Food and fitness; or, Diet in relation to health

D FITNESS

JAMES LONG

THE HIGHEST
FOOD VALUE

IS IN

PINK'S

HIGH CLASS

JAMS

MADE FROM FRESH FRUIT
AND PURE SUGAR, IN A
MODEL HYGIENIC FACTORY,
THEY CAN CONFIDENTLY
BE CALLED

^^PERFECT QUALITY"
E. & T. PINK, Ltd.

LONDON.

THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED TO

A FRIEND;

WHO, BY PRECEPT AND PRACTICE,

HAS TAUGHT, AND IS STILL TEACHING,

LITTLE CHILDREN TO BE FAITHFUL

CITIZENS OF TWO KINGDOMS.

NESTLE'S MILK

is the best Milk to use for all

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Only boiling water required. Keeps any lengtli o£ time.

"^

THE EVERYDAY MILK."

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Absolutely free from sugar or other preserving agent.
"IDEAL MILK " is fresh, pure milk, concentrated to
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Milkmaid Milk-Cocoa

The Cocoa with the Milk-Chocolate flavour.

A delicious beverage, requiring

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MILKMAID CREAM

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Guaranteed to contain no preservatives
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" Can be Whipped, but can't be Beaten."

FOOD AND FITNESS

OR

DIET IN RELATION TO HEALTH

BY

JAMES LONG

AUTHOR OF "the COMING ENGLISHMAN," "MAKING THE MOST OF
THE LAND," "BRITISH DAIRY FARMING"

LATE MEMBER OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE CENTRAL CHAMBER OF

AGRICULTURE ; MEMBER OF THE SMALL HOLDINGS' COMMITTEE AND FORMERLY

PROFESSOR IN THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE;

DANISH AND DUTCH MEDALLIST

LONDON

CHAPMAN AND HALL, Ltd.

1917

MAIN LH

Feed the Nerves!

IN these times of stress and worry it is just as essential to
feed the Nerves as to feed the body. No one would
think of starving" themselves — why therefore starve the
Nerves? The vital food for the nerves is phosphorus, and
any strain put upon the nervous system causes the phosphorus
obtained naturally from the ordinary food to be used up too
quickly. It is therefore necessary to supply the nerves with
an additional quantity of phosphorus to make good this
wastag-e. Phosphorus in its natural state is most difficult
of assimilation, but as combined in Sanagen is most easily
digested even by the weakest Stomach.

mM^NERVEFi

is composed of the body-building proteid of pure rich milk
chemically combined with phosphorus, and by taking a regular
course of this food people who have to undergo great nervous
strain — and who doesn't at this time ? — will keep their
nervous system well nourished and up to "concert pitch,"
thus enabling them to combat against any excessive loss of
nerve energy. Sanagen is being prescribed by all the leading
doctors throughout the world as a tonic restorative food in —

Nervous Breakdown
Sleeplessness
Lack of Energy

Neurasthenia
Weak Nerves
Shell Sao5k

Convalescence
after Illness
Nervous Dyspepsia

A safe super. 'food in Diabetes, Dysentery, Enteric Fever,
etc. ; in fact, a most valuable ?.dditi6n^to any form of diet.

Casein L'itti*iie?d reielvetl'
the Gold Medal at the 17th
International Medical Con-
gress, London, 1913.

1 oz. of Sanagfen is equal
in food value and Phos-
phorus content to 1 lb. of
fresh roast beef.

Sanagen is stocked by the leading chemists throughout the
world in 1/6, 2/6, 4/6, and 8/- packets, or can be obtained
direct from the Sole Proprietors and Manufacturers —

CASEIN LIMITED, Battersea, London, S.W.

PREFACE

Modern investigation, both in science and
practice, has demonstrated the fact so clearly
that it cannot be mistaken, that health is very
largely governed by the food we consume. That
we eat too much is admitted by intelligent students
of dietetics. That we eat carelessly, quickly,
irregularly, and too often, and without regard to
the essential importance of mastication and per-
fect digestion, is also admitted. When, however,
we discuss with the average man the question of
what we should eat and what we should avoid,
we tread upon difficult ground. Preference and
prejudice then come to the front, and thus, with-
out understanding the principles of nutrition,
and the reasons why some forms of food are so
much better than others, argument loses its force
in the presence of the belief inculcated by the
example of parents and of general practice.

I am not a vegetarian, although I am conscious
that flesh food is not essential to health or to
strength, and that as we reach middle age it is
a danger to both. There are many exceptions, but
evidence proves that an enormous majority of
meat-eaters, and especially of those who eat meat

V

4i Os^O^

vi PREFACE

— fish, flesh, or fowl, two or three times a day —
acquire some form of disease which is practically
foreign to the vegetarian or the temperate man.

To a large extent health is a matter of educa-
tion. I have been engaged for a long series of
years in a study of the feeding of the live-stock
of the farm, both on its scientific and practical
sides, and I find that the knowledge displayed by
owners of horses, cattle, sheep, swine, and poultry
is much more profound than that which applies
to themselves. In relation to stock the object
of the feeder is to provide what will ensure health
and a profitable return. He supplies not what
an animal would choose if it could, but what he
thinks is the best for his purpose. With regard
to himself it is quite the reverse. He consumes
not what is the best food for his system, but what
pleases his palate, eating as often and as much as
he likes. Argument is futile, demonstration is
hopeless, for most people insist that all things are
good for their stomachs, or that one man's meat is
another man's poison.

The number of deaths, between 60 and 70, of
men who should live many years longer, from
diseases attributable to excessive eating, or to
eating improper foods, is probably greater than
that which is due to the consumption of alcohol.

I have attempted, in the following pages, to

PREFACE vii

show why these appalHng losses occur, how to
avoid the diseases which cause them and the
dangers which they are constantly threatening.

This is neither a purely scientific nor theoretical
discussion of food in relation to health, but the
result of a wide study of the scientific side of the
subject, which I have applied in actual practice.
Long-continued ill-health, — caused by consumption
of inappropriate food, — which the most drastic
medical treatment failed to restore to normal
condition, induced me to apply the principles of
nutrition — as I had studied them in relation to
the domestic animal world — to myself. The result
was mmediate, and I never looked back from the
moment of exchanging the usual diet with meat for
one in which fruit plays the principal role. Robust
health — which I was advised by the ablest of men
could never return at a late period of life — strength,
mental activity, and sleep, an almost unknown
quantity, made life worth living once more. Yet a
free hand is maintained, so that in case of necessity
I can eat like the rest of the world. What has
happened to me has happened to thousands, and
will happen to many who have the desire, and are
willing to test a system which cannot do harm, but
will certainly be of assistance to those who honestly
make the attempt. While I cannot undertake to
answer the inquiries of the curious, my desire is

viii PREFACE

to be useful to those to whom, for similar reasons
to mine, the joy of living is a thing of the past.

Life does not consist of eating and drinking
with the result that to-morrow we die. God has
a purpose with us all, and I believe that purpose
is frequently marred by ourselves and our irrational
habit of living. There is no form of vegetable
food — bread, pulse, cereals, garden vegetables, or
fruits — placed upon our tables which contain, or
produce, poisonous substances. On the contrary,
there is no flesh food, alcoholic liquor, coffee, or
tea which do not. It is the act, perpetrated two or
three times a day, which becomes the confirmed
habit, of taking something which is deleterious, that
tells in the end, and that is constantly robbing the
world of lives before they have contributed their
share for the general good in their day and
generation.

I tender my grateful thanks to Prof. Chittenden
of Yale, Dr. Bircher Benner of Zurich, and Dr.
Hindhede of Copenhagen, all of whom may have
the satisfaction of knowing that they have been
the means of mending many broken lives by their
teaching and example. I shall be amply repaid
if I can be used in restoring one bruised being to
that happy condition which is meant for us all.

The prices of foodstuffs are based chiefly upon
pre-war quotations.

CONTENTS

CHAP.

I THE ART OF LIFE

II FOOD AS A GOVERNING FACTOR IN HEALTH

III THE FUNCTION OF FOOD

IV THE VALUE OF FOODSTUFFS

V WHAT WE SHOULD EAT

VI THE MOST ECONOMICAL FOODSTUFFS .

VII THE ADVANTAGES OF AN INCREASED VEGE

TABLE DIET

VIII VEGETABLES AS FOOD ....

IX FRUIT AS FOOD. SALADS, TEA, COFFEE

COCOA, JAM

X IS MEAT AN ESSENTIAL?

XI THE SELECTION OF FOODS .

XII FITNESS FOR WORK ....

XIII SLEEP

XIV RECORDS OF WEIGHTS OF FOOD BEFORE AND

AFTER COOKING ....
XV FOOD VALUES IN RELATION TO PRICE

PAGE
1

15
32
43
57
65

101
115

130
154
159
181
186

193
202

IX

Cip1o9

anno

Crelos' shows you a sane
saving — that is, it offers you

for hast money the highest pos-
sible food-value of any fat food.

Also, 'Crelos' is as delicious as finest
butter, and is more easily digested.
'Crelos' is splendid for cooking.

Also, 'Crelos' is absolutely pure, and
always of the same faultless quality.

amsDunts

shops J

FOOD AND FITNESS

CHAPTER I

THE ART OF LIFE

During a comparatively few weeks, immediately
preceding the commencement of this chapter, the
author lost five old friends, varying in age from
sixty to sixty-six — all of whom, blessed with good
constitutions, ought by all the laws of life to have
lived another twenty years. In one instance health
was subordinated to science, in another to pleasure,
and in the third and fourth to carelessness, born of
ignorance of themselves. In each case a vital
organ broke down owing to that absolute failure
to recognise the laws which govern health, and to
the consequent pressure which is placed upon the
mechanism of the body — a pressure which a much
less delicate organism could not successfully
withstand.

Man has constructed beautiful machinery, and
whether it is working or not, he maintains it in

'i ' ' tOOJy AND FITNESS

perfect order. He lubricates it, he adjusts it, he
repairs it, and when it is working he " stands by,"
careful not to work it too fast, and to maintain
regular action and perfect equilibrium. The same
man neglects the mechanism of his own body,
which is a thousand times more fragile and wonder-
ful than any machine in the world ; he fails to keep
it clean, and never adjusts it for twenty-four
consecutive hours. On the contrary, he abuses it
with more or less regularity until the end of his
life, denying to himself that care, thought and
attention which he confers on the machinery in
his factories, and the horses and cattle which he
controls.

I have met with persons who indulge in all the
good things of life, and who, with the arrival of
physical trouble, throw the onus on God. The
unwritten laws of the universe which teach us that
we shall reap what we have sown, are ignored
altogether in the claim to eat and to drink, not
only what God has provided, but what man has
invented to give pleasure to the palate or a stimu-
lant to the system, as often and as abundantly
as he chooses.

If alcohol kills its thousands, excessive eating
and the consumption of improper foods kill their
thousands too. The systems of man and the
animals he domesticates are closely allied. Why,

THE ART OF LIFE 3

therefore, should he indulge himself as he dare not
indulge them, without the conviction that he will
pay for it, as they would, by the destruction of his
health or the loss of his life ? Science has deter-
mined with some accuracy not only what foods
but what quantities of those foods domestic animals
require, both under conditions of labour and
inactivity, for the maintenance of their health and
productive power. Man ignores all teaching in the
same direction, and, having eaten enough for two
or three people, or eaten unsuitable foods and been
attacked by some disease in consequence, he prays
for recovery from the trouble which he says God
has " inflicted " upon him. The disease is not the
work of a merciful Creator, it is self-inhicted ; it is
the harvest which follows the sowing of the seed.

The man who drives to his office after a bountiful
breakfast, works until one, and then indulges in a
costly and liberal luncheon, cannot continue the
practice without harm. Still less can he drive
home again, eat a four or five course dinner with
wine, and remain well, in spite of his doctor. He
may abuse himself in this way when he is young
and vigorous, but he is only deferring the day of
collapse, which nothing can avert if he persists.
So it is that strong men live " well " for a time,
and later on simply exist with the assistance of
their medical man, until an organ breaks down

4 FOOD AND FITNESS

when they reach sixty to sixty-five years of age —
and they are gone. Thus a hfe is wasted although
it might have been long, useful and happy. This
is no less than unintentional suicide. God is not
the dread being who condemns one of His creatures
to die immature, and another to die at the age
of fourscore. Inheritance, environment, occupa-
tion, the example and teaching of parents, all play
a part in man's physical power, his health, his
happiness, and the length of his life. Knowing,
as w^e do, that the clergyman and the farmer live
much longer than the butcher or the miner, that
the temperate man lives longer than the intem-
perate, the children of long-lived parents than
those whose parents were unhealthy and died
young, how can we regard " chance " as a factor
in the length of our days, or presume to believe
that God selects victims for early destruction or
for the infliction of a lingering or painful disease ?
Or, on the other hand, how can we suppose that
health and length of life are not largely in our own
hands ?

Life, and especially happy life, depends much
upon its usefulness. If it is aimless, if it is un-
occupied, it breeds discontent, alike with its fellow-
man and its Maker. Life should be employed
with a purpose, an object which is outside of
itself. If it is buoyant and bright, that object

THE ART OF LIFE 5

will be attained, in so far as its powers permit;
but if it is governed by a temperament Vv^hich is
always devoted to self and self's sorrows, whether
they are real or imaginary, it will decline and
leave nothing behind it but the sad epitaph :
" What might have been."

Those who are sinking in the " vale of years "
will not find the physical life respond to mere
physical help. There is a psychical side. ^Miile
recognising all the blessings we enjoy, we should
follow some pursuit right up to the last, engaging
the mind by which the body should be controlled.
It has been said that while the healthy body of
a strong man obeys the mind, the unhealthy body
of a weak man rules it. In the practice of the art
of life man should not be controlled by circum-
stances— he should control them. If he knew
that, like a clever woman, he could preserve him-
self, as she can preserve her beauty, by self-control,
he would still fail, as woman fails, because she
declines to believe. There is no more certain
road to this result than to reject those foods which,
like alcohol, make the body coarse and impinge
upon the mind. The beauty of woman, like the
mind of man, is marred by flesh-food eating, as by
strong drinking, and retained by taking fruit
instead.

Science has made great efforts to exterminate

6 FOOD AND FITNESS

contagious diseases, and to cure or alleviate those
which are organic in character — and with enormous
success; but she has made practically no effort at
all to prevent those physical troubles which are
caused by our habits or by our ignorance of our-
selves. The general public know nothing what-
ever about the functions of their bodies, or, indeed,
of the functions of their food. To the man in the
street one form of food is as good as another —
better only or worse when it conflicts with his
taste. The rich indulge in costly productions,
while the poor affect the same style in their limited
way. The fact that some foods are detrimental to
the health, which they ultimately destroy in the
great majority, is less understood than the fact
that over-eating is a dangerous habit. If the laws
of health were studied as acutely as the appetite,
dress, pleasures and means of " getting on," we
should be a different people — a robust, an increas-
ing, a happier and more prosperous race. But the
time is not yet, the majority will continue to
adhere to the remarkable words, " Let us eat and
drink, for to-morrow w^e die," and this literally
represents the attitude of many practical, educated
and religious men, who in some mysterious way
appear to believe that " all men are mortal but
themselves."

Pure air is another condition of health and long

THE ART OF LIFE 7

life. Although man cannot live for five minutes
without air he may live without food for a week;
he subordinates pure air to personal comfort, or
ignores it altogether. Air is excluded from our
bedrooms as though it were the poisonous gas
which we exhale from the lungs, and which we
take every care to preserve that we may inhale
it again, by ignoring ventilation. Travellers by
rail are frequently crowded in a third-class com-
partment with both windows closed, rejecting any
suggestion to the effect that air is essential to life
in their fear of catching cold. I have visited a
patient lying in the last stage of consumption in
a bedroom of some 12 ft. by 9 ft. in which there
was no ventilation whatever. The window was
permanently closed ; there was no fireplace, and
consequently no chimney; while the door was
closed too. The man who is compelled to labour in
an office, a factory, a shop, or a warehouse, where
the air is impure, as it usually is in crowded towns,
can, and must if he would live a normal life, pass
abundance of fresh air through his lungs by taking
long walks away from the streets and habitations
of men, where alone he can obtain what he wants.
A man walking at a pace of four miles an hour
passes five times as much air through his lungs as
a man sitting, while a man sitting inhales more
than a man lying or sleeping. The carbon of food,

8 FOOD AND FITNESS

which acts chiefly as fuel in warming the body
and providing for the exercise of energy, is burnt
when it comes into contact with the oxygen of
the air, which passes into the hmgs, as perfectly
as coal is burnt in a stove. If, however, the
passage of air through the stove is restricted the
fire burns imperfectly, or it goes out. It is pre-
cisely the same in the human body. If the breath-
ing is restricted, or the air is impure, something
goes wrong, and the body suffers accordingly.

If a healthy man observes the laws of health
he will remain healthy until he is worn out. He
cannot acquire disease from pure air, a clean body,
exercise, or the moderate consumption of suitable
food. If, however, these laws are ignored, it is
only a question of time for the human machine
to break down. There is only one course to pursue
in order to live wisely and long — there is no halfway
house — and that way is found in the constant
observation of these laws. By the adoption of this
course the system is hardened and unaffected by
those changes which occur in the weather, and in
our everyday life, but which immediately affect
the unfit.

We are shown by our official statisticians that
while only one-half the ministers of religion, followed
by farmers, die at the average age of all men, the
publican dies at three times — and the barman four

THE ART OF LIFE 9

times — their speed. While man Hves longer by
ten years than he did a century ago, or by twenty
than he did a century before that, we are still far
from reaching the age to which we should live if
we took greater care. We live faster, and nerves,
heart disease, tuberculosis and determination to
" get on " are killing almost as many men as have
been saved by improved sanitation and hygiene.
We should never work against the grain — live in
the country as much as we can, eat only three
meals a day, and repudiate afternoon-tea — a
suggestion which will not meet with the approval
of women.

How far we shall advance in the improvement
of the character of the race, as distinct from its
physique, is another matter. Woman plays a
great part here. Many of the noblest, gentlest,
purest and most unselfish characters prefer to
glorify the celibate life. In their anxiety to accom-
plish good works, and to obey the teaching of
Scripture, many disobey the universal and instinc-
tive law of life — a law in which the most beautiful
of all the attributes of man is involved, " Be fruitful
and multiply " — ^the law of Love. Thus posterity
is deprived of characteristics which, inherited from
some of the best of mankind, would help to lift
the race to a higher and holier plane, while vice
perpetuates its progeny unchecked.

10 FOOD AND FITNESS

Another question occurs in relation to habits,
which we are told form character, as character
forms destiny. Thus, a regular habit of doing the
right forms a righteous character, and the char-
acter makes the man. The character of a righteous
man ensures peace, contentment, satisfaction, hap-
piness ; and these attributes assist in maintain-
ing health and long life. There are many beautiful
characters in the world who ignore habit in defer-
ence to their unselfish desires. It is a deliberate
act of wrong-doing to play with one's health for
any object whatever. Life is given us for a pur-
pose, and that purpose is best served by pre-
serving it as carefully as we can, but without ever
making health a fad. The longer a man or a
woman lives in a condition of fitness, the longer
and better the service which they can render to
others.

There is a system of maltreatment by stuffing
with food which is adopted with the object of
restoring health to those suffering from nervous
and other complaints of which the public should
beware. It was remarked by Dr. Keith, in his
Plea for a Simple Life, that among the cases of
maltreatment with which he was acquainted a
patient suffering from enlargement of the stomach
was provided with a daily ration consisting of
1 J lb. of pounded beef, 1 lb. of fish, two large meals

THE ART OF LIFE 11

of revalenta, one of Benger's food made with meat
stock, 6 to 8 glasses of milk, a portion of which
was given with the revalenta, with coffee and
biscuits during the night. The stomach of the
patient was daily washed out with a stomach
pump. This authority, in discussing this ques-
tion, suggested that medical men should point out
to patients the principles upon which they are
treated. If this plan were adopted educated men
would hesitate before permitting themselves to be
treated by the drastic method of stuffing.

Those forms of disease for the cure of which
patients are required to eat abnormally large
quantities of food are frequently caused by the
consumption of wrong food. Thus it happens that
fuel is added to the fire — the objectionable food
being eaten in still larger quantities, while the
organs of digestion are simultaneously taxed beyond
their powers of endurance. In similar cases the
abolition of flesh foods in favour of small quantities
of fruit, vegetables, cereals, butter and milk, has
cleared the ground and restored the patient to
health. In cases of digestive trouble, abstinence
in the absence of appetite until the desire for
eating returns gives nature her chance. There is
less waste of food in the process of nutrition
when the body is unfit, from a small ration, than
when it is large. Persons in bad health, however,

12 FOOD AND FITNESS

are induced to eat abundantly to please their
doctors and their friends, although they are averse
to the practice and have no desire for food.

Some persons maintain excellent health by
abstaining from food at the first meal of the day,
content only with a cup of coffee, while others
take only a coffee and roll. Dr. Rendall, the well-
known English physician at Mentone, once pointed
out the same fact to the writer, remarking that he
was able to see all his patients before lunch on this
small quantity of food, while English patients
eating abnormally large breakfasts came to him
for advice. The practice of " over-eating conduces
to chill or deposit in some overworked organ," and
possible permanent trouble, while flesh-eating is
impossible for the nervous, the gouty, or those
with rheumatic tendency. The consumption of
large quantities of food, too, induces the blood to
flow to the organs of digestion, which become
enlarged, with the result that the appetite is not
satisfied until they have been supplied with more
than they need.

Referring to this point, Dr. Keith remarks that
under such conditions alcohol, meat, tea, with
other unsuitable foods being freely supplied, a
crisis arrives, which the healthiest cannot prevent.
If, however, nature is permitted to assert herself
by abstinence from food, instead of being pre-

THE ART OF LIFE 13

vented by the use of aperients, she will punish
her broken laws by the cessation of the desire for
food and promote the work of restoration. If this
is accomplished there should be no repetition of
the practice of over -eating. Most of us receive
warnings with regard to our health, Vvhich we ignore
until serious trouble arises. The strong man
succumbs to a practice which a weak man dare
not attempt to pursue. If, however, he followed
the w^eak man's example he would live longer and
happier, and transmit to the next generation that
strength and endurance which the race needs ; and
so by the adoption of that course of procedure
which man follows with his horses and cattle, each
generation would grow stronger and stronger until
the average life of our people might be raised to
fourscore years, and that of the strongest of all
to a hundred.

Among the most important and valuable prac-
tices which, in common with much older people, we
have found most useful in preserving health are —

1. A good smart walk before breakfast.

2. Meals at regular hours.

3. The thorough mastication of food : never

eating too much.

4. The avoidance of fish, flesh, or fowl, or their

very occasional use.

14 FOOD AND FITNESS

5. The consumption of fruit at all meals.

6. Early rising and early to bed.

7. Windows always open in the bedroom.

8. Avoidance of rich sauces, condiments and

parent foods which require no chewing.

9. Abstinence from alcohol, tea and coffee.

10. Walking at least six miles a day at a good

pace.

11. A hobby — if it is work so much the better.

12. No constructive brain work after the last

meal, which should never be later than
7.30 if sleep is required.

13. At least six hours' sleep for the adult.

CHAPTER II

FOOD AS A GOVERNING FACTOR IN HEALTH

There is a common desire among men, who have
found something beneficial to their spiritual or
physical health, to impart the secret to others.
I am neither a vegetarian nor a fruitarian, but,
while I believe that vegetable foods should form
the basis and bulk of all that we eat, I would
leave responsible and healthy people who have
studied the functions of food to arrange their diet
for themselves. As a food reformer, however, I
make two reservations. The first is, that the con-
sumption of meat should be largely reduced — it
would be better abandoned by middle-aged people
— and the provision of fruits largely increased.

Length of Life

I need scarcely remark that there are some
people — although they are few — who have eaten
and drunk just what they liked best, who have
lived to great ages. Not one of us, however, can

15

16 FOOD AND FITNESS

presume upon a similar result by following a
similar practice. The fact remains that eight
persons out of nine die before they have lived a
life of normal length, and that the average length
of life should be thirty years longer. I am led to
believe from all I have read of the habits of those
who have lived very long lives, and by my observa-
tion of the results of excessive, or careless, eating
and drinking on the one hand, and of moderate
eating and adherence to a diet chiefly composed
of fruit and vegetable on the other, that the
length of life depends to a large extent upon our-
selves. In other words, I believe that with care
in the selection and consumption of food, with
liberal exercise, and the judicious management of
their bodies, healthy persons should live until
eighty-five or ninety, and that the average expecta-
tion of life should be seventy years.

