Studies were made to determine what foods children ate during the period of delayed growth. It was found that the food of poorer families of the cities and of those families who lived in the country consisted mainly of corn and beans. Other studies showed that neither the corn not the beans had the needed food value. It was found also that children, while taking mother’s milk, were seldom given any other foods. When they were no longer taking mother’s milk, they ate food low in proteins. In a special study of one-year-olds in a town in Costa Rica, it was found that one child in three had never tasted fruit or fruit juice. Fewer than half of the one-year-olds had tasted milk after stopping mother’s milk. Only one in five had ever eaten an egg, and only one in a hundred, meat. They also had no yellow and green vegetables. Corn and beans were what the children ate, and these either slowed their growth or killed them.

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