mixed with saliva, they are more efficiently digested, and go farther, less food being required than when not well digested. Bread made from the entire grain requires more mastication before it can be swallowed than does spongy white bread, and itself promotes good digestion. Dry foods, which induce mastication should have a prominent place in the history. 

The Science of Food and Cookery (1921) by H.S. Anderson

 

Here’s what a 1921 cookbook had to say about how to substitute various sweets for sugar in recipes:

As substitutes for sugar for cooking purposes, corn sirup, molasses, glucose, maple sugar and sirup, and also honey come in for their share of usefulness. The question arises in the mind of many a housewife as to how much of these diluted sugars should be substituted in customary recipes. For this reason, the following facts may be of interest.

Corn sirup and maple sirup are not so sweet as sugar, and when used to replace it, should be increased from one half to two thirds. For instance, if a recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar, use as substitute 1 1/2 to 1/2/3 cups of sirup. In this case, allowance must be made for the increase in liquid. Every cup of sirup furnishes 1/4 cup of liquid; there for every cup of sirup that is substituted for sugar, reduce the original amount of liquid in the recipe 1/4 cup. Unless such allowance is made for the liquid that the sirup adds, an extra amount of flour is needed to obtain the necessary thickness to the batter, and a poor product is likely to result.

In using molasses and brown sugar, no change need to be made so far as amounts for sweetening purposes are concerned, because what these lack in sweetness is largely made up in flavor. However, the same allowance must be made for the liquid as when sirup is used. Glucose is best when used with part sugar, say 1/3 sugar to 2/3 glucose by measure. When used thus, it is suitable for canning purposes, also for making of sauces, etc.

Honey, one of the most staple sweetenings in the world, and probably the longest used, as not been in very common use for cooking purposes. Its sweetening power is about the same as that of sugar, and it should be used in the same proportions as white sugar, except that one fourth less of liquid should be used in a recipe with honey than with sugar. Honey is best adapted for table use; and for this purpose, it had better replace white sugar entirely.

 The Science of Food and Cookery (1921) by H. S. Anderson

The substitution amounts probably haven’t changed across the years – but the spelling has. “Sirup” is now often spelled “syrup,” and “sweetenings” are now “sweeteners.” There sugar substitution recommendations in the old cookbook for both “corn sirup” and “glucose.” I’ve always thought that corn syrup and glucose were the same thing, but apparently they are different.