Good Digestion a Misfortune

I suppose that there is no branch of knowledge
about which the public know so little as that
which relates to food and its functions, its influence
on their health and their lives, and its nutritive
value. Each man is a law unto himself. A fat
man with a good digestion is perfectly satisfied :
nothing troubles him but his appetite, which he
gratifies to the full, unconscious of, and indifferent

FOOD AS A GOVERNING FACTOR 17

to, the fact that his digestion is his misfortune,
and that he is unHkely to Hve a long Hfe. The
large eater of meat, like the frequent consumer
of alcohol, lives on a volcano, careless of the
fact that he is putting unhealthy pressure upon
vital organs, one of which is almost certain to
break down earlier than nature intended.

Meat-eating

It is our custom in the British Isles to consume
large quantities of meat, and, from the highest to
the humblest, no meal, with the exception of the
more than superfluous afternoon tea, is regarded
as substantial without it. The labouring man,
who, when I was a boy, was contented with the
fat flesh of his pig, is quite as determined a meat-
eater as those who sit down to their series of dishes.
The advent of Australian mutton and American
beef was regarded as a blessing to the poor, but,
as we shall see in a succeeding chapter, foods of a
much superior character are at all times obtainable
at much smaller cost. Until, by a process of
education, people have learned to appreciate the
real value of foods, custom, supported by pre-
judice, will induce them to gratify the palate and
the appetite, and tojwe to eat rather than to eat
to live. I do not draw this conclusion from the

18 FOOD AND FITNESS

practice of the working-class so much as from those
who are supposed to be educated, but who are
obhvious to the importance of a knowledge of the
functions of food.

The View of the Popular Doctor

Some years ago, having consulted a popular and
titled London physician, I was supplied with
printed instructions as to w^hat I should eat and
what I should avoid in order to cure dyspepsia.
Among the latter were the skins of fruits and
vegetables, raisins, peas, nuts, strawberries, cur-
rants— fresh and dried — and plum cakes. Meat,
fish, vegetables and fruit might be eaten in the
form of puree, grated or passed through a sieve.
In a word, the object appeared to be to dispense
with the help of the teeth altogether, and to avoid
all foods which contain the essential mineral salts,
which are all -important in maintaining the blood
in a high state of efficiency, and thus avoiding the
troubles which their omission tends to create.
Jellies, which possess little or no nutritive value^
were permitted with tea, coffee and cocoa — all
containing a poisonous alkaloid — biscuits, farina-
ceous foods, white bread and plain cakes, all
deprived of the invaluable fibrous portions of the
wheat, were included in the suggested menu. This
is an example of a form of advice, all too preva-

FOOD AS A GOVERNING FACTOR 19

lent, which in my experience intensifies the original
trouble instead of removing it. It would not be
seemly to describe the results of this and similar
recommendations made by men of the highest
professional rank, but many are simply disastrous.

We Feed our Cattle more Carefully than

Ourselves

There is no branch of education which is of
greater importance than a knowledge of ourselves
and our bodies, and how they should be managed
and fed. Experienced farmers take greater pains
in the selection of suitable foods for their horses
and cattle than for their own tables. I have been
closely associated with the breeding and feeding
of the live-stock of the farm on a large scale for a
great many years, and intimate knowledge of the
science and practice of feeding in this country, in
America, and on the Continent of Europe induced
me to make a practical study of the feeding of
man.

" Do Yourself Well "

Men who have passed middle age are sometimes
told by physicians to "do themselves well " — in
other words, to indulge in the usual liberal table;

20 FOOD AND FITNESS

to take soup, joint, fowl, fish and entree, with a
sweet containing egg, and cheese to assist in
digesting the whole. The man who indulges in
this form of fare, with breakfast and luncheon of a
congenial character, cannot hope to keep well.
He may be persuaded that his system demands it,
but if he listens to nature, the most faithful of
guides, he learns that with time it will kill him,
or make him a martyr for life. Animal foods may
be eaten in great moderation by young people,
but only one at a meal, and that once a day. The
man who has reached middle life is much better
without them, while later on they are signally
dangerous.

We not only eat the wrong foods, but a great
deal too much. I have been forced to this belief
as the result of some years of rigid experience. I
find, too, that the foods which dyspeptic patients
are advised to reject, in accordance with the facts
I have already recorded, are precisely those which
should be among the most prominent in their
daily regime, and that, in a word, instead of
scraped meat, minced fish, white bread, farinaceous
foods — improperly depsrved of the husk — purSes
and cooked fruits — minus skins, fibre and pips —
eggs, cheese and abundance of milk, the menu
should include very little meat or fish, cooked in
the ordinary way, wholemeal bread, cereal foods

FOOD AS A GOVERNING FACTOR 21

with the husks, where this is possible, steamed or
baked vegetables, salads, raw fruits of all kinds
with the skins and the pips, a moderate quantity
of milk, some soft cheese or an egg, and a moderate
allowance of butter or margarine. This is opposed
to the programme of many physicians, but it confers
health, strength, endurance, and that verve which
makes living a joy, and gives new zest, new motives,
and a new temper to life. The more animal food
man consumes the more " animal " his temper
becomes, and this, too, is a point of enormous
importance, not only to himself but to those
depending upon him.

The defence of those who advocate liberality in
the use of those foods which are of animal origin
is, that they are necessary in the manufacture and
repair of the muscular system, and indirectly for
the provision of energy. Vegetable foods, however,
are equally capable of muscle production, while
they are much superior to the lean portion of meat
in the production of energy. While, however, I
endorse the non-animal mode of nutrition, I do
not believe that one small daily portion of meat
or fish is an unhealthy addition to the ration of
robust young people or adults on the right side of
forty. My contention is, that it is a superfluous
food, and much too costly for men with small
incomes. Apart from these facts it is difficult for

22 FOOD AND FITNESS

those who have been reared as meat-eaters to
abandon the practice, and I am conscious, from
facts derived from medical friends who, while per-
mitting their patients to eat it three times a week
in moderation, have satisfied themselves that,
consumed systematically, it is the foundation of
serious physical troubles or of organic disease.

How, then, can we obtain muscle -making food
in sufficient quantity if meat and fish are aban-
doned? My reply is based, first upon scientific
demonstration by responsible men, and next upon
a prolonged test upon myself. Instead of requir-
ing from 4J to 10 oz. of meat per day I have been
able to maintain much better health, to perform
far greater physical exercise, and to accomplish
considerably more mental work, with abundant
enjoyment, without either fish, flesh, or fowl, than
when consuming these foods three times a day.
Some years ago I was induced by a chance com-
panion in the January snows of the higher Alps
to read Physiological Economy in Nutrition^ by
Professor Chittenden, of the University of Yale.
In this work the writer describes how he was
induced by the famous Horace Fletcher to com-
mence his great feeding experiments. Mr. Fletcher
was himself the first subject of Chittenden, and it
was found after months of study of his habits^ and
of constant o];)servation, that he was able to do

FOOD AS A GOVERNING FACTOR 23

the work of trained athletes with great ease, to
maintain constant body weight (165 lb.) upon about
one -half the minimum diet which an average man
is supposed to require, according to the standards
of the most famous authorities, and practically
without any meat at all. From a physical wreck
he became a strong man solely by eating less food,
and making the most of that by perfect mastication.
Chittenden then experimented upon himself — his
food giving him some discomfort at first ; but this
soon passed away, and was succeeded by improved
physical condition, while a rheumatic trouble of
long standing quite disappeared. There were no
more headaches or bilious attacks, but a keener
appetite, appreciation of simpler foods, and a
diminution of the weight of the body. With a
large reduction in the consumption of meat and
similarly rich foods there was less thirst — a fact
which I have found so marked that I seldom drink
at dinner, nor, unless on very rare occasions, more
than 30 oz. of fluid in the day. With a meat diet
much more drink is demanded, with a greater
desire for stimulants.

During two periods of six and five days re-
spectively Chittenden made complete experiments
to test whether he maintained his equilibrium, or
whether he was living partly at the expense of
his body. His food was varied with meat, fish,

24 FOOD AND FITNESS

peas, potatoes, bread, butter, eggs, sugar, cream,
cream-cheese, biscuits, puddings and coffee ; and,
while he consumed only about one-half the recog-
nised quantity which a man of his weight and
occupation is supposed to require, that quantity
contained only one-third of the minimum standard
of muscle-making food. Yet he accomplished more
than he asked, for he says : " Greater freedom from
fatigue, greater appetite for work, greater freedom
from minor ailments, have gradually become associ-
ated with the reduced amount of protein (muscle-
making food) and the general condition of physio-
logical economy." He adds, if a man weighing
125 lb. can maintain this condition with continu-
ance of health, strength and vigour, with this small
consumption of food, why should he load up his
system with three times the quantity? Here is a
confirmed advocate of meat-eating, undertaking
an experiment with a purely scientific object, so
convinced by his results that he has no desire to
return to the more liberal but unsafe system of
previous years. In spite of these facts, and of the
results of the more extensive experiments, to which
I now briefly refer, meat is consumed by almost
all people in liberal quantities, in conformity with
the advice of many professional men, who appar-
ently ignore the work which has completely upset
the theory to which they are wedded.

FOOD AS A GOVERNING FACTOR 25

Feeding Experiments on Doctors, Soldiers
AND Students

Professor Chittenden next conducted an experi-
ment upon himself and four of his colleagues —
three of whom were doctors — and then upon eleven
soldiers lent by the United States Government,
who were fed for five months upon food which also
contained a very small quantity of meat. Two
hours were devoted to daily gymnastic exercises,
and the result was that the tests which were made
showed an increase of 83 per cent, of physical
power. Although these soldiers were young, they
were fed during the whole period upon rations
which were much below those given to their
colleagues in the army.

Lastly, Professor Chittenden fed eight selected
athletic students of his university, averaging
twenty-four years of age, for a period of five
months in a similar v/ay. Although the men were
in high condition they gained 31 per cent, of
physical power, and this upon food containing
much less than one-half the muscle -forming food
usually consumed by men of their age, weight
(150 lb.) and occupation as athletes.

It may be said in support of the vegetarians'
argument that animal food is unnecessary, that
their champion cyclist was (1912) the finest rider

26 FOOD AND FITNESS

in the kingdom; that in the great twelve hours'
race promoted by the Anerley Club against selected
champions of England the only vegetarians repre-
sented finished first, second and third — ^two of
these breaking the record for southern roads. It
is recorded by Mr. Henry Light, captain of the
V.C.C, that whether in cycling, running, walking,
tennis, boxing, wrestling, or weight-lifting, vege-
tarians have made records or won champion prizes.
This writer remarks in his essay on Diet and
Endurance, that, " if vegetarian diet is inadequate
we as a club should now be standing at the bottom
of the scale instead of at the top."

The Food of Animals

If we except the carnivorous species, animals
are vegetable -feeders, and consequently unable to
obtain more muscle -making food than exists in
the vegetable world. Nevertheless they are able
to construct a perfect muscular system, and to
maintain great physical power and endurance.
The oat, despised by so many, suffices to impart
great strength to the cart-horse and speed to the
racer. The elephant obtains food still less con-
centrated, while the camel, also a vegetable-
feeder, combines endurance with strength. It has
been pointed out, on the basis of scientific calcula-
tions, that when 4 per cent, of muscle -forming food

FOOD AS A GOVERNING FACTOR 27

is deducted for the maintenance of the system, the
balance remaining for the expenditure of energy-
reaches 15 per cent, in the food of rich people,
12'7 per cent, in that of the multitude of workers,
and 4*3 per cent, in the food of the poorest. Thus
some men consume three to four times as much of
this food as they require for their working activity.
Briefly, then, all the muscle -forming food required
for our nutrition can be obtained from vegetable
sources. Milk, however, an occasional egg, or a
small allowance of cheese, which is rich in this
substance, are desirable for all healthy persons.
The work or energy value of food, too, is greater
when the diet is restricted to bread, cereals, pulse,
and other vegetables and fruit. Meat, like alcohol,
although in a minor degree, stimulates the system
more powerfully than vegetable foods, with the
result that it is sooner exhausted. Thus, with an
increase in the consumption of meat, there is a
corresponding diminution in both endurance and
energy.

The Objection to the Water in Vegetables

AND Fruit

It has been frequently pointed out, as an objec-
tion to vegetable foods, that they are so loaded
with water that a large quantity must be eaten in
order to obtain the requisite nourishment. I have

28 FOOD AND FITNESS

already remarked that, on a vegetable diet — and
this includes fruit — thirst is almost a pheno-
menon. Although I am not a vegetarian, but a
rare eater of meat, I have never experienced pro-
nounced thirst since vegetable foods have formed
the foundation of my diet. On the other hand a
liberal quantity of fluid is essential to the meat-
eater, and the more meat he consumes the more
drink he requires. Water is essential for the pur-
pose of dissolving and secreting the products of
the decomposition of meat. The quantity of water
consumed, however, is just as uniform as that
present in a given weight of fruit, but in reality
the consumption of water in a fruit diet is less than
on a diet of meat.

The Importance of the Minerals of Food

The value of the mineral constituents of food is
usually overlooked, not only by the public in
general, but by many professional men. Although
they are indispensable to life, the proportion is so
small that it is regarded as a negligible quantity.
Let us see how far this is true. An infant is
nourished solely on milk. This food, as derived
from the mother's breast, contains only '30 per
cent, of mineral matter — i, e. less than one-third
of an ounce, in 100 oz. (6 J lb.). Of this very small
quantity phosphate of lime forms slightly more

FOOD AS A GOVERNING FACTOR 29

than one half. If, therefore, a child takes 6J lb.,
or five pints of milk, daily, it consumes about
one-sixth of an ounce of this substance, which is
essential in the formation of bone. Supposing,
however, before drinking the milk it were possible
to extract this material, the child could manu-
facture no bones. Phosphate of lime, iron and other
mineral substances are essential to health and to
life, although large numbers of people obtain them
in much smaller quantities than nature demands,
because they reject those portions of food in which
they are present — and they suffer accordingly.

Value of the Skins and Fibres of Fruit and
Vegetable Foods

I may refer — to take one example — to the
mineral value of the whortleberry. This wild
fruit, about the size of the black currant, has a
somewhat thick skin, which contains the chief
mineral constituents just as the mineral matter
of wheat is chiefly found in the husk. Thus, while
the whole wheat grain contains 1*7 per cent, (about
If oz. in 100 oz.) of mineral substances, and white
flour f oz., the germ contains 4J oz. and the coarse
bran 5J oz. Oatmeal, again, contains 6f oz. per
100 oz. of minerals, and rye flour 4 oz. These
figures are of necessity approximate, for no two
samples are identical, but they demonstrate the

30 FOOD AND FITNESS

fact that the skin, or husk — the portion which we
discard in our twentieth-century civiHsation, with
our bad teeth and worse stomachs, because of the
bad treatment they receive — contains food of vital
importance.

The animal living entirely on vegetable foods
makes no discrimination as to what part of the
grain or the root it rejects, although it selects i

particular species, but it is able in consequence to
obtain all the minerals that its system requires.
Man, on the other hand, sacrifices utility to pleasure
— rejecting what disagrees with his palate.

The skins and fibres of vegetable foods, however,
play another important part in the maintenance of
health. Most intelligent people are aware that
health largely depends upon the regular and per-
fect action of the intestines. This, however, is
greatly affected by diet, and as people grow older
many resort to aperients, with results which are
often disastrous. Drugs are practically unknown
to those who systematically consume wholemeal
bread, fruit and vegetables with the skins. The
skins of fruits, as of vegetables, are natural laxatives,
for they not only contain mineral salts, like mag-
nesia, but they incite mechanical action of the
intestines as they pass through them. Where foods,
like those produced from fine flour and other
materials made into an almost liquid condition,

FOOD AS A GOVERNING FACTOR 31

form almost the whole of the diet, as they do with
thousands of invalid people, w^ho regard them as a
panacea for dyspepsia, this action is more or less
paralysed, drug-taking becomes a regular habit,
and the last state becomes worse than the first.
If health so largely depends upon the regularity
to which I have referred, it also depends upon a
clean, healthy track through the body. This form
of cleanliness is practically ensured by the regular
consumption of the skins and husks of food which,
acting like a broom, sweep all before it in passing
through the system.

CHAPTER III

THE FUNCTION OF FOOD

Foods are usually divided into four groups of
constituents — fat and oil, starch and sugar, the
muscle -making material known as " protein," and
the minerals which are especially essential in
building the bones and the teeth and in maintaining
the richness of the blood. The first three groups
are able to provide heat and energy. The fats and
oils, however, possess two and a quarter times the
value of starch and sugar for this purpose, but
neither have the property of building or repairing
any portion of the muscular system, w^hich includes
all the organs of the body. This is the function of
protein alone, although a very small quantity is
required by the adult, and that for repair only.
Protein is the sole food constituent of flesh, apart
from the fat, but it exists in a less stimulating and
more healthy form in all vegetables and fruits in
sufficient quantities for all our requirements.

A City Man's Lunch

Let us take an example of the average diet of a

city man who dines at a popular restaurant on the

32

THE FUNCTION OF FOOD 33

following food, which represents quite a modest
repast compared with w^hat I have frequently seen
him enjoy : 4 oz. of roast beef, 6 oz. of potatoes,
3 oz. of bread, 2 oz. of cheese, and | oz. of butter.
This represents an extravagant proportion of
muscle-making food which is present to the extent
of three times the necessary quantity. Obviously,
however, when meat and cheese are eaten together,
with potatoes and bread, there is no room for
anything else in the luncheon of a moderate man.
In this case half the meat and all the cheese should
be replaced by green vegetables or some cereal
pudding and fruit.

In discussing this subject it is necessary to employ
two or three technical terms, with which some
readers may not be acquainted. There is no royal
road to knowledge, and those who really desire to
understand the functions of food will not be
deterred by this introduction, which is the key to
the whole subject of nutrition.

Food, as suggested above, is divided into four
groups of constituents, each group performing
particular and necessary functions in the nourish-
ment of the body — in providing for its repair, its
warmth, and the exercise of energy, or mental
and physical power. These groups are —

1. The Proteids. — The nutritious substances in

D

34 FOOD AND FITNESS

the lean or muscular tissue of flesh, fowl, and
fish, the albumen of egg, the casein or
curdy matter of milk, the legumen of peas,
beans, and lentils, and the gluten of wheat,
are all familiar examples.

2. The Carbohydrates. — These constituents are

chiefly confined to starch and sugar. Gum
and the material known as cellulose, of
which the cell-walls of plants are chiefly
constructed, are also Carbohydrates.

3. The Fats and Oils.

4. The Mineral Salts.

The chief function of the Protein of food is that
of building and repairing the muscular system and
of assisting in the construction of the bones. Pro-
tein— apart from the fat — is the sole nutritious
constituent of animal food — milk alone excepted,
for milk contains sugar — but it also exists in a less
stimulating form in vegetables and fruits.

The function of the Carbohydrates is the pro-
vision of heat and energy, while they are also
employed in the construction of the fat of the
animal body.

The Fats and Oils perform similar functions to
the Carbohydrates ; two and a quarter parts of the
latter are required in the production of heat and
energy for every part of the former. Protein,

THE FUNCTION OF FOOD 35

however, as it contains carbon, also possesses the
power of producing heat and energy.

The importance of the Mineral Salts — which
include lime, phosphorus and iron — will be better
realised from the fact that the two former are the
chief constituents of the bones.

It has been pointed out that the principal carbo-
hydrates are starch and sugar; of these two all
important foods something must be said.

Starch and Sugar

Starch or Sugar forms a large proportion of all
the most popular foods of a vegetable character,
while sugar is an important constituent of milk.
Starch, for example, forms nearly three parts of
the weight of white flour. It exists in still larger
proportions in rice, cornflour and sago, while in
oats, barley, rye, beans, peas and lentils it forms
from one-half to tv>'o-thirds. Starch is also the
prominent constituent of potatoes, and of various
other garden vegetables. In a word, it is dominant
in most vegetable foods, and therefore forms by far
the greater portion of the nutritious matter which we
consume. It exists as grains or granules of var}dng
forms, packed in cells, which are beautifully re-
vealed by the microscope. Commercial starch is
so commonly associated with the laundry that its
great role in food is somewhat obscured. Starch

36 FOOD AND FITNESS

will not dissolve in cold water, but when a food,
such as rice, in which it exists in abundance, is
boiled, the heat ruptures the walls of the cells in
which it is enveloped, and it swells, and becomes
more readily amenable to the influence of the saliva
and other juices which digest and prepare it for
absorption into the blood. When subjected to dry
heat starch becomes soluble, and this fact is
marked in the case of well-browned dried toast,
which is therefore more easily digested than bread.
It is not, however, advisable to abandon bread
and to eat toast in order to avoid indigestion, as
the remedy would be worse than the disease, for
the more we depart from nature's rules the more
difficult they are to restore.

Sugar is said to be the purest of known foods,
but although their composition is closely identical,
it exists in various forms. Thus we have the Cane-
sugars, the most important of which are those
produced from the sugar-cane and the beet, which
now forms so large a portion of the table sugar of
commerce. Mj7A;-sugar is referred to in the dis-
cussion on milk. Grape-sugar is found chiefly in
the grape ; and Frw^^sugar in a large variety of
fruits of other kinds. Although a sample of light
brown Demerara cane-sugar with its handsome
crystals is distinguishable from Beet-sugav^ the two
forms are now so similar that few consumers can

THE FUNCTION OF FOOD 37

differentiate. When the question of value arises,
beet-sugar is the cheaper, nor should it be con-
demned on account of its colour.

Malt-sngSiY may be briefly referred to, inasmuch
as it forms an important feature in Extracts of
Malt. It is produced from the starch present in
barley, which, with the assistance of moisture and
heat, is converted into sugar through the action
of a diastase ferment. Invert sugar is produced
when cane-sugar is boiled with fruit in the process
of preserving. It is a combination of cane-sugar
and the sugar of the fruit— the change being
effected by the action of the heat and the fruit
acid. Invert sugar is less sw^eet than table sugar,
but, Hke fruit-sugar, much more easily assimilated,
for it is partially digested. Many persons who
cannot digest cane or beet sugar without incon-
venience can take preserved fruits, while others
can also take large quantities of sugar in raw fruits.
Bearing these facts in mind, sufferers from dyspepsia
will be well advised to dispense with sugar in their
tea and coffee or on puddings and stewed fruit
after cooking, and to take it in jam, marma-
lade, puddings, honey and similar dishes. For
the preservation of fruit cane-sugar is the best.
Raw sugar is liable to produce irritation of the
stomach in some constitutions, and this is followed
by the secretion of mucous. If taken at all in such

38 FOOD AND FITNESS

cases it should be in very small quantities, and
well diluted, otherwise it is liable to seriously
interfere with digestion. Bearing in mind the fact
that fruit-sugar is a natural food of very great
energy value, and specially adapted to almost all
ages and constitutions, ripe fruit should be much
more extensively eaten, especially as it possesses
other equally great characteristics. Some young
and active persons are able to eat four ounces of
sugar in a day, this providing nearly 500 units of
energy at a cost of three -farthings when it is Sd. a
pound, or of one-halfpenny when it is 2d.

Treacle in its various forms is not so useful as
sugar, containing as it does only two-thirds to
three -fourths of its weight of sugar, the balance
consisting of water and impurities.

The Fats and Oils used as food are compara-
tively few. Animal fats are chiefly confined to the
products of cattle, sheep, and pigs, and these include
butter, margarine, lard, dripping, and suet. Large
quantities of fat, however, are present in ducks,
geese, and crammed chickens, and in such fish as
salmon, turbot, and herrings. Among vegetable oils
the new form of margarine has largely increased the
utilisation of those of the palm and the coconut, the
pea-nut and cotton-seed, while the oil of the olive
is both popular and valuable, although it is often
heavily adulterated. Olive oil is more completely

THE FUNCTION OF FOOD 39

absorbed than a solid fat like butter ; while butter,
like the fat of milk from which butter is made, is
more easily absorbed than the fat of meat —
especially of mutton and beef. For this reason
the oil of margarine, with its low melting-point,
is a more valuable food than suet and other hard
animal fats. Thus a much larger quantity of
butter fat can be consumed when taken in milk
than the fat of the joint, which, like suet, contains
a large proportion of stearin — a fat with a high
melting-point used in the manufacture of candles.
If too much fat is eaten a portion is wasted, pass-
ing through the body unused ; the quantity which
can be digested, however, varies with the indi-
vidual. Fats have hitherto been regarded as
expensive portions of our diet, and, measured by
the market value of butter and salad oil, this
belief w^as well founded. The introduction of
vegetable margarine, however, has reduced the
standard of cost of fat, without reducing the
standard of efficiency.

Protein. — The most important of the various
forms of protein are the gluten of wheat, the
casein of milk, the albumin of egg, the legumen of
pulse, and the myosin of meat. It has been
customary to describe protein as a flesh-former,
but this term must not be translated improperly.
Most people regard meat as flesh just as it comes

40 FOOD AND FITNESS

from the butcher, and they are perfectly right;
but as meat embraces the fat with the lean or
muscular tissue, the term flesh-former cannot be
intelligently applied to a food constituent the
special function of which is the manufacture of the
muscular portion of the body alone. Protein is
essential in the manufacture of milk, the casein
of which cannot be constructed unless it is present
in the food of the cow.

Objections to Diet without Meat

It has been claimed that liberal meat feeding
supplies a form of nerve energy and brain power
which is impossible to the vegetable feeder; that
it enables man to resist disease more effectively;
that it is essential to children; and that during
an illness a patient who is not a meat eater has
no balance in the bank to fall back upon. I have
referred to the work of Chittenden, who is sup-
ported by Bircher, and Hindhede — all of whom
have performed original work of the first rank,
and who have disproved, not only on themselves
but on various classes of men, every one of these
claims. The work of Hindhede with his own
children, and of Bircher with women and children,
as well as with men of numerous nationalities,
many of whom I have met, is a complete answer
to these claims, although it is just to add that

THE FUNCTION OF FOOD 41

many celebrated Englishmen deplore the excessive
consumption of meat. If I may venture to add
my own testimony, it is to the effect that the
results of a diet without animal food have been
precisely the opposite of those which are claimed
against it.

It may be pointed out here that one of the
cheapest sources of protein is skimmed or separated
milk, although, owing to the removal of the
cream, the public are prejudiced against it.
While they insist on meat on the one hand, they
reject this " meaty " milk because of its cheap-
ness and its name on the other. I know of no
better example of the importance of the study of
foods.

It has been remarked that there is a loss during
digestion of the protein of pulses, cereals, and
potatoes to the extent of 10 to 30 per cent. — the
loss in the potato standing among the highest of
all. And yet in the Danish investigations men
have lived solely upon potatoes and margarine
for several months in succession, while in Ireland
whole families have lived upon potatoes alone.
With this fact I am well acquainted, as during
the famine of 1897-8 I visited hundreds of
families in Donegal, Mayo, Galway, and Clare on
behalf of the Manchester Guardian— my report
being discussed at great length in the House of

42 FOOD AND FITNESS

Commons. I saw the food of those who were
living on a normal diet as well as those who were
starving, and am able to testify to the great value
of the potato as food, where neither bread, meat,
nor milk were available. A low meat diet is
more desirable for men of sedentary occupations
than for those engaged in manual labour, for
there is less muscular waste to repair. Liberal
meat-eating makes a demand upon the organs of
the body in the process of digestion and secretion
which unfits them for mental work. How can
we point to more striking examples than to those
who, in middle or later life, are unfit for work in
their office or their study after a luncheon upon
meat, or of fish, or of both, followed by cheese ?
The farm labourer, the gardener, or the carman
is not affected in a similar Vv^ay, although these
men can do much better work without meat.

CHAPTER IV /:

THE VALUE OF FOODSTUFFS

Foods may be valued in accordance with the
cost of their constituents as compared with the
cost of the same constituents in bread and mar-
garine, taken as standards, or on the basis of the
number of heat or energy units or Calories ^ which
these foods provide for a given sum of money.
Neither method is perfect, but the latter is the
more useful of the two, and that which is generally
adopted in arriving at the energy value of all
foods. We can compare the cost of starch, which
is the chief food material in rice, macaroni, oat-
meal, or any other cereal, with the cost of starch
in bread, but we cannot make an equally close
comparison between the protein of meat or cheese,
or of the fat of butter or lard, with the protein or
fat in bread, for obvious reasons. The protein of
bread is not utilised by the system so perfectly as
the protein of meat, while the fats in butter, lard,
and bread possess varying market values weight for
weight, hence margarine is a better standard for fat.

^ A Calorie (the standard employed in measuring the heat
value of foods) indicates the quantity of heat required to raise
1 lb. of water 4° F.

43

44 FOOD AND FITNESS

If we take bread as a standard, and value it in
units, we shall find a penny will buy 600 when
the cost is 2d. a pound. When rice costs a similar
sum, a penny buys 800 units, but immediately
the price rises to dd. a pound the units purchased
by this sum fall to 533. Again, a piece of beef of
medium fatness, costing lOd. a pound, provides
850 Calories to the pound, so that a penny buys
only 85 Calories, and it is in this way that we are
able to estimate the economical value of different
foods by this particular system. A poor man
who is led to believe that by the purchase of a
cheap joint of lean meat, to be eaten with bread
and potatoes, he can feed his family with greater
economy than with food of a much simpler char-
acter, may find that while he is spending more
money he is providing considerably less nourish-
ment. Let us illustrate this fact with a ration
consisting of 3 oz. of meat at Is. a pound, 3 oz. of
bread, and 4 oz. of potatoes per head of a family
consisting of a man, his wife, and three children.

Ration

I

Cost.

Calories.

15 oz. Meat

. 111^.

765

15 oz. Bread

2 d.

1080

20 oz. Potatoes

. li^.

435

10 oz. per person.

Total cost

1*. 2U.

2280

THE VALUE OF FOODSTUFFS

45

The above provides a liberal supply of protein,
but in order to make it equal to the following
ration it would be necessary to increase it in
quantity by 75 per cent., when its cost would
amount to 2^. 2d. Thus, while in one case the
ration w^ould amount to nearly 5d. per head, in
the other it would cost only l^d. In other words,
the second ration, while providing over 60 per cent,
more nutritive matter than the first, would cost less
than the meat in that ration.

Ration II

15 oz. Bread .
20 oz. Potatoes

4 oz. Margarine

6 oz. Rice

2 oz. Sugar

3 pints skim milk for rice

Cost.
2 d.
lid.
Hd.
1 d.
Id.

Calories.
1080
435
900
600
225

pudding

3 d. 480

Approximately 17 to 18 oz.
per person.

9ld. 3720

This ration, which can be varied in a hundred
ways, is intended to demonstrate the economical
side of nutrition. The cost of meat, and its low
nutritive value, must ever prohibit that variation
and liberality in providing a repast, where it is
regarded as an imperative dish, in the homes of
those who have little to spend. I am happily

46 FOOD AND FITNESS

connected with a philanthropic institution in which
the children and staff were fed before the war with
great skill and generosity at a cost of 2s, 9d. per
head per week. They maintain wonderful health,
and as a group are models of what growing children
should be in their physical, moral, and intellectual
life — a large number of the old boys going to the
front in the early days of the war. These results
are owing to the generous allowance of foods, of
w^hich meat forms a very small portion, to excep-
tional skill in its arrangement, and the personal
care of the lady superintendent, who regulates
every detail.

The Arrangement of Rations or Meals

We have seen that while it is important that
we should obtain a sufficient quantity of each of
the four groups of food constituents in what we
consume, we should not eat too much of either.
Apart from the question of nutrition altogether,
there is a limit to the quantity which can be eaten
without sickness or harm, although that limit
may vary with age, occupation, or constitution.
The young can eat sugars and fats, as in sweet-
meats and cream, with a degree of impunity,
where adults, and still less those who have passed
middle age, dare not make the attempt. It is

THE VALUE OF FOODSTUFFS 47

important to recognise that a meal should consist
of mixed foods. This ensures more perfect diges-
tion, and as a rule establishes an approximate
equilibrium or balance between the various con-
stituents. Thus, if at dinner the dishes consist of
a small plate of meat or fish, potatoes, a green vege-
table, wholemeal bread, a cereal pudding, with
preserved or fresh fruits, the consumer, eating
rationally, obtains an ample supply of all the neces-
sary nutrients, while at the same time he is pro-
viding the mechanical help without which no ration
is perfect.

If, however, for reasons of economy, meat is
omitted, its place may be taken by fish, some
varieties of which are much cheaper, or, better
still, by a third vegetable in the form of dried or
preserved peas, beans, or lentils — unless the two
former can be purchased green and fresh, and are
equally cheap. These three foods are not only
much richer in protein than lean meat or fish, but
they contain large quantities of starch. Where,
too, meat at \s. a pound provides only 60 to 100
units of energy for a penny, according to its fat-
ness, the pulses referred to provide 550 when their
cost is Sd. a pound. It should be added, however,
that the protein of vegetables, and especially of
the pulses, is less perfectly absorbed during
digestion than the protein of meat.

48 FOOD AND FITNESS

Influence of Cooking

Those foods which possess the greatest energy
value are raw milk, eggs, young tender vegetables,
salads, and nuts, followed by bread, cooked cereals,
fruits, vegetables, milk and eggs, butter and curd
cheese. Among the least valuable producers of
energy are meat, fish, poultry, game, mushrooms,
cocoa, coffee, tea, and alcohol (Bircher).

Cooked food possesses a smaller nutritive value
than raw food. In most cases, where vegetables
are boiled, and especially peeled potatoes, there
is a direct loss of food material which passes into
the water in which they are cooked. Oatmeal
porridge, as cooked in Scotland, must be chewed
and masticated. In most English houses, however,
it is assumed that if it is cooked to a jelly it is
more digestible. The result is, that it is swallowed
without mastication, and therefore not mixed with
the saliva which nature provides for the purpose
of assisting digestion, and in consequence over-
cooking causes the trouble which it is intended to
avoid. It is quite true that cooking breaks down
the starch cells of cereal foods, which are in conse-
quence brought into immediate contact with the
saliva and other digestive juices, and that the starch
in cooked oatmeal is more quickly converted into
sugar than that in raw oatmeal, but where there
is no mastication this advantage is lost. " The

THE VALUE OF FOODSTUFFS 49

greater the change in the transformation of food
between its origin in animals and vegetables and
its presence on the table the greater the loss of
its value." For this reason foods which can be
consumed in their natural condition are the best
sources of nutrition, and these include most of the
fruits, nuts, and salads.

Man has a great range of foods from which to
select, and as his vitality is almost entirely derived
from the food he consumes, he is wise to rely upon
its utility rather than upon his appetite, although
there are occasions when desire for a given food
is a provision of nature. Nor should he eat in
accordance with his weight, for meals should be
governed by the expenditure of energy, although
it is obvious that, as food is a source of heat, less
is required in a warm climate than in a cold one,
and in summer than in winter. The resting man
requires less than the active man. Thus there is
less loss when sleeping than w^hen lying awake,
when standing than w^alking, and when writing
at the desk than when working with the muscular
system.

Cooking exerts great influence upon food. Thus
the mineral salts present in vegetables are almost
entirely lost in the process of boiling, unless the
water employed is utilised. Cooking, however,
changes their condition, and doubt has been ex-
pressed as to the power of the system to assimilate

50 FOOD AND FITNESS

these nourishing materials, which are so much
superior in the raw plant, its root or its fruit. In
no case is the energy value of cooked food — and
an apple is an excellent example — so great as that
of the raw material. It is customary to use salt
with great freedom, but it has been shown that
an excessive quantity checks the action of the
digestive juices, and diminishes the nutritious
value of food. Cooked meat appeals to the palate,
but it must be obvious to a careful observer that
the great meat-eater is physically inferior to the
labouring man who eats no meat at all — fat bacon
excepted. Bircher has shown that the dynamic
and dietetic action of meat results in a loss of 32
per cent, of energy, and that the more man con-
sumes the smaller are his powers of endurance and
capacity for work. He adds : " With abundance
of meat the uric substances, and therefore the
work of the kidneys, are unnecessarily increased,
the whole system is flooded with albuminous
products, and constant danger threatens the well-
being of the body and the organs burdened with
the work of secretion, and diminished power of
resistance to bacteria."

There are few vegetables used as food which
can be eaten raw, and they are practically confined
to onions, lettuce, endive, celery, cress, mustard,
radishes, cucumbers, and tomatoes. To some
persons the bare idea of eating either, to say

THE VALUE OF FOODSTUFFS 51

nothing of all, is regarded as an invitation to
indigestion. This fact, however, is sufficient to
reveal to us how erroneous impressions may be.
Eaten in moderation, and well masticated, these
raw foods are not only digestible, but they possess
great nutritive and physical value, much of which
would be destroyed by cooking, and one or more —
lettuce first of all — should always be upon the
lunch and dinner table.

Examples of Author's Diet

The diet to which I am accustomed consists
largely of raw fruit, and as I can exhibit no better
proof of its value, and of the sufficiency of a very
small proportion of animal food, I give some
examples in detail. All fruits fall into line, and I
know of no variety which it is desirable to exclude.
In summer, when our native fruits are abundant
and varied, there is plenty of choice, but in autumn
one is restricted to plums, damsons, pears, apples,
grapes, and oranges until winter arrives. Plums and
sometimes pears then disappear, and finally grapes,
leaving the field occupied until summer comes
again by apples, oranges, bananas, and preserved
fruits in smaller proportions.

Breakfast and supper (or dinner, if the term is
preferred) consists, with little variation from
October to June, of apples grated with the skin,
mixed with a piled tablespoonful of oatmeal,

52 FOOD AND FITNESS

P. R. Breakfast Food, or Grape Nuts, or half the
quantity of prepared oats, soaked for twelve hours,
a dessertspoonful of condensed milk, and two or
three piled teaspoonfuls of ground nuts. The whole
makes a large plate of porridge. This with whole-
meal bread and butter, a cup of coffee (free from
caffeine) made with milk, constitutes the meal.
As appetite dictates, however, it is supplemented
with fruits of other kinds, a few nuts, and
sometimes an egg, or a small piece of fat bacon
for breakfast in winter. The porridge may be
varied extensively; one apple and one squashed
banana, a banana and an orange, or some prunes,
are excellent substitutes for apples alone. The
oatmeal, too, may be varied with rice, barley,
semolina, macaroni, or maize-flour. In summer,
plums, apricots, or whortleberries are all delightful
changes — the last-named being the most beneficial
of all. There is no hard-and-fast line in the case
of those who have mastered the principle, and
who have learned that fruit is as distinctly a food-
stuff as meat, or any other material of an animal
character. If white bread, white toast, or an egg,
or fried bacon are preferred as an occasional
change, there is no reason why a rational man
should refuse it, if he is young and robust; but
where a principle is broken too often it ceases to
be a principle at all, and the old practice returns.
Of that practice which prescribes meat three times

THE VALUE OF FOODSTUFFS 53

a day, commencing breakfast with eggs or kidney
and bacon, fish or a mutton chop, followed by fish
and joint at luncheon, and several courses at
dinner, I have no more to say than that, on the
authority of the greatest observers, it is not only
destructive of health, but of life, and is paralleled
only by the excessive consumption of alcohol.

The midday luncheon consists of an occasional
small plate of cereal, pulse, or vegetable soup, two
or three vegetables with sauce, a savoury made
with rice or spaghetti and tomatoes or curry, a
farinaceous or milk pudding with stewed fruit,
light dried fruit pudding, or simple confectionery,
wholemeal bread and butter— sometimes a small
piece of cheese — salad v/henever available, and a
claret glass of non-alcoholic wine or cider when it can
be obtained, although the real thing is not made in
England. Fruit as desired completes the repast.

Examples of Meals
(The v/eights are approximate)

BREAKFAST

02. Units of energy.

3 Bread 235

1 Butter 230

10 Milk Coffee (Caffeine free) . .150
8 Apples, Oatmeal, Grape Nuts,

and Condensed Milk ... 220

12 oz., without Milk Coffee . . . 835
Plus more fruit, fat bacon, or an egg, as desired.

54 FOOD AND FITNESS

LUNCHEON

oz. Units.

IJ Bread 120

Cheese 40

i Butter 115

[Potatoes 60

^ Parsnips 45

I French Beans 30

3 Pudding 200

Salad with Oil 40

3 Orange . 30

14 ounces 680

Plus sauce to vegetables.

DINNER OR SUPPER

oz. Units.

3 Bread . : 235

1 Butter 230

10 Milk Coffee 150

7 1 Apple and Banana, Condensed

Milk and Nuts 185

4 Milk Pudding 120

151 oz. without Coffee .... 920
Total 2435 units, without the additions referred to.

These three repasts are supplemented by an
orange, or a small cup of coffee, at five o'clock^
with a slice of coarse bread and butter, or toast,
or a small piece of plain cake, when the last meal
is delayed by the duties of the day, or for any

THE VALUE OF FOODSTUFFS 55

other tangible reason. In this case from 50 to
200 units are added to the total. It will be ob-
served that the protein consumed is almost wholly
confined to that present in milk and vegetable
foods — the daily average seldom exceeding 80
grammes (2| oz.), unless on those rare occasions
when a small portion of meat or eggs form part of
the menu, as when staying from home, or dining
with friends.

It has been urged that in order to obtain the
requisite nourishment it is necessary, when meat
and other animal foods are not included in a diet
regime, to eat more, and thus to overburden the
stomach. There is no occasion for this, but I
have observed that young people with fruit placed
before them in great variety are prone to eat more
than they need, although I know of no instance
in which they have complained of indigestion in
consequence, if it is ripe. Meat-eating, as already
remarked, is always accompanied by a desire to
drink, and the larger the consumption of animal
food the more that desire is emphasised. On the
contrary, there is, in my experience, no thirst
where the chief meal is composed entirely of
vegetable foods and fruit. The water for which
nature would crave under other conditions is taken
in the food, and is of greater value than any of
those liquid concoctions which man has invented.

56 FOOD AND FITNESS

This absence of thirst is of portentous value in
this system of diet, for it practically excludes
alcohol.

It is assumed by medical science that a man
needs 40 oz. of liquid per day. Many persons
take very much more, and what they sow in this
way they are certain to reap. Large draughts of
water at dinner are incentives to trouble, causing
distention and pain, and diluting the juices which
nature provides for the digestion of food. If
drinking is inevitable it is better betw^een meals
than at dinner, in those advancing in years, or who
cannot take liberties common to youth. Large
draughts of hot, or cold, or mineral water are fre-
quently taken for particular reasons by the advice
of medical men, but, like the water cure of a German
spa, they are no remedy for bodily troubles caused
by persistence in eating too freely, or in eating
those foods which are destructive of health. The
food described in the above tables includes 42 oz.
of water, without taking account of the fruit fre-
quently eaten at the close of a meal. If the con-
sumer of the usual English meal drinks, as he
certainly does, a great deal more than this quan-
tity, which is slightly in excess of a quart, he
increases the bulk of what he has eaten still
more than the non-meat-eater.

CHAPTER V

WHAT WE SHOULD EAT

I HAVE been impressed on many occasions with
the inappropriate character of the food ordered
by those who take their mid-day repast in the
popular restaurant. Young men and women
employed in offices, shops, and warehouses, have
Httle to spend on their food when from home, but
they appear to take no trouble whatever in selecting
what is best for their purpose. A light, nutritious,
varied, and yet inexpensive meal is of the highest
importance. On the contrary, however, many
select sausage, meat-pudding, or pie, or a steak,
with a new roll and potato, and finally one of those
artistic examples of the pastry-cook's art, which
may appeal to the eye and the palate, but which
are wholly unsatisfactory. I take a few examples
from life, and compare them with much more
economical foods selected from the restaurant lists.

oz No. 1 Units

(approximate)

3 Sausage (good Pork) .... 250
5 Potatoes (mashed) 115

4 Bread 300

12 ounces . . 665

Cost, 6d. Providing 111 calories for a penny.

57

58 FOOD AND FITNESS

oz No. 2 Units

(approximate)

8 Beefsteak Pie 430

5 Potatoes (mashed) .... 115
Coffee, with milk and sugar . . 80

625

Cost, lid. Providing 57 Calories for a penny.

oz. No. 3 Units

(approximate)

2 Rice fried in margarine with

onions and herbs .... 220

4 Wholemeal bread 300

4 Fried potatoes 100

2 Margarine for frying and for bread 420

3 to 4 Fruit 40

15 ounces 1080

Cost 4id., or 250 Calories for a penny.

oz No. 4 Units

(approximate)

6 Dumpling made with 2 oz. chopped

suet and meat with onions and herbs 400
2 Currant cake or jam roll . . . 200

2 Bread 150

1 Cheese 125

3 Lettuce or beet with oil dressing . 100

14 ounces 975

Cost 6jd., or 150 Calories for a penny.

WTHAT WE SHOULD EAT 59

Example of a More Economical Meal

Units
(approximate)
8 to 10 Macaroni, made with milk,

and raisins or grated cheese . 450

4) Wholemeal bread 300

1 Margarine, or 2 oz. soft cheese . 200
4 Apple, orange, or banana,

plums or cherries .... 50

1000
Cost, 4JJ. to 5d., providing 200 units for Id.

2 oz. Macaroni are cooked with J pint milk,
1 oz. raisins, and sugar.

The cost of meat as a regular food not only
renders it uneconomical, as the figures which
represent its nutritive value suggest, but where
those figures are increased by the addition of another
article of food, to make a meat meal efficient,
the quantity eaten is more than is desirable, and
the cost is too great, while the increase in the
protein renders it inappropriate for all adults
but the muscular worker. In an article in the
Daily Mail on April 19, 1915, a physician says :
" The prime fault in the diet of well-to-do English
people is undoubtedly that it consists too largely
of meat, fish, and eggs. Many investigations have
been made in recent years on this head, and

60 FOOD AND FITNESS

practically all inquirers concur in the view that
far too much meat is eaten, especially by those
who lead comparatively inactive lives. To this
fact many evil consequences are due. An immense
amount of labour is throw^n on the kidneys, through
which organs the great bulk of the waste products
of meat and fish are excreted. These waste
products remain long in the blood, as the kidneys
cannot keep pace with the work they are burdened
with. Circulating through the brain, heart, liver,
and every part, they act as mild poisons, causing
heaviness, drowsiness, sometimes headache, sallow-
ness of the skin, and other minor troubles. Then,
towards middle life, the meat-eater's kidneys
begin to fail, his heart feels the stress, his liver
suffers, and, perhaps worst of all, the arteries of
his brain become more or less diseased. Or
perhaps he is punished by recurring attacks of
gout or rheumatism. This is no exaggerated
picture. It applies to a very large number of
men and women. But, while eating too much
meat, we consume an insufficiency of vegetables
for the health of the bod v."

This is precisely the view that I have advocated
in the Daily Mail, the Evening News, and elsewhere,
and the whole question at issue could not have been
put more concisely or truthfully. It is generally
assumed, however, by those who insist on a mixed

WHAT WE SHOULD EAT 61

diet, or a great preponderance of vegetables and
fruits, that to young people meat is a necessity
as a body builder. I have already shown, on the
authority of the most able modern experimenters,
that this is not so. It is impossible to be acquainted
as I am, with growing children who have never
eaten meat; with the fact that the Japanese are
non-meat-eaters, that the magnificent Sikhs, with
their courage and resolution of character, eat meat
only two or three times in a month ; and that the
Arabs, and other hardy races of men, live chiefly
upon figs, dates, bananas, and milk — and to insist
that meat is a necessity.

A Typical Meal

An economical and nutritious dinner may
consist of a cereal or vegetable soup, potatoes,
baked or fried parsnips, salsify, or carrots, and a
second vegetable — ^turnip, cabbage, sprouts, cauli-
flower, spinach, celery, beetroot, leeks, or onions —
a good helping of savoury macaroni, spaghetti,
rice, polenta fried in cakes, or buckwheat cakes,
and a sweet pudding made with dried fruit, or the
addition of jam. The last named may be alter-
nated with fresh fruits in season. These dishes
can be prepared in various ways v/ith a little study
of modern cookery, and may be supplemented in
summer with green beans and peas, or in winter

62 FOOD AND FITNESS

with dried peas, haricot beans, or preserved French
beans. Wherever possible lettuce should complete
the meal, with a slice of bread-and-butter or soft
cheese.

The Japanese Diet

I have referred to the Japanese, who have shown
by their rapid advance to the front rank among
the great nations of the world that they are pos-
sessed alike of remarkable mental and physical
energy. Their virility and power, however, has
been built almost entirely on a vegetable diet, for
by far the larger proportion of the Japanese are
vegetarians. The meat and milk produced in
Japan is not sufficient to provide a normal European
ration once a day for the wealthier class; and,
although fish is consumed much more abundantly,
it too is insufficient for this purpose. Some years
ago an inquiry was made in order to ascertain
whether it was possible, by changing the diet,
to increase the height of the people, but it was
determined that the point was quite immaterial
when it was remembered that, as compared with
taller races, the Japanese were not only stronger,
but capable of greater endurance. Many instances
of both these qualities have been published, but
one must suffice here. Professor Baeltz,^ formerly

^ Hindhede, Protein and Nutrition.

WHAT WE SHOULD EAT 63

physician to the Mikado, describes an instance
in which two young men ran with him in a jin-
rikisha some twenty-five miles daily for three
weeks during warm weather. They consumed
abundance of vegetable food — chiefly potatoes,
barley, rice, chestnuts, and other materials con-
taining less than two-thirds of the minimum quantity
of protein usually prescribed as essential, and very
little fat. When these men attempted to do the
same work upon a partially meat diet, supplied
to them as an experiment, they failed, and aban-
doned it in consequence. The Japanese soldiers
are notorious for their endurance upon a vegetable
diet, of which rice forms the leading feature, but
they are also great eaters of salads and tomatoes.

The Continental Peasantry
I have had some experience among the peasantry
in the Italian provinces of Lombardy and Emilia,
and have noticed there and elsewhere their great
muscular strength and endurance. They are prac-
tically all vegetarians — their food consisting chiefly
of polenta, a product of maize, and rice. The maize
plant is indeed, in some parts of Italy, the source
of their food and their fuel, while their beds are
made with the leaves.

I have repeatedly noticed that in the rural
districts of France the diet of the peasants consists

64 FOOD AND FITNESS

almost wholly of vegetables and fruit, and is the
produce of their land. The exceptions are milk,
soft cheese, fat used for frying their dishes of maize,
rice, and buckwheat, and an occasional egg or a
rabbit. Meat is not an item of importance among
the agricultural labouring classes of the Continent,
and in parts of some countries it is almost unknown.
On one occasion I spent a day upon a Danish farm
which was notorious for its production of butter
supplied to the King. I dined with the family and
five robust dairymaids, but, with the exception
of meat cooked for myself, all fared alike upon
rice, potatoes, bread, and butter. Until the advent
of Australian mutton and American beef our English
labourers lived in a similar way, but with the
addition of fat pork, or bacon, the produce of
their pigs.

CHAPTER VI

THE MOST ECONOMICAL FOODSTUFFS

It will now be convenient to discuss the merits
of those foodstuffs which are of the greatest im-
portance to the people of these Islands.

Bread, — The evolution of bread from white
flour corresponds with our more luxurious method
of living, and the abandoment of the millstone,
which refused to remove from the flour its vital
constituents, or — ^to quote speakers at the 1914
meeting of the British Association which has
condemned it — its " Vitamines."

The food value of bread cannot be adequately
measured in units of energy. The 30 per cent,
loss in weight in wheat which is ground into white
flour is equivalent to its loss of food value, while at
the same time it diminishes the size of our national
loaf. Can we afford this when wheat reaches 60s.
to 80s. a quarter ? Can the consumer afford to lose
what is rejected, and what means so much to his
health, and still more to that of his children?
The rejection of the bran and germ of the wheat
in the modern process of milling means that if
wheat were ground into meal instead of white
flour, a year's consumption by 46,000,000 people
at the usual 6 bushels a head, would fall
F 65

66 FOOD AND FITNESS

from 270,000,000 bushels, costing an average of
555. 6d. a quarter, in the middle of 1915, to
193,000,000 bushels, thus effecting a saving to the
country of £28,750,000 a year, and enormously
improving the vigour of the race.

Bread is composed of starch, gluten (a proteid),
a very small proportion of fat, some minerals and
water. Thus, a four-pound loaf contains approxi-
mately 2 lb. of starch, 5 oz. of protein, some fat
and minerals, and 25 oz. of water. There are only
two forms of ordinary bread which need discussion
in a work of this character — ^those made respectively
from fine white flour and wholemeal. " Brown "
bread is a term which is applied in a promiscuous
way to all loaves other than white, whether they
are made from the whole grain of the wheat or
from meal from which a portion of the husk or
the germ has been removed. As a rule the whiter
the flour the poorer the loaf. The nutritious value
of bread cannot be measured by its starch and
protein alone, but by these constituents plus the
mineral salts which are almost wholly found in the
bran and the germ. The practical superiority
of wholemeal bread lies in the fact that these salts
are retained, and that the mechanical action of
the husk on the intestines maintains their activity
and a consequent healthy equilibrium. The whole-
meal bread eater, unlike the consumer of white

MOST ECONOMICAL FOODSTUFFS 67

bread, is therefore neither a victim to pills nor to
purgative medicines, which are among the afflic-
tions of life, that is usually shortened in consequence.

The public are supremely indifferent to the
enormous importance of suitable bread — the whitest
of which is supplemented by cakes, pastry, and
puddings made with the same emasculated flour.
The truth is either unknown or ignored. " Brown "
bread is sometimes made by bakers from white
flour mixed with bran as occasion demands to
please the views of their customers.

It has often been pointed out that the finest
white flour forms only 66 to 70 per cent, of the
wheat grain, but that wholemeal forms over 95
per cent. The smaller quantity is owing to the
removal of the husk and the germ, which contains
fourteen times as much protein (gluten) and fat,
and eight times as much phosphate of lime (bone-
building material) and iron, as fine white flour.
The value of wholemeal bread to the consumer
lies in the fact that —

1. It contains more fat than white bread.

2. It enriches the blood by increasing the number
of red corpuscles — a good index to vigour; and —

3. It ensures that mechanical action and regu-
larity of the system, without which no one can
maintain health.

I am, however, of opinion that the employment

68 FOOD AND FITNESS

of yeast or baking-powder is deleterious to
digestion.

Bread made in the home is of double importance ;
— it is a superior and a much cheaper food.
On one occasion a responsible baker made some
loaves from a weighed quantity of wholemeal at
the writer's request. To his surprise the bread,
then sixpence a loaf, cost only threepence, plus
yeast and fuel. When, later in the year, bread and
wheat meal cost 2d. sl pound — which it may do
with wheat at l^d. — the quantity required for a
four-pound loaf cost 5jd. Thus, by home-baking
in war time there was a saving of more than one-
third of the money paid to the baker.

The crust of bread is of much greater value
than the crumb. It is 50 per cent, richer and
contains 80 per cent, of nutritious food. In baking
w^hite bread it is important that the flour should
contain neither too much nor too little gluten.
Gluten is the protein of the wheat, and corresponds
to the casein of milk and cheese and the nutritious
properties of the lean of meat. When the dough
ferments it is expanded by the gas which is pro-
duced, and cells are formed in the process. The
walls of these cells chiefly consist of the elastic glu-
ten, which, when it is too small in quantity, are too
thin to resist the pressure of the gas. The result
is that they burst, and the collapse involves heavy

MOST ECONOMICAL FOODSTUFFS 69

bread. If, on the other hand, the flour contains
too much gluten, the cell walls become too thick,
and by resisting the pressure of the gas do not
expand sufficiently. In this case the cells are too
small, and the bread becomes close and inferior
in texture.

Among the most agreeable and highly soluble
of all pure breads I find Winter's highly malted
loaf. It is rich in gluten and long keeping.

Bread differs in composition considerably. The
water present in a loaf may vary from nearly
one-third to nearly one-half of its weight. Thus
one brand provides the buyer with 62 per cent,
of feeding matter while another provides only
52 or 53. The selection is, therefore, of enormous
importance, for a loss of one-sixth to a family
consuming 4 lb. a day means that in twelve months
there is a loss equal to over seventy large loaves.

The housekeeper who makes her own bread
should remember that the weight made from a
given weight of flour depends upon —

1. The character of the flour, which absorbs

more or less water.

2. The quantity of water used in making the

dough.

3. The size of the loaf .

4. The shape of the loaf, whether it is a eottage

or baked in a tin.

70 FOOD AND FITNESS

5. The temperature at which it is baked.

6. The length of time it is baking.

Milk. — Cows' milk is the most substantial of
all fluid foods. It is slightly heavier than water,
although water forms 87 J per cent, of an average
sample. In other words, 100 lb. of cows' milk
(10 gallons) contains approximately 87 J lb. of water,
3J lb. of fat, from which we make butter, 4| lb.
of sugar, 3 J lb. of the protein material, casein,
which as a food resembles the albumin of egg and
the gluten of bread, and nearly f lb. of mineral
salts. A man drinking twelve half-pint glasses
of milk in twenty-four hours can well sustain life,
although the solid food which this quantity would
provide would weigh only 15 oz. Milk, however,
is perfectly balanced, and it contains all the con-
stituents necessary for the maintenance of the
body. The fat of milk is present in the form of
minute globules, which are regularly distributed,
although they are irregular in size. Those in rich
milk are larger than those in poor milk, and they
have been estimated to number from one to three
and three-quarter millions in a cubic millimetre.

When warm milk is poured into a shallow vessel
standing in an apartment at 60° F. the fat rises
to the surface and forms cream. It is this cream
that is churned into butter. The milk from which
it is removed is skimmed milk, but if it is removed

MOST ECONOMICAL FOODSTUFFS 71

by mechanical means it is termed separated milk.
This form of milk still contains the sugar, the casein,
and the mineral salts, and is, therefore, one of the
cheapest foods on the market, although it is
usually given to pigs or to calves.

The nutritive value of milk, containing 3| per
cent, of fat, may be placed at 300 units of heat
or energy to the pint. As, however, the sugar
of milk is fairly constant in quantity, and as it is
the fat, and, to a smaller extent, the casein, which
is materially increased in rich milk, the public
should take the precaution to ensure both quality
and purity, as a slight increase in the quality adds
materially to its nutritive value. If milk resembling
that just referred to costs ^d. a quart, it follows
that a penny buys 150 units, but the same sum
spent in skimmed milk at 6c?. a gallon purchases 235.
Buyers of milk should guard against artificial
colouring and preserving with drugs. The milk
food Sanogen is an excellent tonic when one is
run down.

Condensed Milk. — This is a rich food for growing
children and adults — being an excellent addition
to puddings, fruit tarts, porridge, raw or stewed
fruits, and sweet dishes of all kinds. Condensed
milk is the milk of the cow deprived of a large
proportion of its water. As it varies largely in
quality — for in some brands a part of the cream

72 FOOD AND FITNESS

has been removed — it is important that a regular
buyer should ascertain which is the best. A good
sample contains 11 per cent, of fat, 8 per cent, of
casein, and 65 per cent, of sugar, with 2 per cent,
of mineral salts. Thus a 15 oz. tin contains 10 oz.
of sugar — two-thirds of which consists of cane sugar.
At 3^. a pound in normal times the sugar is worth
2d., the fat at 18^. a pound 2d., and the casein Id.,
or 5d. in all omitting the minerals. Skimmed con-
densed milk is also an economical food if we make
allowance for the cost of the tin and the convenience.
Pound tins of the past have been reduced to 13 oz.,
while the pre -war value of the sugar and casein is 2^d.
To bring back this milk to its original condition a
tin should be mixed with 30 oz., or 1 J pints of water.

Cream is a luxury, and, as with fats, excess is
better avoided unless it is eaten with fruit and
bread, or some equivalent food. In a half-pint
of rich cream, weighing 10 oz., there are 6 oz.,
of pure butter-fat — over 3 J oz. of the remainder
consisting of water. When, therefore, cream is
eaten freely with fruit, the consumer is practically
eating butter and water. In Devonshire clotted
cream, as in poor raw cream, there is a slight
increase of the casein of the milk. As a source
of energy rich cream, costing 2s. a pint, provides
135 units for a penny.

Butter of average quality consists of 86 per

MOST ECONOMICAL FOODSTUFFS 73

cent, or about 13 1 oz., of milk fat in the pound,

«

and 14 per cent, of water. While a badly made
sample may contain more water — ^in a j^erfectly
made sample there may be as little as 12 per cent.
A roll of fine butter should be tough, but not greasy,
and when bent it should gradually fracture, thus
showing the grain which resembles that of cast
iron. If butter is heavily salted it is not only of
less value as food, but the fine flavour for which it
is eaten is neutralised to such an extent that the
consumer might as well eat margarine. There is a
wide difference in the flavour and colour of butter.
That made in Denmark is produced in the creamery
as in Ireland, and is consistently uniform, while
that imported from France is made by the farmers
of Normandy and Brittany, and graded and blended
in factories. Flavour is partly due to the richness
of the milk, and partly to the action of bacteriaj;
which produce acidity in the cream. Butter should
not be kept more than a week, and always stored
in a dry place at a temperature of 40° to 50° F.
It is an expensive form of fat, and is not essential
as part of a diet, for its place can be taken without
loss by margarine, dripping, lard, or fat bacon.
The value of butter as a food, like that of all fats,
lies in its great power to provide heat and energy.
There is, however, a limit to fat eating, and that is
placed, in the case of a strong, healthy man, doing

74 FOOD AND FITNESS

regular exercise, at 5J oz. a day. Few people,
however, can take so much without upsetting the
stomach. Butter is more easily digested and
absorbed than the solid fats of mutton and beef,
for the reason that it contains a larger proportion
of the more fluid fats in its composition. It is for
this reason, too, that oils and margarine made from
oils are so useful. It is well that the public should
know that a large portion of the butter they con-
sume is made in Siberia and Argentina, and that
whether it is manufactured under perfect conditions
or not those conditions are practically unknown
to the consumers of this country.

Cheese. — Hard, or pressed, cheese consists of the
fat and the casein of milk in combination with
about one-third of its weight of water. It is,
therefore, a rich, concentrated food, although for
that reason it is not so suitable for those engaged
in sedentary occupations. Nor should it be eaten
freely by those who consume meat, owing to its
richness in the protein substance, casein. All the
firm cheeses — Stilton, Gorgonzola, and Roquefort
excepted — the last being made from sheep's milk
— are of similar nutritive value, a penny buying
about 200 units when they cost ^d. a pound. The
three varieties of cheese named, which are permeated
with blue mould, are less rich as foods, while they
are unsuitable for all but the robust : and the wise

MOST ECONOMICAL FOODSTUFFS 75

will avoid them, for the blue fungi, never desirable,
is occasionally poisonous. The most useful type
of cheese to the average consumer is made of white
soft curd, and is usually sold in this country from
spring until autumn, although it is common in
France at all seasons. This cheese is made from
new milk; it is not so concentrated, containing
half its weight of water and half the quantity
of casein present in firm cheese, like Cheddar and
Cheshire. It is, therefore, more digestible than
hard cheese, and twice as nourishing as meat —
providing, as it does at 9c?. a pound, 180 units
for a penny. Butter should not be eaten with
cheese, as it usually is at a liberal table, for one-
third of the cheese consists of butter, and the
mixture is not only extravagant but undesirable.
Dutch cheese — the flat or Gouda being of better
flavour than the Edam or round variety — is made
from milk of only moderate quality. Gruyere,
which is made in France and Switzerland, re-
sembles Cheddar in flavour; but there are two
varieties, one of which is made from skimmed
milk. This is tough and lacks mello^vness and
flavour. Parmesan, which is made in Italy, and
is produced largely from skimmed milk, is usually
placed on the table after grating for sprinkling
on soup and other dishes. The refined French
cheeses — Brie, Camembert, and Coulommiers — are

76 FOOD AND FITNESS

all soft varieties, which are made from new milk,
and all are piquant in flavour. They are, however,
while delicious, expensive to buy, and less suitable
than the English varieties to all who would live
with economy.

Margarine is the most economical fat sold to
the public for spreading on bread. Hitherto it has
been subject to two forms of objection : the first,
by the better educated, who would gladly hail
a butter substitute if the word " butter " w^ere
retained to describe it ; and the second, by the
ignorant and the prejudiced, who believe, or
profess to believe, that margarine is an inferior
or unwholesome food. The refusal of many
among the working-classes to eat wholemeal bread
is quite in accordance with their rejection of
margarine, although on all grounds but flavour it is
equal to the best, and superior to inferior, butter.
The energy, or food value of the two fats is precisely
the same, so that while a pennyworth of a sixpenny
sample of margarine buys 600 units, the same sum
spent in butter at IQd. a pound, buys only 225
units. As food, therefore, butter at this price is
two and a half times as dear as margarine.

Margarine, is a product of (1) animal fat, and
(2) purely vegetable oils, and may now be regarded
as a sound, nourishing food, and the most economi-
cal of all fats. It is a recognised fact that fats

MOST ECONOMICAL FOODSTUFFS 77

with low melting points are absorbed by the
system better than fats with high melting points.
Margarine made of vegetable oils has a lower
melting point than butter ; and although I am not
aware that any definite experiments have been
made to test it, there is reason to believe that it
is equally digestible. I have had the advantage
of witnessing the process of manufacture of both
forms of margarine, and I can testify to the abso-
lute cleanliness which prevails in all the factories
I have visited.

In making vegetable margarine 75 per cent,
of coconut and palm-kernel oils are mixed with
25 per cent, of the oils of the cotton seed and the
arachis seed — the popular earth, pea, or monkey
nut. These oils are mixed, or emulsified, with
skimmed milk, which, after pasteurisation, has
been subjected to inoculation with a pure variety
of lactic acid producing bacteria. The object is
to convey that butter flavour to the margarine
which is produced by churning similarly inoculated
cream. This margarine, although such an excellent
food, is not so perfect in flavour as that made from
animal fat, or it would probably not be sold at Qd,
(now7cZ.) a pound,but it is superior to inferior butter.
When, however, its flavour has been improved,
and when it will keep firmer during hot weather,
it will run butter hard among butter consumers.

78 FOOD AND FITNESS

Margarine made from animal fat is the product
of those constituents of the fat of the bullock which
have the lowest melting point, chiefly the olein —
the stearin, w^hich possesses the highest melting
point, is employed in the manufacture of candles.
Margarine does not turn rancid like badly made
butter, as the material from which rancidity is
derived does not exist in this form of fat. As,
however, both forms of margarine are churned with
milk in the process of manufacture, a small pro-
portion of the casein remains in the fat, and as
this decomposes the tendency to keep perfectly
sweet is diminished.

Drippi7ig was a common substitute for butter
before the introduction of margarine. It is the
most useful portion of the fat of animals, inasmuch
as it has a lower melting point than that which
remains on the joint after the process of cooking.
Dripping appeals more distinctly to some people
than lard, margarine or inferior butter, when it is
the produce of a good joint of meat, owing to its
savoury character. As it is practically free from
water it has a greater feeding value than butter,
and is one of the cheapest sources of fat for the
table when its cost approaches sixpence a pound.
Unfortunately, however, for those who prefer it,
it is not easily obtainable.

MOST ECONOMICAL FOODSTUFFS 79

The Farinaceous Foods

Wheat is not generally eaten in its whole con-
dition, although there is no more delicious cereal
than " frumenty," a Lincolnshire dish, which is
perhaps the most economical of all foods when
made with skimm^ed or separated milk. Wheat
contains all the materials required for the suste-
nance of the body, and even when prices are high
it supplies them at smaller cost than either barley
or oats. When the market price is 48^. a quarter
of 504 lb., a pound of wheat costs IJcZ. per pound,
or less than one half the cost of either of these
cereals, which cannot be eaten in the husk. The
fact, too, that wheat can be so eaten is another
point in its favour, quite apart from its more
popular character. In the cooking of frumenty
the newest wheat obtainable should be cooked in
the oven in either water or skimmed milk, just
sufficient in quantity to render it perfectly soft
and pulpy, when the grains have all burst. It is
eaten with milk and sugar, with currants, or
flavouring at will, and is a favourite dish with the
children.

In 100 lb. of wheat there are 79 lb. of digestible
nutritious matter, the balance being chiefly water
and indigestible fibre. At the time of writing white
flour costs, in round figures, 2ld. sl pound, or twice

80 FOOD AND FITNESS

the price of wheat at 485. a quarter, while bread costs
2^d. a pound. White flour, however, forms only 65
to 70 per cent, of the wheat, so that while it has
lost its most valuable properties it costs double the
money. Like whole wheat bread, frumenty is a
light food, for its composition prevents heaviness.
Rice. — There are various cereal preparations
which consist chiefly of starch, and which are in
consequence by no means desirable, for, while they
are poor in protein (muscle formers) and fat the
mineral substance has been taken away. Wheat-
meal, oatmeal, semolina and the best preparations
of maize, are all sufficiently rich in protein to supply
the needs of the body, but the cheaper tapioca and
maize flours are almost devoid of this essential
constituent. Rice deprived of its husk is not only
a little below the standard in protein, but it is
poor in mineral salts. It is, however, one of the
most economical of all foods, and the buyer should
recognise that, although there are various qualities,
the cheapest, if clean, is quite equal as food to the
best. Where it can be obtained it should be
bought in the husk, for in this state it possesses a
superior value. Rice pudding is a justly popular
dish for a family — 6 oz. cooked with three pints
of skimmed milk, with the addition of 2 oz. of
margarine or suet, and sugar, providing a large
plate of nourishing food for five people at a cost

MOST ECONOMICAL FOODSTUFFS 81

of less than a penny apiece. Rice should not be
boiled, as something is lost in the cooking, but
baked in the oven. If it can be steamed and after-
wards fried with butter, margarine, or oil it pro-
vides a good savoury dish, which may be flavoured
with chopped onions, chervil, or curry, at very
nominal cost. Rice should always be well cooked,
and full allowance made for its swelling propensity.
Although the ration might not be very convenient,
for it would be necessary to add water for cooking,
1 lb. of rice with 3 pints of skimmed milk and 2 oz.
of margarine with sugar would maintain a man in
good health at the cost of 7d. a day. One pound
of steamed rice with sugar and ^ lb. of bread
and 4 oz. of margarine would provide still more
nutriment at a cost of 5^d.

Oats and Oatmeal. — The oat is the best-balanced
food of all the cereals. It is rich in fat, protein,
starch and the minerals, and is well adapted to
sustain healthy condition. It is the best con-
centrated food for the horse, whether for heavy
draught purposes or for speed. It is also the best
dry food for calves and the feeding of poultry.
Although this testimony to its value does not of
necessity prove that oats or oatmeal are equally
useful to man, who may not absorb their nutritious
portions so well, it cannot be dismissed. The
rolled oat, like the best coarse oatmeal, is of great

G

82 FOOD AND FITNESS

value in promoting the activity of the intestines,
owing to the influence of the fibre, and this adds
to its health-giving properties. The best form of
food produced from the oat is the coarse Scotch
milled, while the Scottish method of cooking should
always be followed. Porridge in England is not
only too thin, and therefore too little substantial,
but it is much overcooked. The assumption that
long cooking makes oatmeal more digestible is not
altogether correct, inasmuch as in this condition
it is swallowed without sufficient mastication, and
often gives trouble in consequence. Coarse Scotch
meal, cooked in the Scottish way, must be masti-
cated, with the result that it is well mixed with
saliva, which promotes perfect digestion. There is,
however, a loss of energy in the process of cooking ;
and, in spite of the supposition that cooking is so
essential, I find no difficulty in digesting rolled
oats simply soaked in cold water for twelve hours,
and mixing them with crushed or grated fruit —
thus making fruit porridge, perhaps the most
perfect of all additions to a regular diet, if I may
judge by the high standard of health which it
assists to maintain. Oat flour, fine oatmeal, as
used for gruel, and groats, are all inferior to rolled
oats and the coarse oatmeal, containing, as they
do, less fat, protein and minerals — the three most
important constituents of the grain.

MOST ECONOMICAL FOODSTUFFS 83

Oat, or girdle, cake is one of the most useful,
nourishing and concentrated of all cereal foods, but
its price at the bakers is out of all proportion to
its cost to produce. A thin, dry, oatcake weighing
3 oz. is quite equal as food to 5 or 6 oz. of bread,
and can be carried with much less inconvenience.
There is no food better adapted for a man engaged
in hard physical labour as a snack between meals.
The value of good oatmeal porridge may be esti-
mated from the following figures. Two ounces of
coarse meal may be cooked in just sufficient water
to make it almost as stiff as a jelly. The addition
of half a pint of skimmed milk, a large pat of
butter or margarine, and sugar to sweeten it,
will provide a substantial plateful of porridge at
a cost of l^d. The energy value of this food
would be equivalent to 400 calories. The em-
ployment of new milk instead of the skimmed
milk and butter would increase the cost to
2d., but it w^ould not materially increase its
nourishing properties.

Barley is not largely consumed as a food,
although it is one of the most nourishing cereals.
It is probable that the reason is to be found in
the high price at which it is charged. Malting
samples apart, barley, weight for weight, is cheaper
than wheat, but it contains more fibrous matter
in the husk, and consequently less nutritive food.

84 FOOD AND FITNESS

Where, however, this fibre is removed it is of
similar value, although its cost is out of proportion
to that value. When a bushel of barley weighing
50 lb. can be purchased in normal times for Ss. 6d.
to 45. , or less than a penny a pound, the mere
removal of the husk unwarrantably increases it to
2^d. and Sd. While barley contains the smallest
proportion of fat of all the cereals, and is relatively
poor in protein for the formation of muscular
tissue, it is the richest in mineral matter. Samples
vary, however — a fact which the grower learns to
his cost when he offers a poor sample to a brewer —
for a really thin barley contains but two-thirds of
the normal quantity of starch. Barley will not
make edible bread, in consequence of its small pro-
portion of gluten, but its flour is frequently used
in Wales for this purpose when it is mixed with
wheat flour. Barley was, however, largely used in
this country by the rural population of the past as
a breadstuff in spite of its inferiority.

Barley water, which is frequently recommended
as a nourishing drink, has really nothing to recom-
mend it in this direction, for its feeding property is
but infinitesimal.

Tapioca is the product of the cassava plant, a
native of the American tropics, which it has been
claimed produces six times as much feeding sub-
stance to the acre as wheat. It is rich in starch,

MOST ECONOMICAL FOODSTUFFS 85

but the real article is imitated by a product of the
potato, which is almost pure starch. It is advisable,
therefore, in preparing cheap tapioca to use milk
and eggs, that its deficiency in protein may be
properly modified.

Macaroni, Spaghetti, Vermicelli. — These foods,
so popular in Italy, are of great nourishing
value, but that value is diminished by the fact
that they are made from very fine flour which
leaves no residue in the process of digestion. They
should, therefore, be eaten with fruits or tomatoes
in their skins, or with green vegetables. Like all
cereals these foods absorb a large quantity of water
in the process of cooking. The starch present in
an average sample reaches 12 oz. in a pound, and
the protein 1^ to 2 oz., but the proportion of fat
is so small that oil, butter, or margarine should be
added where macaroni forms a large item in the
diet. Macaroni cheese, as prepared in England,
is a less digestible dish than where grated cheese
is sprinkled over it as in Italy. In making a
pudding from either of these foods with the assist-
ance of new milk, 6 oz. should be broken small in
a dish of three pints, with sugar, and flavour to
taste. This will produce five large plates, weighing
about 10 oz. each, at a cost of ll\d., when the
paste costs ^d. a pound — or, where skimmed milk
can be obtained at a penny a pint, and 2 oz. of

86 FOOD AND FITNESS

margarine are added, 5^d. — i. e. a fraction more
than a penny a plate.

Preparations or Maize. — If we omit the pre-
parations of maize which are sold in this country
for making moulds or blanc-mange, this most
valuable cereal is almost ignored, although it is
quite equal to wheat as a producer of energy, con-
taining as it does more fat and starch and an ample
proportion of protein. Maize forms one of the
most popular foods in Africa, in America, where I
have enjoyed the corncakes common to the country ;
and in Italy, where polenta is the chief food of the
peasantry, while it is widely consumed in Ireland.
It is one of the most economical of all foods — a
well-made meal providing sweet or savoury and
highly nourishing cakes for the dinner or the tea
table, and for this purpose, too, hominy may be
used. At 2(^. a pound a penny buys 800 units,
but the maize flours which are practically all
starch — there being barely a trace of protein or
mineral salts — provide a great deal less for the
money. Maize products are not only well digested,
but well absorbed, and, for the reasons advanced,
combined with their lower price, it is a pity that
they are not more largely consumed.

Dried Pulses — Beans, Peas and Lentils
The popular pulses are the cheapest sources of
protein, and among the most economical sources

MOST ECONOMICAL FOODSTUFFS 87

of food when the cost does not exceed 2^(1. to Sd.
a pound. Their extreme richness, however, is
greatly modified by the large quantities of water
they absorb in the process of cooking. These
foods contain from one-fifth to one-fourth their
weight in protein, with more than one -half their
weight of starch, some fat and mineral salts.
It has been said that in spite of the richness of
the pulses in protein a large quantity must be
eaten to obtain it, and that they may, therefore, be
eaten with meat. There is, however, no food so
well adapted to replace meat, while to mix the
two foods is to increase the protein beyond what
nature requires, and to incite in the middle-aged
those troubles to which so many are subject.
Assuming that all the nutritive matter in haricot
beans is absorbed, although it is well known that
it is not, 10 oz. would provide all the protein
that an average man requires, without trespassing
upon another kind of food. It would, however,
be necessary for him to consume nearly 2 lb.,
with 2 oz. of fat, in order to maintain him at
physical work. If it became necessary to con-
sume a sufficient quantity of haricot beans,
to provide the large proportion of protein which
old-fashioned teaching insists is required, a man
would need 21 oz., which it would be impossible
for him to consume.

Pulses are slowly digested. Dried green peas

88 FOOD AND FITNESS

are becoming as popular as haricot beans, but they
need equally careful soaking, and the addition of
carbonate of soda which some vendors provide
with the peas to reduce them to edible softness.
It may be added that in using lentil flour for
porridge 2 oz. is sufficient to make a good plateful.
Although it is sometimes assumed that the non-
meat-eater must of necessity eat pulse with regu-
larity for the sake of its protein, this is not really
the case, and, substantial as they are, neither dried
peas, beans, nor lentils should be eaten too often,
but used as a change.

Animal Foods

Eggs, — There is no greater mistake than the
popular belief in the great nourishing value of
eggs. Although most useful as food and in the
preparation of various dishes, the egg is a luxury,
or, to put it in another way, it is one of the most
uneconomical of all ordinary foods, owing to its
cost. An average egg weighs two ounces, and costs
twopence during a great portion of the year, or
one penny per ounce. Such an egg is able to
produce 80 units of energy, or 40 for a penny.
A pint of new milk, however, costing twopence, is
equal to 300 units, or 150 for a penny, so that as
a food milk is more than three times the value of
eggs when these prices prevail. When, however,

MOST ECONOMICAL FOODSTUFFS 89

an egg costs a penny it is still nearly twice as
costly as milk, and eight times as costly as oatmeal
or bread.

In a new-laid egg weighing 2 oz. there are over
IJ oz. of water and shell, so that the actual food
material weighs less than half an ounce, and when
eggs are 2d. each this costs over 4(^. an ounce.
Compared with this the food in milk, costing 2c?. a
pint in normal times, costs less than Id. an ounce ;
in rice and bread at 2d. a pound, and in potatoes
at ^d. a pound, it costs less than a farthing an
ounce, while in meat of medium fatness costing
lOd. a pound, it costs about l^d. an ounce. On
all grounds, then, eggs, popular and useful as they
are, are an extravagant food.

The white of egg contains seven-eighths of its
weight of water, while water forms one -half of the
weight of the yolk. The chief fats of the yolk are
identical with the chief fats which form butter,
and they are easily digested and assimilated. The
yolk is rich in the invaluable phosphate of lime —
the great bone -making material — but iron is also
present in marked quantity, and for this reason
the yolk of egg is of more value than the w^hite.
The yolk, too, is moderately rich in protein (albu-
men), which forms the only feeding substance in
the white, if w^e except the minerals. Eggs are
useful for children when mixed with skimmed milk

90 FOOD AND FITNESS

and a cereal for making puddings and dishes which
are otherwise poor in protein and fat. It is, how-
ever, a curious custom which associates them with
bacon and ham, inasmuch as they are rich in the
two materials in which these meats are richer still.
Eggs leave no residue in the system ; they are more
easily digested when raw or lightly cooked than
when fried, boiled hard, or made into omelettes.
They preserve admirably in water glass at very
small cost.

Meat. — It has often been remarked that v>'e
British are a meat-eating people, and that owing
to our position on the globe, our predisposition to
eat animal food is a natural one, and indicative of
the fact that we need it. I can discover no evidence
to warrant this belief, but I do remember that in
my boyhood the labouring classes ate no other
meat than they obtained from their pig, and that
this was chiefly very fat bacon. Nor are farm
labourers, navvies, and other manual workers great
meat-eaters now. I often observe that these men
subsist mainly upon bread-and-cheeseand fat bacon,
which is much more economical as a producer of
energy than mutton or beef. Thus, while a cheap
joint of boneless fresh meat provides 100 units of
energy for a penny, w^hen costing 8d. a pound, fat
bacon costing lOd. a pound provides double as
many. It has been frequently asserted that fresh

MOST ECONOMICAL FOODSTUFFS 91

meat is essential for building the bony structure
and muscular system of the young, as well as for
maintaining both in the adult. Some conspicuous
writers, however, draw the line at middle age,
suggesting that meat is a dangerous food for
regular consumption where the system no longer
needs the large proportion of protein which it
provides either for construction or repair. The
reason given is a serious one, inasmuch as it makes
demands upon the vital organs with which they are
less able to comply; and as age increases, the
pressure becomes too great for them to bear, and
one or more breaks down.

Lean meat is one of the most easily digested of
the foods which are consumed by man, but its
value is much exaggerated. Fat meat is more
economical than lean meat. With the increase in
the proportion of fat there is a corresponding
decrease in the proportion of w^ater. In a pound
of the lean of beef the water and waste weighs
from 12 oz. to 12j oz., and in a pound of fat
beef the actual food material weighs only 8 oz.
to 9 oz., according to the degree of fatness. In
fat meat, however, the fat forms nearly two-thirds
of the whole of the nutritive matter. Thus, a
pound of very fat meat without bone, costing 15d.
a pound, will provide about 6 oz. of lean and
nearly 9 oz. of fat, which is as high-priced as

92 FOOD AND FITNESS

butter, but of no greater value as food than drip-
ping or margarine costing 6d. a pound. That
portion of the fat which drips from the joint in
the process of roasting becomes dripping and is
vakied accordingly.

Where a joint of meat contains bone, gristle and
tendon, which the consumer rejects, the waste from
these sources may reach 20 per cent., or one-fifth
of its w^eight. If, however, a joint bought at a
shilling a pound, costing 6s., contains 15 per cent,
of waste, it is reduced in round numbers to 5 lb.,
so that the actual cost before cooking is nearly
Is. 2\d. a pound. This, combined with the fact
that the lean or muscular portion contains nearly
three parts of its weight of water; that it is an
imperfect food, and that the fat costs double its
value in money, constitutes meat the most expen-
sive of all those popular foods which are placed
on our tables. When this truth is fully understood ;
when it is realised that meat is neither essential to
health nor to strength, but much less nutritious
than the cereals and the pulses and their various
preparations, and that meat accounts for many of
the ailments of those who are growing in years
and is a bar to longevity, we shall reduce our con-
sumption, and as a natural consequence live with
greater economy and live better and longer.

While I very occasionally eat meat in some form

MOST ECONOMICAL FOODSTUFFS 93

— either fish, flesh, or fowl — when dining from home,
I am conscious that since I abandoned all as a part
of my regular diet the joy of life has been renewed,
health and strength and mental power have been
improved in a marvellous way, w^ith the result that,
in spite of increasing age, feats of mental and
physical exercise impossible in earlier days have
been, and are being, accomplished. What has
happened to me has happened to many. This has
been done upon approximately one-half the quantity
of protein — ^the muscle-producing constituent of
food — that a man is supposed to require in accord-
ance with the erroneous teaching of the past.

On an ordinary mixed diet, including meat once
a day only, average men consume this full allow-
ance of protein, with the result that in four or five
out of six it produces uric acid to such an extent
that rheumatism, gout, kidney trouble, or another
of the many diseases which are caused by this
poison, is established, and the patient either dies
or lives a protracted and painful existence.

We have seen that the cheapest meat is the
fattest, so long as it is a rational joint, for while
the lean containing the protein is marbled with fat,
and is thus richer than the muscular portion
alone, it makes up by its improved quality for
its reduced quantity, the fat being practically an
addition. While it is impossible to eat fat with

94 FOOD AND FITNESS

impunity, as nature would quickly rebel, it should
be recognised that it is equally impossible to eat
lean with impunity, without permanent harm.
This, however, with most men is a regular practice,
because in this case nature is slower to express her
opinion. Lean meat is a stimulant, hence the
system is to some extent gratified by its consump-
tion, and to the misfortune of man he knows
nothing about it until trouble arrives.

If meat eaten once daily may, as it so frequently
does, cause damage to health, what can we say to
those to whom meat in its various forms is the
Alpha and Omega of existence. The morning com-
mences in homes in which I have stayed with meat
in variety — bacon, kidneys, sausages, chops, brawn,
eggs and cold chicken and ham. With luncheon
comes fish and flesh; while at dinner soup with a
meat foundation is succeeded by fish, entrie, joint
and game, or poultry. How is it possible that a
man, whose organisation is constructed to deal with
100 grm. of protein at the outside when he is no
longer a physical worker, or when his muscular
system no longer requires, or is able to deal with,
more than 60 grm., can consume 250 to 300 grm.
without serious bodily harm ? He does not, how-
ever, for in most cases such a man dies a premature
death, and having broken nature's laws he perhaps
takes with him knowledge of great value to the

MOST ECONOMICAL FOODSTUFFS 95

race, and is lamented as a victim to one of those
forms of disease which God is said to visit on man,
but wliich man brings upon himself.

That portion of meat which acts as a stimulant
is the extract which is the chief source of its flavour.
Thus, there is a marked difference in the appetising
value of roast as compared with boiled meat, which
has lost a portion of its extract in the process of
cooking. Meat extract, however, possesses practi-
cally no nourishing value. Young meat provides
a smaller quantity of extract than mature meat.
Thus, if the rich fat of roast lamb were removed
from the joint the lean would prove insipid and
much less inviting. Boiling, however, also removes
a portion of the fat and the mineral matter in the
flesh, Y\^hile the loss of w^eight in a boiled joint may
reach one-fifth of the total. Cooked meat, there-
fore, weighs less than raw meat — a fact which the
buyer of cooked ham or beef is able to realise from
the enhanced cost. If, however, boiling is followed
by a loss of fat, that loss is increased by roasting.

Although cooked mutton and beef are well
digested and absorbed, raw minced meat is digested
more easily, and meat which is underdone is
digested more easily than that which is well done.
While, however, fresh pork is regarded as difficult
of digestion, cured bacon is perhaps the most
easily digested of all meats, including the fat.

96 FOOD AND FITNESS

The most innutritious and undesirable of all flesh
foods are the offals — liver, heart and kidneys —
while calves'-head, sweetbreads and brains, much to
the surprise of those who believe in their great
utility for delicate persons, are quite the reverse.
Calves'-head is one of the poorest of animal foods,
providing only one-twelfth of its weight of nutritious
material. The larger, or pancreas sweetbread, a
much richer food, is one of the most prolific sources
of uric acid, although on account of its high digesti-
bility it is a favourite dish among those suffering
from the diseases w^hich it assists in producing.
Brains, although easily digested, are so imperfectly
absorbed that they provide approximately only
one-tenth of their weight of nourishment. With
the exception of the heart, the chief organs of the
body contain but a small proportion of fat, their
flesh being indigestible and unsuitable as a nourish-
ing food for all but the hardy and strong.

Poultry, Game and Rabbits may be valued from
the same point of view as meat — they are animal
food. The fact that they constitute white meat
makes no actual difference to their nourishing
value. Their digestibility depends upon their
youth and condition — very fat fowls, and in
particular waterfowl, being much less digestible
than birds in normal condition.

Bacon, although one of the most popular of all

MOST ECONOMICAL FOODSTUFFS 97

foods in this country, requires short notice at our
hands. Usually eaten much fatter than fresh meat,
when it is boiled it is of greater value to those
whose occupation requires them to eat plenty of
digestible fat, especially during the winter season.
Bacon is easily digested, and when the lean portion
of the meat does not exceed 25 per cent, it is,
cooked in this way, an economical food at all times
when prices are normal. When, however, bacon
is dear it is more costly than butter, and one of
the most expensive of animal foods, especially if it
is fried, owing partly to the loss which is sustained
in the process of cooking — a loss which few well-
to-do persons take the trouble to prevent by saving
the dripping. When bacon is fried or toasted until
it is dry, it costs double as much as is paid for it,
two rashers being required to provide the same
weight as one as it came from the hands of the
tradesman.

The best parts of the side are the cheapest, the
lower-priced fore-end containing a large proportion
of bone and coarse meat. Labourers and other
country people who feed their own pigs are able to
provide bacon for their own consumption at much
lower cost than is charged by the grocer. In the
course of its production and sale bacon passes
through the hands of the curer, the merchant, and
the retailer, and in each case a profit is made.

H

98 FOOD AND FITNESS

The best class of bacon is produced by pigs fed
upon barley-meal, potatoes and skimmed milk — a
typical pig weighing 175 lb. when he is slaughtered.
This weight is reduced to 180 lb. or thereabouts,
in the carcase, and 112 lb. when the cured sides
are ready for sale. This weight provides typical
sides of sizeable meat weighing 56 lb. each. The
best joint of bacon is the loin, which should be
composed of a rich, firm, tender fillet of lean,
covered with two inches of fat. This depth of
fat, however, which is more than the public demand,
although it means more economical bacon, is not
often produced on pigs of this size, but on those
which are larger. The belly, or streaky, takes the
next place, followed by the gammon or ham.
Bacon is now usually cured with the assistance of
boracic acid, which is better avoided, but the fact
is not generally known. There are some factories,
however, in which no boracic acid is used.

Fish. — If we base the value of fish upon its
average price we cannot regard it as an economical
food. When herrings, sprats, mackerel, plaice and
cod are exceptionally abundant and sold at low
prices the question bears a different aspect. With
the exception of herrings, eels, salmon and brill
almost all varieties of fish contain little nutriment —
water, bone and 'skin forming 75 to 85 per cent,
of their weight after boiling. The fat fish — eels,

MOST ECONOMICAL FOODSTUFFS 99

salmon and herrings — are much the most nourish-
ing, although, owing to their fatness, they are less
well digested than white fish which are almost
fatless, but which are among the most popular.
These include smelts, plaice, soles, lemon soles and
whiting — all of which contain a large amount of
water, bone and skin — and halibut, hake and cod,
in which waste is less. Among those varieties of
fish in which the proportion of bone and skin is
most prominent are turbot, gurnet and haddock.

In the whole range of fish consumed in this
country herrings hold the first economical place —
haddock, hake and whiting, all popular among the
working-classes, being relatively dear, owing to
their extreme poverty as food. Nor are the flat
fish — soles, lemon soles and plaice — much superior.
Thus, as food for families with small incomes,
putting herrings aside, and with the reservation
already made as to low prices when fish is abundant,
fish cannot be recommended except as an agreeable
or occasional addition to the foods of the table.

The nutrient matter of fish is easily absorbed,
but, except in relation to the latter varieties —
salmon, herrings and eels — fish contains nothing but
the muscle-building material — protein — with some
useful mineral matter. It has been observed that
a man cannot perform severe physical work upon
white fish of the popular varieties. Perhaps this

100 FOOD AND FITNESS

is explained by the fact that, unhke red meat, it
is not a stimulant, and that, weight for weight, as
compared with an average joint providing some
fat, it is much less nutritious. There are times,
owing to the variation in the prices of fish, when
the more costly salmon, or brill, is more economical
to buy than haddock, whiting, or hake. Thus,
salmon at 2^. a pound provides 5 oz. of nutritious
food at a cost of about 5d, an ounce, whereas a
pound of whiting or lemon sole provides only
2 1 oz. of food, and that of a less valuable character,
at a similar cost. When soles cost 2s. a pound
each ounce of nutriment — almost entirely muscle-
forming — costs lOd. in round numbers. Fish is
not only much too costly to be regarded as a daily
food, but it is a producer of uric acid, and should,
therefore, be eaten sparingly, if at all, by elderly
people.

» > 3 5 0

CHAPTER VII

THE ADVANTAGES OF AN INCREASED VEGETABLE

DIET

The average medical man is an advocate of a
mixed diet. In my experience he advises his
patients to eat one-fourth of what he consumes
as animal food. The vegetarian, on the contrary,
declines flesh altogether, and he has some excellent
reasons, although he goes a little too far as an
advocate of the system he follows. Man, however,
who can eat what he likes, declines both of these
courses, and makes flesh in some form his Alpha and
Omega at each of the three real meals of the day.

A vegetarian is apparently one who abstains
from all animal food, with the exception of eggs
and milk and its products. As the need for economy
has given great encouragement to abstention from
meat on account of its price, this system of feeding
the body has obtained greater prominence than
ever before, and it is quite probable that the
advantage which many derive from it will largely
expand the ranks of vegetarians.

It may be well to examine the claims of vegeta-

101

^102 FOOD AND FITNESS

rians and of meat-eaters respectively, and, as I
have had an almost unique experience, I take up
the task.

The vegetarian asserts that flesh-eating is not
only injurious to the body, but to the mind, and
therefore to the supreme happiness of man; and
that, on the contrary, vegetable food contributes
to both moral and physical health and long life.

That meat is a costly, extravagant, unnecessary,
and an unscriptural food.

That flesh-eating is more deadly than alcohol-
drinking, inasmuch as it is the direct, or indirect,
cause of some of the most dangerous of organic and
other diseases.

Now let us see what the meat-eater says, al-
though it is next to impossible to find any organised
claims for his favourite dishes, for he makes them
the chief food of his life.

He tells us that flesh is essential for the manu-
facture of muscle, and thus for the provision of
strength; that it is not injurious to health; and
that without it man is not properly fed.

That the protein in animal food which is employed
in the construction of the muscular system is
better absorbed, and a greater conserver of energy,
than the protein of plants.

That a vegetable feeder must consume a much
larger quantity of food than his system is con-

INCREASED VEGETABLE DIET 103

structed to deal with wdthout disagreeable results,
and that he is less energetic and less able to with-
stand disease.

I believe these claims fully represent the \dews
of the man who is able to defend the system he
follows. It is, however, certainly true that,
unlike vegetarians — some of whom go to the
other extreme, and, as I discover, make some
unhappy mistakes — the average meat-eater has
not studied cither the scientific or the practical
side of the subject. He holds his position as a
matter of course, and his system as granted.
Flesh-eating is part of his nature, his everyday
life ; and he regards those who dispute its appro-
priate character as cranks.

This is not the right attitude from which to
discuss a serious subject. The meat-eater should
face the question with courage, for, if he is wrong,
his health and his happiness — indeed, his whole
life — may depend upon that. Is meat-eating
injurious ? Meat — i. e. the muscular tissue of
fish, flesh, or fowl, is an abundant producer of
uric acid, the prime cause of many serious bodily
troubles. That fact is never disputed, although
poor, suffering men are seldom advised to abandon
the food of its origin.

Consistent meat-eating, which materially differs
from the practice of the moderate man, means

104 FOOD AND FITNESS

the consumption of two, three, or even four times
as much muscle producer as the body requires, but
not one in ten thousand understands or beheves
it. The virtue of meat is supposed to exist in
its power to build up the body. The adult system
of man simply demands protein for the repair of
his muscular tissue, not its construction, and for
this purpose he can obtain all he requires from the
cereals, pulses, vegetables, and fruits, with bread,
eggs, milk, and cheese, if he chooses to eat them.
Thus, meat is more than superfluous, for it puts
extra pressure on the heart and the organs of
digestion and secretion. The result is the frequent
collapse of one or more of these vital parts of our
human machinery.

I am informed by one of the foremost of European
authorities — whose experience extends to thousands
of cases — that meat-eating is accompanied by the
flourishing life and activity of specific intestinal
bacteria, which are engaged in the constant pro-
duction of matter of a poisonous character. This
product, if borne with equanimity by youth and
vigorous manhood, is a special danger to middle-
aged men. When meat is abandoned in favour
of a non-animal diet, in which fruit plays a
prominent part, the germs are expelled, and the
trouble rapidly ceases, for the food is no longer
appropriate to their active existence.

INCREASED VEGETABLE DIET 105

Meat is a stimulant, acting as all stimulants do,
depressing the muscular system, arousing the
animal passions, and creating a thirst for alcohol,
coffee, and tea, all of which contain toxic materials,
which are unknown to the non-animal feeder.

A vital feature in the composition of food is its
mineral matter. If this is deficient — as it is in
meat and white bread — the blood, and therefore
vitality and brain power, suffers. Where food
consists solely of bread, cereals, pulse, vegetables,
and fruits without removing the skins, the red
corpuscles of the blood are largely increased, and
the devitalised invalid becomes a vigorous man,
and pills and potions are no longer required.

I have arrived at these conclusions by practice
and investigation, and I can confirm them in the
light of the medical explanation of facts. Health,
happiness, mental and physical vigour, sleep, and
a calm confidence in a glorious future — all are
the result of the almost entire abandonment of
flesh- eating.

Now let us examine the claims of those vegetable
foods which the meat-eater objects to consume to
the exclusion of meat, but on wliich the vegetarian
lives a longer and happier life.

Man requires for the maintenance of his health
and vigour food material in four forms — (1) the
muscle builder (protein), (2) the heat and energy

106 FOOD AND FITNESS

producers, chiefly starch and sugar (known as
carbohydrates), (8) fat or oil ; and (4) the mineral
salts, which are so largely responsible for the en-
richment of the blood and the construction of the
bones and the teeth.

Flesh, by w^hich I here mean the red meat, or mus-
cular tissue, of beef, mutton, and pork — ^the white
meat of poultry and game — and the red and white
meat of fish — provides the muscle-builder almost
alone, with its insufficient proportion of minerals.
Man, therefore, could not live a normal life upon
meat without additional food, nor is his organism
constructed to deal with it. Apart from this fact,
the quantity of flesh which he would be compelled
to consume to exist at all would be so large and
so expensive that he would ultimately fail in his
task.

The foods of the vegetable kingdom furnish all
the materials which are required for nutrition —
muscle-builders, heat and energy producers, fat
and oil, and the minerals in abundance — ^these
being of the highest importance, although they are
consumed in quantities which are very minute.

The protein in vegetables is assumed to be less
well absorbed by the blood than the protein of
flesh, and to provide us wdth a less concentrated
muscle-building diet. It is also assumed that as
this form of protein exists in such small quantities,

INCREASED VEGETABLE DIET 107

except in the pulses, man is compelled to eat a
greater bulk of food in order to obtain ail he requires.
Lastly, the meat-eater insists that the quantity
of this muscle-builder which man does require
is much greater than the vegetable-eater has
proved it to be, if we may judge by results, and on
this point I am able to support the vegetable-
feeder from actual experience.

Animal protein is a greater producer of uric acid
than vegetable protein, and a known cause of
disease — a fact w^hich cannot be charged to the
account of the latter. If vegetarians, and others
like myself who have passed through the ordeal
of long experiment, can maintain high condition
upon the small amount of protein which vegetables
eaten in moderate quantities provide, with the
assistance of milk and its products, it is apparent
that in spite of its less perfect absorption the claims
of the rneat-eater are in opposition to facts.

Although there is still much to learn on the sub-
ject of the nutrition of man, it is essential to refer
to another claim that is made as between the two
schools. It has been pointed out that the large
proportion of fibre in vegetable foods — always
excepting those from which it has been removed,
such as rice, white flour, and macaroni — interferes
with perfect digestion by inciting the intestines,
stimulating peristalsis, and hurrying their contents

108 FOOD AND FITNESS

so rapidly through the system that opportunity
is not given for perfect absorption. It is also
suggested that owing to the larger mass of food
consumed by vegetarians it is not mixed with the
digestive juices with sufficient freedom to ensure
perfect digestion. These statements, which are
not entirely without foundation, undoubtedly apply
to those who are too careless to masticate their
food thoroughly, or who, owing to bad teeth, are
unable to do so ; but they cannot and do not apply
to the rational man.

It has been said, too, that the teeth of man are
adapted to the mastication of meat rather than the
mastication of vegetables, and that it is necessary
in consequence to cook most of the foods we
consume. This raises a question of the highest
importance. If in His goodness the Creator has
provided vegetable foods for our sustenance. He
has not done so on the assumption that we should
reject what in our wisdom we regard as unnecessary.
The fibrous matter, or husk, of the wheat grain
is more essential to health than the fibre of flesh.
Its action on the organs of digestion is one of the
most important in the maintenance of health,
while the mineral matter it contains is more or less
vital to life. White flour is a product of ultra-
civilisation and extravagant living, and until
recent years it was not only unknown to our own

INCREASED VEGETABLE DIET 109

working people, but to the inhabitants of all
European countries, most of whom up to this day
consume bread made from the whole grain. In
cooking food made from finely ground flour, which
has been deprived of its husk with the object of
rendering it more digestible, we sometimes lose
sight of the fact that we are ignoring the use of
our teeth, with the result that assimilation is
impeded rather than improved. This is essentially
noticeable in the ease of oatmeal porridge and other
semi-liquid dishes, soft pulse, and cereal foods.
As there is nothing to chew, the food is not retained
in the mouth for admixture with the saliva, but
swallowed at once. The saliva plays an important
part in the work of digestion — preparing the food
for the stomach, and thus causing less irritation
to its walls, and at the same time assisting in the
conversion of starch into sugar. If the teeth
were employed more freely, and for a greater
length of time, in the process of mastication, we
should hear very few complaints of the imperfect
absorption of the muscle-building constituents of
vegetable foods.

If it is true that man is not a carnivorous animal,
and that health and muscular fitness can be main-
tained, and greater longevity ensured by a
vegetable diet, or a diet in which flesh plays a very
unimportant part, it must be clear that it is not

110 FOOD AND FITNESS

only unnecessary but extravagant, apart from the
fact that it is wholly or partly responsible for
some of the most painful and dangerous diseases
which are troublesome to man. This remark is
not made without full and careful consideration
of the fact that, with many another, we have
enjoyed that mental alertness, physical health,
and happiness, which were long denied while we
were addicted to the daily consumption of meat.
What has been accomplished by athletes who are
rigid vegetarians, by the Japanese and the Sikhs,
is described in another chapter. The facts, how-
ever, are unknown to the million, who apparently
believe that flesh is an essential to life. On the
contrary, there are numerous Eastern races, possibly
numbering half the inhabitants of the globe, who
live solely upon cereals, fruits, and other vegetable
foods.

As already observed, one of the functions of
food is the provision of heat and energy. That
function cannot be established and maintained
by flesh alone, however freely fat may be eaten,
for there is a limitation to the quantity of fat
w^hich man can consume. The natural and most
abundant fuel-food supplied to man is starch —
hence his large consumption of bread. When
wheat is sold at a normal price, as when bread is
sixpence a loaf, a pound of fuel in the form of

INCREASED VEGETABLE DIET 111

starch can be purchased for l^d., but when a lean
beefsteak costs a shilling a pound, a pound of fuel
in that form costs 4^.

It is not denied that the starch and sugar and
fats and oils of vegetable foods are well absorbed,
for the fact is well known ; but it is reasonable to
suppose that all the husk of grain and pulse, and
the fibrous matter of vegetables, can no more be
absorbed than the indigestible fibre of meat.
The younger it is the more easily it is masticated
and brought into condition for assimilation —
hence young carrots, turnips, parsnips, and cabbage
are chosen by those able to buy them, while those
who produce these foods for the popular market
prefer size to quality. The cellulose, or fibrous
walls of the cells of plants, increases in toughness
and indigestibility with age ; and, therefore, an old
carrot or turnip, while presenting more bulk, also
presents more difficulty in assimilation and pro-
portionately less nutritive matter.

Bread and other cereal foods, whether made
from fine flour or wholemeal, should be well
chewed, inasmuch as the starch is assisted in its
conversion into sugar in the mouth, while the fibre
is more easily enabled to part with the nutritive
matter it contains. Starch is insoluble, but when
it is converted into sugar — a soluble material — it
is able to enter the blood. The oils, too, of vege-

112 FOOD AND FITNESS

table foods are more easily assimulated than the
fats of animal foods, owing to tlieir greater fluidity.
Thus, olive oil is of greater value than suet, which
contains a large proportion of stearin, a material
with a high melting point, which is removed in the
conversion of animal fat into margarine.

One of the arguments in opposition to the
extensive employment of vegetable foods relates
to their bulk, which, owing to the large proportion
of water they contain, is undeniable. It is ap-
parently unknown to those who adopt it, as it is
known to us from practical experience, that the
consumer of vegetables and fruits drinks very much
less than the meat-eater, for thirst is practically
unknown. It, therefore, amounts to this, that in
one case water is consumed in combination with
food, while in the other it is consumed in addition
to food. This fact is of great importance to many
persons who, with growing years, find that liquid
disagrees with them, especially at the two great
meals of the day. It is, however, now possible
to live upon a vegetable diet in a much more
concentrated form. Vegetables in great variety
are dried, ground into powder, and placed on
the market, although at the moment of writing
the whole production is sold to the Government
for the use of the Army and Navy. Much, how-
ever, can be done to reduce the Bulk of vegetables

INCREASED VEGETABLE DIET 113

in the process of cooking, if steaming, baking, and
roasting is allowed, as far as possible, to replace
the wasteful process of boiling, and of removing
the skins.

One of our national misfortunes is that the pre-
sent generation has been trained to consume foods
from which the husk or fibre has been wholly
or partially removed. Wheat, maize, oats, rice,
peas, potatoes, apples, stone and other fruits,
all have suffered in value by this increasing habit,
with the result that an attempt to eat these foods
as they are grown is followed by complaints of
discomfort and indigestion. The objections of
mature people are reflected on the young who
refuse to eat what they claim disagrees with their
elder^ and what is disagreeable to themselves.
The incorrigibility of the young, and the apparent
impossibility of inducing them to adopt habits
which conduce to their lifelong benefit, make it all
the more incumbent on parents and others to show
them a good example.

We have abused the foods, which have been so
freely given to us, to such an extent that the
mechanism of our digestive organs has apparently
lost the power to deal with them ; and this is not
surprising when we contrast modern white flour
with wholemeal, and when we remember the
frequent complaints of people who cannot eat food

114 FOOD AND FITNESS

rich in starch, which is the characteristic and chief
constituent of all popular and necessary diets.

Without abundant vegetable foods — and bread
is the fairest example — man cannot obtain the
requisite fuel for the production of heat and energy.
The Salisbury diet of meat is indeed supplemented
by bread for this purpose, and even then it is said
to have killed as many as it has cured.

It is claimed that flesh is a healthv stimulant,
and that on this account it performs a function
which is foreign to the protein of vegetables.
Stimulation, however, is not energy. We may
suppose that there are few, if any, more energetic
people in the world than the Japanese and the
Arabs. One fact, however, appears to be abun-
dantly proved, that the non-flesh-eater not^only
suffers much less from disease, but that he resists
it more easily. There is one practice w^hich most
people decline — we refer to the taking of regular
exercises. This the vegetarian is compelled to
adopt in order to maintain bodily equilibrium and
possible distension of the stomach. It is well
that he does so ; and it would be still better for the
flesh-eater who by the regular adoption of the one
course, and the failure to recognise the other, is
often in trouble, finally succumbing to a course of
procedure which his system was unable to maintain.

CHAPTER VIII

VEGETABLES AS FOOD

The pressure which the war has brought to bear
upon our purses, owing to the increased cost of
food, has induced many persons, including our-
selves, to put equal pressure on their gardens, and
to consume a much larger quantity of vegetables
than they have ever been accustomed to eat. So
easy is it to reduce the butcher's, fishmonger's,
and provision merchant's bills, with the assistance
of vegetables, that the subject is worthy of the
study of those who have hitherto ignored it.

By a judicious selection of vegetables, and a
really careful system of cooking, delightful meals
can be prepared direct from the garden. The
enjoym.ent of eating, which is common to the
healthy appetite, depends to a large extent upon
the flavour of foods. That flavour is chiefly con-
tributed by plants. Meat and poultry, for example,
are always more appetising when accompanied by
vegetables and savoury sauces. Pork, duck, and
goose are eaten with herb-stulflng or apple-sauce
or with both, while the popular sausage would be

116

116 FOOD AND FITNESS

a very poor thing without the flavour of the herbs
within it.

Ingenious cooks are able to prepare dishes of
vegetables which, skilfully flavoured, are as savoury
and appetising as meat, and this is done with the
assistance of the onion, the tomato, the pea, the
bean, salsify, such herbs as parsley, thyme, mint,
sage, and marjoram; and the spices, nutmeg, clove,
cinnamon, and pepper — with salt. There are no
soups superior to those made with tomatoes,
chervil, spinach, asparagus, and celery, and there
are none so cheap as those prepared with potatoes,
artichokes, and onions. Stews, fritters, pies, and
puddings, are all made and seasoned with vege-
tables, and where a very little meat is employed
some of the most appetising dishes which are
known to the writer can be prepared at very
small cost. Here is an example of a savoury
pudding which would be nothing without the aid
of the garden.

Two ounces of finely chopped lean meat —
mutton, beef, or pork, as preferred — 2 oz. of
chopped suet, and a fairly large onion also chopped
fine, are mixed with 12 oz. of flour, and flavoured
with finely powdered sage, parsley, and thyme.
To this a teaspoonful of baking-powder is added,
and the whole mixed with skimmed milk, or new
milk and water, for conversion into a large round

VEGETABLES AS FOOD 117

dumpling. For serving the sauce may be made,
from a penny packet of gravy powder or soup,
and the dish will be found delicious. If this is
cooked for dinner and supplemented with salsify
cooked in a baking dish in the following way, the
meal will be found fit for a kinnr.

The salsify is washed, cut into small pieces — if
it is thick it must be cut down the centre — and
boiled in a little water which has been salted, care
being taken that the water is not so large in quan-
tity that some w411 have to be throw^n away after
cooking. To 1 lb. of salsify add 4 oz. of flour,
three eggs beaten up, IJ pints milk, and 2 oz.
margarine, with salt, herbs, or spice, to taste.
This dish is baked until the salsify is quite tender.

To the gourmand these dishes may not appeal.
He believes that nothing less than a joint of meat,
fish, game, or fowl — or all — is sufficiently substan-
tial to give him strength and satisfaction. This is
all wrong. Domestic animals are provided with
digestive organs w^hich closely resemble those of
ourselves. The horse manages to extract sufficient
nutriment from oats and hay to provide him with
strength, while cattle obtain from grass, turnips,
and cereal meals sufficient food to produce meat
and milk. It is precisely the same with the man
who takes pains to compile the ration for his
stock with much greater precision and care than

118 FOOD AND FITNESS

he devotes to his own food. I have never met
with an instance in which a well -prepared dish of
vegetable food, cooked with the assistance of milk,
butter, or eggs, has not given satisfaction to the
average — if somewhat fastidious — man. The large
number of vegetables which are at our command
enables a good cook to provide innumerable dishes,
not only from a cookery book, but concocted by
herself. ^

By high cultivation, and with the assistance of
artificial manures, large and varied crops can be
grown in the garden to last from June until the
early spring of the next year. In my own case I
have still (the middle of February) abundance of
leeks, parsnips, salsify, artichokes, beet, onions,
turnips, celery, and green-stuff, with some growing
lettuce and spinach, which furnish the table with
a daily variety. French beans were preserved in
the autumn, and these, too, are available. Thus,
with bread, flour, milk, butter, margarine, cheese,
dried peas and beans, and potatoes, these are a
means of reducing the butcher's account to
vanishing-point. This, however, is not all — for
home-grown apples and pears are still going, while
plums, damsons, and other bottled fruits provide
for the remaining dishes of the table.

The Potato always stands first among the vege-

VEGETABLES AS FOOD 119

tables of the garden, and there is practically no
other variety upon which life can be maintained
in health and strength. When acting as Commis-
sioner for the Manchester Guardian, during the
famine in the west of Ireland in 1897, I had abund-
ant opportunities of observing how well those who
obtained a sufficient supply of potatoes were able
to work and to maintain physical proficiency. It
has been shown by prolonged experiment in Den-
mark by Dr. Hindhede, the chief of the National
Nutrition Department, that man can perform con-
siderable labour on potatoes with the addition of
a small quantity of margarine, and continue to do
so for many months in succession. Apart from
its nutritive value the potato possesses two im-
portant medicinal properties : it assists in the
prevention of fermentation in the intestine — an
action w^hich is precisely the reverse of what has
been ascribed to it — while it is shown by the
above experimenter to dissolve uric acid, and thus
to be of the highest value to persons who suffer
from this particular poison.

Although an average potato contains nearly 20
per cent., or about one-fifth, of its weight of starch,
1| per cent, of protein, or muscle-making food,
and almost no fat at all, it must be pointed out
that the tniber varies considerably, and this varia-
tion is also affected by cooking. Thus, when

120 FOOD AND FITNESS

boiled, the potato loses a large proportion of its
protein and minerals. Baked, steamed, roasted,
or fried potatoes are all good and subject to no
waste. To make the most of the potato it must
be sound, robust — not old or shrunk — and of a
rich variety. The last fact, however, the average
consumer will find it difficult to ascertain. Waxy-
potatoes are richer than those which are mealy,
but not so digestible. The juice of the potato is
rich in nutritive matter, hence the importance of
avoiding any process by which it would be wasted.
Few persons consume the skin of old potatoes —
the majority scooping out the interior of those
which are baked. In this way the loss of nutri-
tious material is considerable, as the skin and the
layer contiguous to it are much the richest
portions of the tuber.

It is useful to know that potatoes produce on a
given area of land a very much larger quantity of
food than any of the cereals or pulses. Thus,
while a very heavy crop of wheat, 60 bushels to
the acre, weighing over 3600 lb., contains approxi-
mately 2770 lb. of nutritive food, a twenty-ton
crop of potatoes provides 10,000 lb. — and this
weight has been exceeded on an acre of land.

The Artichoke comes next in value to the potato
as a food, although it is not so popular as it ought
to be. It possesses one property, however, which

VEGETABLES AS FOOD 121

the potato does not — it will grow on very poor
land, and on land of almost all classes, and should
be found in every garden. It contains 18 per
cent, of food — i. e. the nutritious and digest-
ible material remaining after allowance is made
for fibre and water. Artichokes are a valuable
addition to the list of those vegetables which form
a nutritious diet.

The value of the Parsnip has not been fully
understood — its food contents being variously
estimated. Like all roots and bulbs, parsnips
should be young — the old roots containing a large
proportion of indigestible fibre. Like turnips,
this root takes up water in boiling, and it is there-
fore better baked and browned. Again, like the
potato, it is immensely improved by being baked
under meat ; its flavour is not only increased, but
it is enriched by the fat and gravy falling upon it.
Parsnips make excellent fritters. They are, too,
one of the last winter vegetables which successfully
withstand frost.

The Turnip takes a much lower position, as it
contains less than 10 per cent, of food — a portion
of this being lost by boiling. Something, however,
depends upon the variety of turnip employed.
The yellow variety is richer than the white, while
the swede is richer than either. Turnips should
be eaten young, for, when properly cooked, they

122 FOOD AND FITNESS

almost melt in the mouth; but, like most vege-
tables, they become fibrous, imiutritious, and
difficult of digestion when fully mature. Mashed
with thin cream they make a delectable dish.

Carrots are rich in sugar, and when young and
tender their flavour is at its best. As a nourish-
ing food they are much superior to turnips, but
the practice of keeping them in the ground to the
end of the growing season in order to gain size is
to deprive them of their best qualities. Mature
carrots are coarse, fibrous, their delicate flavour is
lost, and they are not only much less nutritious,
but difficult of digestion. Carrots, too, lose a
considerable quantity of their nutritive properties
by boiling — all their constituents suffering. Carrots
may be stewed with much greater advantage, as
in this process nothing is lost.

Onions and Leeks are both good foods if they
are cooked with sufficient care to prevent a loss of
their food constituents. Eaten in a raw condition
by men engaged in hard physical labour, they
afford much support, but owing to the quantity
of fibrous matter they contain they are not easily
digested. This fibre, however, is a useful pro-
perty, promoting healthy movement of the bowels
by stimulating their activity. Onions are of
great assistance to consumers of the cheaper kinds
of food, owing to the piquancy of their flavour,

VEGETABLES AS FOOD 123

and the relish they supply when consumed with
bread-and-cheese and the plainer forms of meat.
Just as the onion adds much to the value of steak
fried with it, so \vhen fried with rice or potato
in dripping or margarine it makes a much appre-
ciated dish. The onion, too, is a prime factor in
the simpler soups of the French ; it is an essential
ingredient of various fritters, and provides flavour-
ing which goes so far in preparing cheap foods for
an endless number of dishes. Leeks, which are
almost equally nourishing, are cooked in much
the same way as the onion, but cooked alone or
served with white sauce.

Beetroot is not only one of the most nourishing
vegetables, and one which should be grown more
extensively, but it is the great source of our sugar
supply. In France this plant, almost unknown on
British farms, covers 600,000 acres; in Germany
1,250,000; in Italy 133,000; in Russia nearly
2,000,000 acres ; and in Sweden, Holland, Belgium,
and Austria considerable areas of land. The beet
is a prolific plant, which should find a place in
every garden, producing, as it will, 2 cwt. to a rod
of land. It is rich in sugar, of which it contains
about 15 per cent., so that a pound provides
nearly 2J oz. From this point of view it is, next
to the potato, one of the richest winter vegetables.

Celery is popular, both in its cooked and its

124 FOOD AND FITNESS

uncooked condition, but, well masticated, it is
more nourishing when eaten raw. Boiling removes
some of its most valuable properties, which are
lost in the water. When, however, it is employed
in the preparation of soups and stews we get its
full value, and in these it forms a useful addition
to the food of the table. About one -tenth of the
weight of raw celery consists of nourishing food.
Very large weights are grown on small spaces of
land by farmers, who, by employing abundance of
manure — natural and artificial — produce " sticks "
which reach weights of 6 lb., and which sometimes
average 2 lb. over a whole field. Celery makes
excellent fritters, and every experienced house-
keeper knows that it makes equally excellent
sauce.

Spinach should be grown in every kitchen garden
in its winter and summer varieties. The summer
variety will produce 1 to IJ cwt. to a rod of land,
and the winter variety as much as 3 J cwt. Spinach
is^ not one of the most nourishing foods in the
common acceptation of the term; its value con-
sists in the presence of minerals wliich are as
essential to health and vitality as the more sub-
stantial materials in grain, potatoes, and milk;
and for this reason it is properly regarded as one
of the most important of foods. Spinach can be
stewed, made into soup, pudding, or pie, and,

VEGETABLES AS FOOD 125

indeed, served in numerous ways. The public
should, however, refrain from consuming spinach
which has been preserved with the assistance of
drugs.

Lettuce is the one form of salad which can and
should be eaten all the year round. Poor as a
foodstuff, like spinach it possesses two properties
which make it of inestimable value. It is an
excellent laxative, while the minerals it contains
not only exert a vitalising influence on the blood,
but by their soothing properties assist in the
extension of sleep. Lettuce can be cooked like
the cabbage, and, eaten with a savoury sauce, it
adds to the charm of a well-prepared meal. In a
well-managed garden lettuce will produce, in good
hands, 3 cwt. of salad on a single rod of land.
Lettuce eaten in a salad should be well dressed
with olive oil — and this should be pure and
guaranteed — but never with vinegar, which pos-
sesses no useful property as a condiment. Lemon
juice is the best acid to use for this purpose,
and this with a sprinkling of chopped chervil
will, w^hen no other green salad can be obtained,
produce a much-relished dish. A chopped onion,
which should be found in every garden in winter
as well as in summer, is a useful addition.

Salsify is one of the substantial root foods
grown in the garden, although it is so little known.

126 FOOD AND FITNESS

It is superior to the turnip, the carrot, or the
parsnip, and contains more of the muscle-building
material (protein) and fat than any fresh vege-
table, with the exception of the pea, and possibly
the Brussels sprout. It may, too, be safely re-
marked that, with the exception of the potato,
salsify stands as one of the heads of the list of all
vegetables as a nourishing food. When the potato
is boiled, however, it, too, gives way to salsify.
One pound of salsify — and the larger it is the
better, if it is tender — contains 2 J oz. of nourishing
food. The young leaves of the plant may be used
as a salad in a similar way to the leaves of chicory,
to which it is closely related.

Asparagus, although a tender and delicious
vegetable, is a luxury. A pound, which may cost
half-a-crown, contains less than an ounce of food,
the balance consisting of water and fibre. Asparagus
is a tempting addition to the dinner-table, and
makes excellent soup, but it finds no place in an
economical diet.

Kohlrabi. — This plant, which is practically a
combination of the turnip and the cabbage, to
both of which it is closely allied, is grown for farm
stock in this country, but in parts of the Conti-
nent it is commonly grown in the garden as a
vegetable for the table — ^the bulb alone being
used. It is a richer food than the turnip, although

VEGETABLES AS FOOD 127

not so sweet to the palate ; but, properly cooked,
and served with savoury sauce, it is not only most
agreeable, but one of the most economical of
garden vegetables.

Green Peas may be eaten in the usual way or
with the shell. In the latter case it is necessary
to grow or to buy a special variety known as the
" Sugar Pea " or the " Mange tous." In both
forms it provides abundant nourishment, but it is
too costly for most people to buy. About one-
seventh of the weight of the green pea consists of
nuitritive matter and is rich in muscle-making food.

French Beans and Scarlet Runners are both
useful, when consumed in their green condition.
The seeds, when ripened and dried, are among the
most nourishing of all foods known to man, with
the exception of the kernels of nuts. These
vegetables are usually eaten with the pod, and
are sometimes served as a separate course. They
are less rich in their green state than shelled beans ;
they are less digestible, and are better eaten young
and in small quantities by those who are advancing
in age. As in the case of the pea, the cost must
be taken into consideration when selecting vege-
tables for home-consumption, as the demand for
both foods often exceeds the supply. As in the
case of so many other green vegetables, the loss of
food material caused by boiling is considerable.

128 FOOD AND FITNESS

Cauliflower is rich in sulphur, and for this reason
it is fertile in the production of gas (wind) in the
intestines of those who have not normal powers
of digestion. I have eaten it raw as a salad in a
mixed form, but cannot recommend it, although
it provides more nourishment. Cooked in the
ordinary way, made into soup, or baked in milk
after steaming, it is one of the most delicious of
vegetables, although it is not especially nourishing.

Brussels Sprouts are much superior to the cab-
bage, the savoy, or Scotch kale. When young,
tender, and w^ell cooked they are not to be surpassed
by any other vegetable of their class, and while
they contain about one-tenth of their weight of
nourishing food, some of which is lost in boiling,
they are rich in muscle-builders — a fact which
makes them of less value to the gouty and rheumatic
than cabbage.

Cabbage. — The best part of a cabbage is the
white heart, and there is no more popular dish
among our country-people than boiled bacon and
this part of the plant cooked with it. Cabbage is
the one vegetable which the working man grows
in his garden before all others, if he takes any
pride in it at all, and for this reason he is usually
able to obtain it all the year round. Useful with
all kinds of meat, it can be prepared as a separate
dish — a stew, a fritter, or stuffed. With the

VEGETABLES AS FOOD 129

assistance of bread, milk, some spices and herbs,
cabbage, formed like an omelette, becomes one of
the most delicious of dishes.

Rhubarb contains very little nourishment, but
it is one of the best laxatives grown in the kitchen
garden, and as a preliminary to summer fruit it
takes a place by itself. Owing, however, to its
acidity, it is not suitable to all persons, nor is its
peculiar property neutralised by the addition of
sugar, as some people suppose, although in this
form it becomes more agreeable and can be more
readily eaten. It is more useful to young people
than to adults of mature age, with whom both the
acid of the stalk and the sugar sometimes disagree.
It should, therefore, be eaten with moderation.

K

CHAPTER IX

FRUIT AS FOOD

In this country fruit is regarded rather as a
luxury, or as an addition to food, than as food.
Fruit, however, is of far greater vakie than is
supposed, and, taking the community as a whole,
it is essential to its health. We are told that by
eating large quantities of fruit we upset our
digestive system, distend the stomach, which is
not intended for bulky foods, and create consi-
derable discomfort. That, however, is not the
experience of the fruit-eater. These troubles —
if troubles they are — are owing to the fact that we
are not accustomed to eat fruit as part of our
regular diet.

There is no more certain way to ill-health than
sluggish and imperfect action of the intestines.
This is the foundation of many diseases. By the
regular consumption of fruit, however, this practic-
ally never occurs ; perfect regularity is established,
with a clean tongue and a healthy system through-
out. Fruit plays an equally importaiit part by

enriching the blood when it improves the complex-

130

FRUIT AS FOOD 131

ion and imparts greater beauty to woman. The
weak and anaemic, by consuming white bread,
and foods of similar character, rice, tapioca,
macaroni, and potatoes, without either the husk
or the skin, fail to obtain the minerals which are
as essential to health as either of their other
constituents. These materials, chiefly iron and
phosphate of lime, are often taken in medicinal
form, instead of in fruits, in which they are so
abundant, and in wliich they exist in a natural,
and therefore superior form.

Although it is possible to live entirely upon some
kinds of fruit, such as the grape, the banana, the
fig, and the date, as so many do in the world, it is
a recognised fact that with us a mixed vegetable
diet is the best, and as it is now possible to obtain
fruit all the year round, there is no reason why any
normal individual should go without it. Various
Eastern races live almost entirely upon fruit
foods, while in this country there are many
fruitarians and vegetarians who have accom-
plished wonderful feats of labour and athletics
upon their particular diet.

Fruits
Among the more popular fruits Apples easily
take the first place, and, as one who has consumed
them daily for years, I can confidently recommend

132 FOOD AND FITNESS

them as among God's best gifts to man. They are
an excellent food, a simple and natural laxative,
a helper of sleep, adapted to all meals, and a
purifier of the system, maintaining the body in a
condition of health, elasticity, and equilibrium
which no other food can sustain. The apple
should be eaten ripe ; like fruits of other varieties^
nature cannot deal with it successfully while it
is still immature, for it is then an unnatural food.
It should, therefore, be sweet, sour apples not being
adapted for consumption uncooked, in which
form they are always the best. Although the
skin is difficult of digestion by all who have been
unaccustomed to eat it, it forms a most important
part of the fruit, containing mineral matter which
we cannot afford to discard. Apart from the eye
and the stalk, the whole fruit should be eaten,
and thoroughly masticated. If, owing to bad
teeth, this is impossible, it may be finely grated
and prepared in various ways, with ground nuts,
squashed bananas, blackberries, or strawberries,
condensed milk, coarse soaked oatmeal, rice
pudding, or bread crumbs, or eaten with biscuits,
white or wholemeal bread, and butter or cheese.
When ripe apples cost 2d. a pound, a penny will
buy nearly 100 units of energy. Apples should
never be boiled; the process, as in the boiling
of vegetables, is followed by considerable loss of

FRUIT AS FOOD 133

the food they possess. Thus, a boiled apple
loses one-third of its nutritive matter; it should,
therefore, be baked, roasted, or stewed, but it is
much more useful when eaten raw.

The food-stuff in fruits chiefly consists of
minerals, sugar, and gum — the latter forming a
jelly in some varieties after boiling. Man cannot
live long upon fresh fruit alone, if we except ^he
grape and the banana, both of which are exceed-
ingly rich in nutritive matter — for he could not
eat a sufficient quantity. On these fruits, however,
men do manage to live natural lives, with some
little assistance, for they are deficient in the muscle-
forming protein. The fruit-eater seldom desires
to drink, the water in his food providing for his
requirements in this direction.

The ripe Pear contains from 8 to 12 per cent, of
nutritive food, and may be obtained in this country
from September to March, during the whole of
which period I have been supplied by my garden.
Pears are better peeled than apples, and should be
eaten raw — although we must except those varieties
which practically refuse to mature, and which are
consequently stewed.

Although there is a curious and sometimes
inherent belief in the unsuitability of stone fruit —
it is on the contrary of considerable value in
our regular diet. Now that such fruit can be

134 FOOD AND FITNESS

preserved in its natural state, it is at our disposal
all the year round. Stone fruit should always
be eaten with the skins, which are rich in minerals,
and which by their gentle stimulation of the
intestines promote healthy action. Passed through
a fine mincing-machine after the removal of the
stones. Plums make excellent and sustaining
porridge when mixed with soaked prepared oats,
ground nuts and condensed milk, and in this
form they can be eaten without any discomfort
by many who refuse them in their natural state.
Plums contain from 10 to 14 per cent, of nutri-
tive matter, mostly digestible — the more delicate
varieties being the most suitable, as there is less
indigestible fibre in the pulp.

Cherries may be regarded in the same light as
the plum, which they resemble in composition,
and in their influence on health. The softer, large
Blacks are preferable to the firmer White varieties,
which require more mastication.

Grapes are, it is almost heedless to say, one of the
most delicious and valuable of all fruits. Rich in
sugar, they vary enormously, some varieties being
almost twice as rich as others. They are easily
digested without the skins and pips, and contain
almost as much nutritive matter as meat, and that
of a more useful character. The richest grapes,
however, are much too costly for general consump-

FRUIT AS FOOD 185

tioR, while the imported varieties, when they cost
iid. a pound, as they frequently do, provide about 80
units of energy for a penny. The grape is a useful
and simple laxative. For some disorders, caused
by over-eating, or the consumption of too much
animal food, grapes are given as a whole or partial
diet to patients, who are sometimes blessed with
remarkable cures. More careful discrimination,
and less food, of which grapes and other fruits
should form regular portions, would prevent many
of these troubles. When grapes are dried there
are few complaints of their skins by those who
consume them.

Strawberries and Raspberries are exceptionally
rich in water, and poor in food, which is chiefly
present in the form of sugar. Both make an
excellent porridge in their raw condition, and
both are laxatives. These fruits play a greater
part in their contribution to health than to food.

Gooseberries should never be eaten green, whether
cooked or not. In this condition they are useless
as food, and are always liable to upset the digestion
of the strongest. Ripe gooseberries, although richer
foods than other berries, are so little eaten, because
so little grown for market, or saleable at a popular
price, that they are not a food of importance.
Like all fruits w4th pips they have a laxative
tendency.

136 FOOD AND FITNESS

Currants may be included in the same category
as the gooseberry, although the black currant is
believed to exert some influence in enriching the
blood, owing to the iron which it contains. It
should be pointed out that, although some of these
fruits possess small nutritive value, they exercise
considerable influence on the appetite and in the
enjoyment of the more substantial foods, and
especially of those which possess little or no flavour
to recommend them. The piquant principle in
the black currant, for example, is an important
addition to rice, macaroni, sago, tapioca, maize,
and other milk puddings, as well as to those which
are chiefly made with flour. As the digestion of
food depends so largely upon that enjoyment
which causes the flow of saliva in the mouth, it is
obvious that fruits exercise a function which is
next in importance to that of nutrition itself.

Peaches, Apricots, Nectarines, Melons, and Pines
are all more or less luxuries, which do not in this
country enter into the list of foods. The three
stone fruits are of less value than the plum, the
damson, and the cherry. The melon, like the
marrow and the cucumber, is composed almost
entirely of water. The pineapple is an especially
healthy dessert fruit, containing nearly 10 per cent,
of food, chiefly consisting of sugar.

The Orange is one of the most valuable of all

FRUIT AS FOOD 137

fruits when eaten in a perfectly ripe and sweet
condition. It is rich in sugar, and when eaten
with cream provides a food at once nourishing
and highly conducive to fitness and health.
During one summer season the writer made the
experiment of eating two oranges before lunch
and dinner daily for six weeks, maintaining ex-
cellent health. Sour oranges are better avoided,
still more so when eaten with a liberal supply of
sugar, which may cover but never neutralise the
acid they contain. An orange should possess
a thin skin and few pips. Its colour should be
pale and its flesh juicy, with so little fibre that all
can be eaten. The finest oranges are not brought
to FiUgland, as those which are exported are
removed from the trees before they are ripe. An
orange perfectly ripe on the tree is a much superior
fruit when gathered and eaten at once. Oranges
take the next place to apples as a cheap fruit of the
highest value to health eaten all the year round.
They contain 10 per cent, of nutrient food, w^hile
the juice contains nearly 10 per cent, of sugar.

The Banana. — It has been estimated that this
fruit provides more food on a given area of soil
than any other plant known to man. It contains
more food than any other fresh fruit, with the
possible exception of the richest varieties of the
grape. Some authorities state that the banana

138 FOOD AND FITNESS

contains 24 to 25 per cent, of feeding matter, of
which sugar is the most important constituent;
but, if we make sufficient allowance for the pro-
portion which is indigestible, we shall probably
bring down the figure to 15 or 16 per cent. Bananas
come to us largely from Jamaica and the Canaries —
the Canary variety being smaller and more apj)re-
ciated, without adequate reason. In the West
Indies the fruit, which is not popular with the
rich, is sometimes given to cattle. It is gathered
and exported in its unripe and green condition —
ripening chiefly on the voyage! Bananas are dried
and ground into flour, or partly dried, when they
occupy less space for exportation. If six bananas
weigh 16 oz. and cost Sd. they provide 100 units
of energy for a penny — at a low computation — or
more than any other fruit that is sold in its fresh
condition.

The Whortleberry, Bilberry, or Blueberry, is
closely allied to the Cranberry. It grows upon
very poor soil on the hills of this and many other
countries, and is especially rich in iron. It is of
particular value to sufferers from anaemia and ner-
vous diseases, and is one of the simplest and most
effective laxatives among fruits. As a food its
value is small. The whortleberry passed through
a mincing machine and mixed with soaked prepared
oats, or ground nuts, and condensed milk, pro-

FRUIT AS FOOD 189

vides one of the best forms of porridge for breakfast
and supper. I can speak with confidence on these
fruits from long personal experience.

The Tomato, although containing over 90 per
cent, of water in its raw condition, and still more
when it is boiled, possesses a value of its own.
Prepared as sauce it adds to the enjoyment and
digestibility of the food with which it is eaten;
it m'akes soup rich and popular ; and fried, grilled,
or baked, and eaten with bacon and various
meats, it provides that piquant flavour which adds
a rehsh to all. The tomato, however, is best
eaten in its raw condition, and so with a pinch or
two of chopped onion, some olive oil and salt, it
makes the plainest of the simplest foods, such as
bread" an d-cheese, as enjoyable as the richest.

Dried Fruits
Raisins, — This term includes Muscatels, which
are dried while hanging on the vine, and Sultanas,
which, like the common raisin of commerce, is
dried in the sun as it lies on the ground. The
raisin is a dried grape, and, unlike the fresh fruit,
it is eaten with the skin, which makes it more
useful both as a food and a laxative. White bread
is, on this ground, improved when it is made with
raisins or currants. Raisins, like dried currants,
are rich foods — 10 oz. containing 7 oz. of nutriment.

140 FOOD AND FITNESS

When they are cheap, they provide more units of
heat or energy than any other fruit or vegetable
common to our markets, with the exception of
the fig and the potato. At sixpence a pound they
are still a cheap food, as compared with red or
white meat or fish.

Figs are equally as rich as raisins and currants,
but, if we except the superior brands, they are
usually cheaper. The fig is not only a very rich
food, containing 75 per cent, of nutrient matter,
but it is a well-known laxative of a high order.
One pound provides 1400 units of energy, so that
two pounds a day would sustain a man who is
engaged in a sedentary occupation. A pound of
bread — one of the cheapest of all foods — provides
approximately 1200 units of energy, so that,
although it is cheaper, pound for pound, than the
fig, and more suitable when both are eaten alone,
it enables us to more clearly realise the economical
value of the fruit. In any attempt to live upon
the fig, which is the staple food of some of the
Arabs, it would be necessary to add some muscle-
making material. This can be found in milk;
and experience has taught fig-eaters among these
Eastern races to make milk a portion of their
diet.

Prmies are plums which are ripened on the trees
and dried in the sun — although there are some

FRUIT AS FOOD 141

which are cured artificially. This fruit contains
75 per cent, of food, much of which is lost in stewing
unless the juice is consumed. Prunes should be
washed and soaked in cold water, and the liquor
rejected. The fruit is a useful, and when obtain-
able at 4(^. per lb., a most economical food, in
spite of the fact that it is a stone fruit. Prunes
are a well known, though very mild, laxative.

The Date, which is a fruit of a species of
palm, is one of the chief articles of commerce
in Arabia. One variety ripens on the trees and
is ready for packing and shipping at once. Others
go through a process of preparation. While, too,
in one variety, each fruit is packed separately,
another is packed in bulk and arrives in this
country in a homogeneous mass. Dates, too,
which are much superior when eaten just off the
tree, are pounded by the Arabs and made into cakes
which form one of the most important foods of
the country in which they are grown. They
provide part of the rations of horses and camels,
and, o^\ang to their highly nutritive properties,
are as sustaining as almost any food that is known.
In a pound of dried dates there are 11 oz. of
nutritive food, of which a great portion is sugar,
and the remainder nutritive gum and muscle-
building protein. At 3 J. per lb. — the price paid
by the writer during 1915 — a penny spent in

142 FOOD AND FITNESS

dates at this cost provides 500 units of energy.
Thus this fruit is one of the cheapest of foods
on the market.

Salads

Salads are eaten in three forms : (1) as a green
melange of lettuce, endive, onion, watercress,
radish, beetroot, tomato, cucumber, sorrel, and
chicory, flavoured with chervil and dressed with
olive oil and vinegar or lemon juice; (2) as veget-
ables, which are usually cooked and eaten separ-
ately or mixed, after dressing with olive oil, herbs,
and lemon juice; these consist of potatoes, French
beans, peas, beetroot, tomatoes, carrot, celery,
and spinach ; and (3) fruits in great variety —
English fruits, fresh or bottled, being mixed at
will with pineapple, prunes, and orange. These
forms of salad are of great value in the maintenance
of fitness, when eaten without an extravagant
addition of sugar and cream. It is important to
remember, in connection v/ith these additions to
the table, that the property of food does not consist
solely in its nutritive value, but in its contribution
to digestion and health. Vegetables and fruits,
are all more or less rich in minerals, which are to a
large extent lost in cooking. These properties
are essential to the richness of the blood as well as
to the manufacture and repair of the bones and

FRUIT AS FOOD 143

the teeth. Anaemia is next to impossible to a
person who is a consistent and Hberal consumer
of fruit. Another point is, that health chiefly
depends, in the normal man, upon regularity.
This is often prevented when he reaches middle-
age if he ignores those foods which, eaten
with freedom, ensure it. Fruits and green veget-
ables are natural specifics, maintaining a clean,
healthy, digestive track, promoting normal diges-
tion, enriching the blood, and by these means
assisting to ward off those forms of disease which
seldom attack a body that is thoroughly fit.

The third point to remember is that, as an ad-
dition to foods of a more substantial character,
salads often provide the appetising property. Cold
meat, often stale or badly cooked, is tasteless, or
fails to tempt the appetite of those before whom
it is placed. There is no " watering of the mouth,"
or, in other terms, no flow of the saliva, which is
one of the important digestive juices. It contains
a material known as Ptyalin, a salivary diastase,
which largely assists in the conversion of the
starch — which we consume so liberally in bread
and all cereals and pulse — into sugar, thus enabling
it to be quickly and freely absorbed into the blood.
When a handsome, tempting salad is added to
the disappointing cold meat, the pleasant anticipa-
tion of eating returns, with the free flow of saliva,

144 FOOD AND FITNESS

and then the food is eaten, enjoyed, and well
digested. Thus it is that so much depends upon
the cook and her method of mixing all salads, as
well as upon their preparation. Some vegetable
salads may be mixed with fruits, and especially
w4th the apple chopped or grated, or with bottled
plums and prunes which have been well and long
soaked, not boiled, in cold water. Last of all, it
may be pointed out that as a raw fruit or vegetable
is much more nourishing than a cooked fruit or
vegetable, owing to the loss of energy or food
material in cooking, a green, or uncooked, fruit-
salad is of much greater value than cooked fruits or
vegetables which usually form so large a portion of
our meals, and this applies much more emphatically
to those that are boiled.

Tea
Although I am not a regular tea-drinker, having
long found that it acted as an impediment to
sleep, I recognise the importance of discussing
the national beverage. It is well, however, that
tea-drinkers should know something about the
peculiar properties which make tea at once so
agreeable and yet so deleterious to health. Tea
is a stimulant — its action on the central nervous
system and the heart being due to the presence
of caffeine, which is present to an average extent

FRUIT AS FOOD 145

of about 3 per cent. According to Hutchinson,
who made numerous experiments to ascertain
how much caffeine infused tea contains, it was found
that a cup made with 8 grammes of the leaf infused
for five minutes in 300 cubic centimetres of water,
contained from | grain to H grains, according to
the variety of tea employed. Thus, a person
drinking three cups of such tea may consume over
3J grains, together with 6 to 8 grains of tannin,
a styptic material which exerts a hardening action
on the delicate mucous membrane of the stomach
and intestines, and this materially contributes
to the inhibition of normal digestion.

Tea assists, too, in the creation of flatulence, and
when mixed with the digestive juices and the
food in process of digestion in the stomach it
retards their action. A little soda put into the
pot ^vith the boiling water sometimes prevents
this.

Caffeine, according to the British Pharmacopoeia,
not only acts as a stimulant to the heart, raising
the pulse and pressure of the blood, but stimulates
the kidneys, and influences that part of the brain
which is connected with physical functions, inducing
wakefulness and mental activity. With large doses
a person may become restless and noisy, with a rise
of temperature, and even followed by convulsions
and paralysis. While its prolonged use tends to

146 FOOD AND FITNESS

fatigue the heart, it ?s perfectly true that caffeine
faciHtates the performance of physical work.

When on one occasion, during a period of ill-
health, I was confronted with a week of public
work which entailed long and laborious hours,
I was supplied with small doses of caffeine, which
were of great value at the time ; but I was urged
by the accomplished physician, by whom I was
advised, to abandon the dose at once owing to
the dangerous influence to which I have referred.
As a medical dose of caffeine varies from 1 to 5
grains, it will be readily seen how easy it is to
take it in tea, and thus to damage the constitution.

Green Tea contains more tannin than Black
Tea, and China Tea less than Indian Tea. Good
tea should not be hard or astringent. It should
be made immediately the water boils, and in a
warm teapot or cup. The tea should be placed
in an infuser, in which it should not remain more
than five minutes, when it should be withdrawn
from the pot, inasmuch as while the tannin in-
creases with each minute the flavour diminishes.
The process can be carried out in another way by
infusing in one teapot, and pouring the infusion
into another, which has also been warmed, and
thus removing it from the leaves. The caffeine
in tea is practically all dissolved from the leaves
when the boiling water is poured upon them.

FRUIT AS FOOD 147

Milk should be added to tea, if only for the purpose
of neutralising some of the tannin, for it possesses
this property, while, like sugar, if diminishing the
flavour, it adds to its nutritive value. Tea should
contain no dust, nor produce an infusion which is
black or dark red in colour.

Coffee

It has been said that coffee-drinking in this
country is discouraged by the fact that we don't
knov/ how to make it. The truth is that we are
so accustomed to use a very small quantity of tea
in making a cup that we cannot grasp the necessity
for using so much coffee as is necessary to make it
really good. A large cup of black coffee cannot
be made with less than an ounce. This, however,
with the addition of milk, will make three cups of
milk-coffee.

Like tea, coffee contains caffeine, and in an
ordinary cup about the same quantity. Also for
this reason it is a powerful stimulant, and one
v/hich prevents many people sleeping. Coffee,
too, is not a fit drink for the dyspeptic unless it is
exceedingly weak, when its exhilarating properties
and the flavour which gives pleasure to the drinker
are practically destroyed.

Coffee should be fresh roasted and fresh ground
to be at its best. It should be kept in air-tight

148 FOOD AND FITNESS

tins or jars, as its exposure quickly removes its
delicate aroma and flavour. It should not be
boiled, but made with boiling water, although
there are infusers on the market in which the coffee
is placed and boiled on the table — makers sometimes
recommending boiling for several minutes. Coffee
is believed to exert deleterious action on the nerves
— as tea does ; but it is possible that this is marked
only on persons of a nervous temperament, who
would be well advised to refuse both. One fact
is certain — that, as with alcohol, it is impossible
to consistently take a powerful drug like caffeine
day by day without permanent harm to the system.
A man may drink tea and coffee and keep tolerably
well until the end of his days — like some con-
sumers of alcohol — but he is the exception to the
rule that the great majority do not, while in his
case his days might be prolonged and his health
better by refusing the popular drinks.

Cocoa

The cocoa-bean, from which pure cocoa is
derived, is somewhat bitter in flavour and contains
about one-half its weight of oil. In the preparation
of commercial cocoa it is roasted, ground, and
deprived of much of this oil, and is then mixed
with sugar and some form of starch. In giving
evidence before the Committee on the Adulteration

FRUIT AS FOOD 149

of Food a manufacturer stated that cocoa was
mixed with sugar and arrowroot, or some other
farinaceous material. Cocoa, hke coffee and tea,
contains a poisonous alkaloid, and this is closely
allied to caffeine, to which reference has been made.
Nevertheless cocoa is much less of a stimulant
than coffee and tea, while it is more of an astringent,
and is frequently given in some parts of the Con-
tinent in cases of diarrhoea. Cocoa, while useful
as a foodstuff, possesses little value when made
solely with water — the small quantity employed
being less nutritious than the same weight of a hard
brown biscuit and butter. When viewed in this
way it will be seen that as a food cocoa has no
claim on the public owing to its extravagant
price.

A similar remark may be made with regard to
Chocolate, which is a product of the ground
cocoa-bean mixed w4th sugar and starch. It
is certainly a nourishing food, but its price con-
stitutes it a luxury.

Jam
We may fairly assume that, taking one type of
jam with another, one-half of its weight consists
of sugar, and here wx arrive at a test of its fitness
as food. An average lump of sugar provides
twenty units of energy. Thus, a pound pot of

150 FOOD AND FITNESS

jam would provide 920 units from the sugar alone,
or, assuming a consumption of four ounces a day,
260 units when adding the value of the fruit.

I find, that when purchased by the hundred-
weight, the more popular jams— plum, plum and
apple, raspberry and apple, gooseberry, and red-
currant — cost S^d. a pound (1915). At this price
5 lb. of jam cost no more than 1 lb. of butter;
but what of its relative value as food ?

One pound of butter provides 3600 units,
whereas 5 lb. of jam provide 5250. Practically
the energy value of 3| lb. of jam is equal to that
of 1 lb. of butter, and at a good deal less cost.

These remarks, however, are not intended as a
glorification of jam, which cannot take the place
of butter, or an equivalent, fat, although butter
is not an essential food. Fat, however, is an
essential to health, and it can be obtained in a
much cheaper form, without the least disadvantage
to the consumer. Where a day's ration includes
bacon, milk, and fresh meat, butter is not of
importance, and jam may therefore be used.

As there is a limit to the fat which can be eaten,
so is there a limit to jam, but the system of a
labourer or carter can assimilate and convert
into energy what the system of a man in a sedentary
occupation, or taking little physical exercise,
will reject.

FRUIT AS FOOD 151

To the man in the street sugar is sugar, but
there is a wide difference in the behaviour of that
obtained from different sources. Sugar from the
cane or the beet, which now provides the sugar
of commerce, differs from sugar in milk, grape
sugar (dextrose), or the sugar present in fruits.

Sugar present in fruit has a remarkable effect
on nutrition, and can be eaten in far greater
quantity than raw or commercial sugar. The
latter eaten too freely — and a small quantity is
often sufficient — will cause irritation, acidity, pain,
and other freaks of digestion. When sugar is
employed in the manufacture of jam, these pheno-
mena are fewer, or they disappear altogether. The
cause is worth knowing, for the wise man will
avoid what may cause him distress. The world,
however, is not composed of wise men, for I find
that appetite rules rather than wisdom, and in
consequence medicine flourishes.

Jam which has been well boiled, like that made
by the economical housewife, contains a large
proportion of " invert " sugar, which is more
freely digested than raw sugar, and can be eaten
with greater impunity.

This form of sugar is produced in making jam
by the action of heat and the acids of the fruit.
It is, in a word, a combination of " grape " sugar
and fruit sugar, but loses some of its sweetness in

152 FOOD AND FITNESS

the process of cooking. Invert sugar is much less
of an irritant than raw sugar, and reduces the
trouble caused by dyspepsia. Honey is an excellent
example of invert sugar, of which it contains
nearly 12 oz. to the pound, and is well known
as a delightful, nutritious, and easily digestible
dainty, although, as with everything else, too much
can be eaten at once.

The most nutritious and useful of all varieties
of jam are those made from the plum, a mixture
of plum and apple, the damson, the apricot, the
gooseberry, the currant, and the w^hortleberry,
which is rich in iron and of special value to the
anaemic and nervous. The plum and the apple
otherwise stand at the top of the list, but in all
cases the skins and tne acid, like the malic acid
of the apple, plays an important role in the
economv of health.

Whatever may be the practice of the consumer
of jam in time of peace, it is a moral duty to employ
it as an economical food in time of war.

As an adjimct to the breakfast and tea tables
it is used as a luxury, and eaten with butter on
bread, and sometimes with cake. I have, indeed,
in the houses of the super-extravagant, seen cream
added as well.

This is all wrong, spoiling alike the moral and
physical fibre of the indulgent. Eaten in a rational

FRUIT AS FOOD 153

way jam is a food, and now that butter is dear it
can be used with advantage instead. When butter
is 16d. per lb. a penny spent upon it buys 225 units
of energy, but a penny spent in jam buys 328, or
nearly 50 per cent. more.

From this point of view, butter is more costly
as a food. In butter, however, there is no other
feeding matter than fat. Jam provides the
minerals and the protein as well as the producer
of energy — sugar. Those who can afford it eat
too much butter; to these jam is an excellent
change.

In round figures those who are accustomed to
eat one ounce of butter, costing a penny, can
replace it with two ounces of jam, costing one
half. An appetising change is a finely grated apple,
mixed with a smashed banana and some condensed
milk. This will provide a ready-made jam, costing
2ld. to 4:d, per lb. The regular consumer of fruit,
raw or preserved, with not too much sugar, will
maintain his mental and physical health, given
normal exercise, which he can do in no other way.

CHAPTER X

IS MEAT AN ESSENTIAL?

What would happen if the supply of fresh meat
was stopped altogether? The question is easily
answered — meat is not an essential.

However agreeable and however useful it is sup-
posed to be to the young, there is no doubt about
its bad influence upon the health of the middle-aged
man. This is not a mere pious opinion, but the
result of the test of four years of the teaching of
Chittenden, Fletcher, Bircher and others who have
demonstrated the fact that, by abandoning flesh,
there is a gain in health, strength, mental capacity,
the joy of living and length of life, which is unknown
to the average man. Yet I do not write as a
vegetarian. Where the principle is recognised the
practice may be so transformed that meat -eating —
and fish is included — is no longer observed as an
essential of everyday life.

I find from the official returns that in the pro-
vincial markets of the country the wholesale price
of the best lamb is Is. to Is. 4id. per pound, mutton
and beef, \s. to Is. 6d. These figures are pro-
hibitory to 90 per cent, of the public, but so long

154

IS MEAT AN ESSENTIAL? 155

as there are buyers farmers will sell, and instead
of creating a reserve for the time that may possibly
come they are diminishing the stock of the country.

The market price of meat, however, is not the
best guide to its cost as a food. A pound of beef
without bone or waste, but with a medium quantity
of fat, and costing a shilling a pound, provides
only four to five ounces of nutritious food, for the
remainder is w^ater. Thus a pound of that food
eaten in beef costs from Ss. Sd. to 45. Where bone
and other inedible portions of a joint are included
the cost is still higher. I take an example direct
from the kitchen. A quarter of lamb weighing
9 lb. 2 oz. which was baked in the oven weighed
when ready for table 6| lb. At the wholesale
market-price referred to above, this would have
cost Is. lO^d. a pound ! Lamb contains more
water than mutton or beef ; and, therefore, allowing
for bone, the nutritious portion of this joint would
have cost the consumer approximately 7^. a pound.
As lamb is a much less suitable and perfectly
balanced food than bread, oatmeal, potatoes, or
milk — while costing an enormously higher price —
it is folly to urge that it is essential to life.

The nutritious material in the lean of flesh is a
substance known as Protein, the function of which
is to build up the muscular tissues of the young
and to maintain them in repair in the adult. For

156 FOOD AND FITNESS

the latter purpose the quantity which nature
demands is much less than the meat-eater con-
sumes. It exists in almost every composite food
which is placed before him, and so far is this true
that, where meat is excluded altogether, it is
difficult to avoid taking sufficient to suffice for his
bodily wants. I have calculated the quantity in
my own diet on many occasions, and find it is
less than one-half of the minimum which an
average man is supposed to require, according
to the standard which a few scientific men have
laid down.

If these facts are true — and they have been
abundantly proved by public demonstration, and
by many persons known to me in private life — it
is obvious that a diminution in the quantity of
meat eaten, still more where it is abandoned alto-
gether, will effect a great personal as well as a
great national saving.

Here is an example of the fact that meat is by
far the most costly and extravagant of our ordinary
foods. Where lean meat, without bone, costs Is.
a pound, it provides approximately forty units of
energy for a penny. Where the lean is accom-
panied by fat its food value is greater, but in that
case the buyer is paying a shilling a pound for fat,
or double its value. On the other hand, where
wholemeal bread costs 2d. a pound, a penny pro-

IS MEAT AN ESSENTIAL? 157

vides 600 units, so that this bread is worth, from
the point of view of nutrition, twelve to fourteen
times as much as the lean portion of meat, or still
more when the bone is included. Rice at 2d. a
pound provides 800 units of energy for a penny.

It is claimed that meat alone makes a meal
substantial, although the lean is chiefly composed
of water, and that it is a great source of strength to
the system — invigorating, muscle-building, and vital
to life. There is nothing to warrant this belief.
The more meat a man eats — if he depends upon no
other assistance — the more he loses vitality.
Strength, or energy, is the product of the starches
and sugars, which are the chief constituents of
foods of a vegetable character, and of the fats
derived from the foods of both kingdoms. The
protein of meat is the source of construction and
repair of the muscular tissues, and although it is able
to assist in the production of energy, that assistance
is obtained, as we have seen, at much greater cost.

The elephant, the strongest; the horse, the
fleetest; and the camel, the most enduring, in
animal life, are vegetable feeders, extracting their
energy, as man does, from vegetable foods.

Constant or excessive meat-eating becomes a
danger to health, and even to life, when man
reaches middle age. The system becomes charged
with a residue much larger than it has been

158 FOOD AND FITNESS

constructed to deal with. Pressure is put upon
the kidneys, the liver, the intestines, and finally on
the heart, with the result that some organ breaks
down altogether, or, in men with stronger con-
stitutions, the production of uric acid is so large
that gout or rheumatism ruins the health, the joy
of living, and the usefulness of life. This is the
verdict of those special physicians to whom I was
originally indebted for instruction and facts, and
who have made a life study of a subject which
others have ignored. I refer to the influence
exerted among hundreds of patients who have
abandoned meat-eating, and who are in consequence
living vigorous, useful, and happy lives.

The meat-eater is a greater drinker than the
vegetarian, and the more meat he consumes the
more he wants to drink, and to drink alcohol.
His animal passions are greater, and his temper
less under control, for meat is a stimulant. If
meat must be eaten it is better confined to fat
bacon, or, if a fresh joint is demanded, to mutton,
which contains more feeding matter than beef.
The best joints are not of necessity more nourishing
than those which are cheaper, although they may
be superior in texture and flavour. So long, how-
ever, as men have money to spend they will, as a
body, eat meat ; but if they cannot abandon it, they
can at least consume less.

CHAPTER XI

THE SELECTION OF FOODS

There is a great deal to be gained by care in
the selection of foods. We have all something to
learn about their market and nutritive value.
One loaf of bread, one pound of beef, one slice of
cheese, differs from another. No housekeeper
should accept the word of a shopkeeper's assistant,
who considers it his duty to sell, and to this end
to praise, as he recommends the goods that he
offers. As a rule a shopman knows nothing about
food — how it is made, or prepared, of what it is
made, or where it is made.

The housekeeper can learn a great deal about
food if she is willing, but she, too, often declines
to be told. The well-being of a normal house
depends largely upon the housekeeper and the
cook, for if food is well bought it is better and
cheaper than when it is left to the tradesman to
send what he likes, or when the buyer knows
nothing about it.

Bread should be made in the home. There is no

bread made by the average baker which can

159

160 FOOD AND FITNESS

approach a well-made home loaf, either in quality
or cost. Thus money is saved, while the food,
which is enjoyed more by the consumer, is also
more serviceable. The best white bread is not the
whitest, but that made from slightly tinted flour,
which is richer in gluten, whether it is called
household, bakers, or seconds. As gluten is a
builder of muscle it is important that bread should
be rich in this substance, which it is not when it
is made of very white flour. If brown bread is
made at home it should be the produce of w^hole-
meal, and this should be guaranteed by the sales-
man, for brown flour is usually a blend and not
wholemeal at all. White flour may be enriched in
the muscle -building substance by the employment
of separated milk.

Probably no food is purchased with so little care
as Milk. Although the public are carefully pro-
tected against adulteration, milk is still poor in
quality. Commercial milk, too, is artificially
coloured that it may resemble rich milk. There
are no simple means of testing milk either for its
purity or quality, and the buyer is, therefore, at
the mercy of the seller, for which reason he should
deal only with tradesmen of reputation. There is,
however, one thing a buyer can do — he can test
the quantity he buys. The milk deliverer can,
and often does, by consistently giving short

THE SELECTION OF FOODS 161

measure to his customers, make something for
himself at their expense, and as there are usually
two deliveries daily, or thirteen in the week, it
follows that in the course of a year the loss may
be appalling.

The finest type of Butter seldom finds its way
on to the market ; the average consumer must,
therefore, be content with Danish, Irish, Colonial,
French, Russian, Argentine, or British factory
brands. The best plan in dealing with a reliable
tradesman is at all times to order the same brand,
and that, a brand which will keep in summer as well
as in winter. It should always be tasted and re-
turned if it is imperfect in flavour. Butter which is
heavily salted, or in which the water can be seen
in droplets, should only be accepted, if accepted at
all, at a lower price. Butter should be kept in a
cold store in the dark.

Meat. — The housekeeper should make herself
acquainted w^ith the form, quality, value and names
of the various joints sold by the butcher — remem-
bering that the flesh of the inferior parts of the
carcase, if less tender and agreeable to eat than
the superior joints, is equally useful as food. The
loin of the bullock starts halfway down the back
and reaches to the rump, which extends only a
few inches towards the front of the tail, and nearly
two -thirds of the way down each side, where it

162 FOOD AND FITNESS

meets the thin flank. The loin embraces six lumbar ^

vertebrae and one vertebra of the back, together i
with the top end of one rib. The fore-rib, which
comes next to the loin, embraces five dorsal or
back vertebrae, and the top end of five ribs. The
middle rib includes four dorsal vertebrae, and the
top end of four ribs, while the clinch-rib includes
three dorsal vertebrae, the top ends of three ribs,
two cervical vertebrae, and the bottom end of the
shoulder-blade. The brisket includes the breast-
bone and the lower ends of eight ribs. The shin
includes the elbow and bones of the fore-leg, while
the clod and sticking part embraces five joints of
the cervical vertebra (those next to the head).
The aitch-bone, from ischium, the lower portion of
the socket of the thigh-bone, embraces the lower
portion of the hip-bone and the top of the thigh-
bone. The topside is the inner portion, and the
silverside the outer portion, of the thigh-bone.

There are fewer joints in a carcase of mutton.
The most important are the leg, the shoulder, and
the loin, which like the saddle extends from half-
way down the back to and including the tail.
The best end of the neck is that portion of the
carcase which reaches from the loin halfway to
the head and more than halfway down to the
breast. The scrag or worst end of the neck extends
from the best end to the head. The breast is the

THE SELECTION OF FOODS 163

lower portion of the sheep immediately below
the two joints of the neck, lying partly behind
the shoulder.

Healthy beef should carry a fairly abundant
quantity of pale straw-coloured fat, although in
some breeds of cattle the fat is yellow. The lean
flesh should be young, mellow, juicy, cherry red,
and in rich meat mottled or marbled. The meat
of an old carcase is tough to look at and to feel,
less juicy, harsh and dull. This is especially the
case w4th cow-beef, while bull-beef is neither
marbled nor properly coloured, for it is dark and
wanting in softness and touch. A joint may be
tested for sweetness by the smell of a wooden
skew^er which has been thrust into the lean.

Fat beef is of greater value as food than lean
beef. The fat is all food; the lean contains water
and indigestible fibre to the extent of three-quarters
of its weight.

A good carcase of mutton has alternate dark
red and white natural bars above the loins. The
lean should be a soft red, and the fat firm and
w^hite. The loin of the whether should be covered
with half an inch of fat over the fillet, which forms
the lean of the chops, extending to nearly an inch
at the point of the scrag end of the chop bone.
The fillet should be large, round, full and tender.
A chop with a small fillet and abundance of fat is

164 FOOD AND FITNESS

extremely wasteful, for, as with the loin, nobody
eats the scrag. Mutton should never be too fat,
for the reason that, unlike the fat of beef, it is
never all consumed.

The best Colonial mutton is more economical,
weight for weight, than the best British. This
fact was ascertained by an investigation made for
the War Office by the writer with the assistance of
the then President of the Society of Analysts,
Dr. Bernard Dyer. The flesh of frozen mutton is
damp and cold, and although the fat is white
the lean is not so well coloured as home-killed
mutton, while the kidneys are removed.

Bacon, — Where the quality and price of British
bacon is satisfactory, it should always be preferred
to bacon cured abroad. This is only a natural
course to pursue. The war has developed the fact
that we have been enriching the foreign producer
to our own loss. Bacon for frying is one of the
most costly of foods — a large proportion of the
fat being melted as dripping which, at the moment
of writing, is thus costing Is. to Is. 4id. per pound.
A side of prime, sizeable bacon weighs from 56 to
65 lb., and is cut up by the tradesman in various
ways. Let us take a side of 60 lb. as an example,
and cut it in four parts. The fore end is cut right
across to a little less than one-fourth of the length
of the side. The other, or gammon, end including

THE SELECTION OF FOODS 165

the comer, is cut about the same length, thus
leaving shghtly more than one-half of the side.
This is cut into two parts— the top being the long
back, best suited for boiling, while the bottom
forms the long streaky, chiefly the belly, for rashers.
The fore end will weigh about 16 lb., the gammon
end 14 lb., the back 17 lb., and the streaky 13 lb.
These four parts of a side of bacon can be subdivided
thus : the fore end is cut up into the collar or
top corner, the piece next to it, which is the prime
part of the collar, and a smaller cut which forms
the thick of the back. Below the last cut comes a
similar cut which forms the thick of the streaky.
The gammon end is cut across the centre into the
gammon and the corner piece above it, known as
the corner of the gammon. The remainder of the
long back is divided into the prime cut of the back
ribs and the loin, while the remainder of the long
streakv, cut into three, provides the prime thick
streaky, the middle piece or thin streaky, and
the hind piece or flank.

The best cuts of bacon are the back, streaky, and
gammon; but the demand for these parts of the
side is so general and constant that the tradesman
is able to^'sell them at relatively more than they
are worth. Thus it is that the fore-end and the
corner piece of the gammon cost less, but in spite
of the waste which they entail they are relatively

166 FOOD AND FITNESS

cheaper to buy. It is important to notice, too,
that as the cheaper cuts of bacon are suited only
for boihng they provide much more economical
joints than those parts of the side which are cut
up for rashers. The reason is, that while the
rasher is accompanied by great waste, there is no
waste in boiling, for no fat is lost.

In buying bacon it is the most economical plan
to select small, fat meat — never lean meat — what-
ever the size of the joint. Lean meat means a
larger proportion of bone, and a higher price for
every ounce upon it. The fatter the meat, there-
fore, the lower the relative cost, and what is much
to the point, the lower the actual cost by the
pound, for the public object to fat meat, and its
price is lower in consequence. The fore-end may
be most uneconomical when it is lean, for the
same reason, while it may be most economical if
it is fat. It is necessary, too, to point out that
the objection to fat is perfectly groundless — its
value as food is much greater than that of the
lean, which not only possesses small nourishing
value, but is less wholesome.

Cheese is one of the most difficult foods for a
non-expert to buy. Although there is no tangible
loss of nourishing value as between British and
imported cheese, there is a wide difference in its
quality as denoted by its flavour and creamy con-

THE SELECTION OF FOODS 167

sistence. Colonial and American cheese possesses
practically the same food value as English, but
they are inferior in the points we have named.
The natural colour of cheese is a pale straw, yellow
cheese being artificially coloured. Cheshire cheese
is usually yellow. Prime Cheddar is no better as
food than the other varieties of firm or pressed
cheese, but the early ripening Cheshire, containing
more water, is of less nourishing value. The buyer
of cheese should ascertain that it is agreeable in
flavour, see to the weight, and reject a cut which
is mouldy or cracked.

Dutch cheese, whether the round Edam or the
flat Gouda, like the French and Swiss Gruyere, is
made of pure cows' milk, and possesses a similar
food value to that of English varieties. The Dutch
makes are popular with the working-classes on
account of their cheapness, while Gruyere, like the
French Roquefort and the Italian Gorgonzola, are
regarded as high class, and thus, realising a much
higher price, are consumed by the wealthier classes.
Roquefort and Gorgonzola, however, like our
English Stilton and Wensleydale, are less nourish-
ing and economical on account of the presence of
the blue mould which makes them notorious, and
which is nothing less than the common Pencilliurn
glauciim, or blue fungus, which grows on stale
bread and which causes it to be rejected as food.

168 FOOD AND FITNESS

Blue-moulded cheese, although constantly eaten,
is not free from risk to persons of delicate health
or weak digestion. The housewife with care for
her family will act wisely to select cheese of other
varieties.

Cream cheese should be selected while perfectly
fresh or first commencing to develop its flavour.
When fully developed it rapidly changes and is
often spoiled before it is eaten. Curd cheese,
which is made from milk without any addition of
cream, is a useful and nourishing food at normal
prices.

The French Brie, Camembert and Coulommiers,
are all made from cows' milk, and are appetising
but costly as food, and the remark equally applies
to the Port du Salut, which is a slightly pressed
variety.

Eggs. — It is not a little curious that the great
majority of buyers, while insisting upon being
supplied with new-laid eggs, know perfectly well
that they are almost unobtainable during a great
portion of the winter season. Although eggs are
sold as new-laid, retailers have not hesitated to tell
me that those they were selling, although imported,
were sufficiently fresh to warrant the description.
If an egg is sweet, whether it is imported or pre-
served in water glass, it is quite as appetising and
nourishing as one which is only twenty-four hours

THE SELECTION OF FOODS 169

old, however much people may persuade them-
selves to the contrary. An average egg should
weigh 2 oz. ; it should be clean, the shell as bright
as though it were polished, and the air chamber
at the large end undiscernible. A stale egg has
lost a portion of its moisture, and the space thus
diminished by its tangible contents is occupied by
air. A preserved egg has lost its polished appear-
ance, and its money value is reduced accordingly.
The buyer should always remember that eggs are
examined very carefully by salesmen before they
are graded and priced, and that the poorest, what-
ever their appearance, are sold at lower prices.
Eggs may frequently be purchased at low prices in
Ireland, Wales, Cornwall and other parts of the
country distant from large markets, but a sample
lot should be obtained before giving a regular
order, and this should be the basis of future supplies.

Farinaceous Foods

Rice, which is the most popular of all the cereals
used in the preparation of dishes for the table,
demands close attention at the hands of the buyer.
The retailer offers his customers several qualities —
the more expensive samples being bolder and
whiter. If rice is clean, however, the cheaper
samples are equally as good, as food, as the more
costly; and careful comparison of both cooked and

170 FOOD AND FITNESS

uncooked rice will confirm this opinion. Rice in
the husk, which is known as paddy, is of greater
nourishing value than polished rice, but it is next
to impossible to induce the average buyer to
believe it. Rice is not adulterated, although its
flour is sometimes used to adulterate other foods.
Old rice is of greater value than new, and ground
rice should be white, clean and easily thickened in
cooking.

Tapioca. — This food is not only adulterated but
imitated — the spurious product being obtained from
potato-starch, which is neither so nourishing nor so
agreeable a food. Imitation tapioca is improperly
described, and it is surprising that the description
is permitted. It can be recognised by its white-
ness, its comparative brittleness, and its larger
size, while it dissolves more quickly in water. The
buyer should take care not to pay for it at the
price of the genuine article, which is not commonly
sold at those shops which are frequented by the
working-classes.

Sago is similarly imitated by productions from
potato-starch. Instead of tiny grains, or grains of
the size of pearl-barley, all of which are hard,
tough, almost transparent, and without any smell
in the real sago, the imitation is ringed, and dis-
tinguished by a sensible odour when covered with
boiling water.

THE SELECTION OF FOODS 171

Preparations of Maize such as Cornflour and
Post Toasties, Wheat as in Force, Oats as in Quaker
and Rolled Oats, Pearl Barley, Macaroni, Spaghetti,
Vermicelli, Dried Peas and Beans, are more or less
sold in packet form, and need no particular ex-
amination. The question of price, however, is
worthy of remark. We have noticed that the
charge for a given article is usually lower in the
poorer districts of a town and especially in London,
and it will pay the buyer living contiguous to such
a district to buy it. The remark applies also to
rice, tapioca, and all farinaceous foods, some of
which, however, demand examination and com-
parison. Where these foods are used in consider-
able quantities, large parcels should be purchased
at one time, as a saving is effected. This is shown
by comparing the cost of a number of small lots
with the cost of the same weight purchased in bulk.

Jam and Marmalade are other examples of the
importance of buying a large lot at once. The
grocer's quotation reduces the cost by the pound,
when a large jar is taken instead of a small pot. If
I may take Messrs. Pink as an example, for I have
seen their process of manufacture on a large scale,
I believe that these foods are of exceptional purity.

Sugar presents one difficulty in the way of
economy. The average housekeeper exhibits an

172 FOOD AND FITNESS

unwarrantable preference for white lump, or white
granulated, which costs more money to buy, with-
out supplying a corresponding advantage. I fre-
quently notice the WTy face of the young, like the
indisposition of those whose age should endow
them with more common sense, who decline to eat
brown sugar, however good it may be. As food,
one variety is practically as good as the other,
and while brown sugar possesses a flavour of its
own, its sweetness and nutritive value makes it
quite as useful as the w^hite, and where cost is an
item to be considered it ought to be used. In a
home where so much depends upon a small weekly
wage, or on an otherwise limited income, a family
has no moral right to waste money on prejudice.
The fault lies in the selfishness and extravagance of
the age, and the well-to-do are the principal culprits.
They will have what they like, and so young people
are trained, for they naturally copy their elders.

Vegetables

Young vegetables are the best. The Potato
varies considerably in quality and nourishing value.
The best plan is to buy by the bag direct from a
farmer who is able to recommend a good floury
and economical variety. The potato grower sub-
mits samples to the salesman, through whom he
sells his crop, and these samples are boiled in their

THE SELECTION OF FOODS 173

jackets for close examination and comparison before
they are priced. The wise housewife will adopt a
similar course, and thus provide a sound economical
food. Coarse thick skins, deep eyes and disease,
all mean waste. The potato should be purchased
by weight — a bag holding two bushels of 56 lb.
each. Purchased by measure the buyer never
knows how many potatoes he gets as the measure
cannot be properly filled, whereas its weight de-
pends upon the size of the tubers. A sample of
one variety of potato is not a guide to the quality
of another sample of the same variety, for much
depends upon the soil upon which it is grown and
the system of manuring. Large potatoes should be
preferred to small ones — the waste in peeling being
greater in the latter.

Turnips, Carrots, Parsnips, and Kohlrabi should
be young and, therefore, comparatively small, but
they present nothing to waste. When buying in
the winter, however, from lots that have been
stored, the roots are longer and coarser, and there
is plenty of waste. The buyer should look for
smooth, fine, thin-skinned vegetables, which are
sound and are cleaned. The Swede Turnip is richer
as food than the white or yellow varieties, and is
cheaper to buy, especially if it can be obtained from
a farmer. Beet is worth more money than the roots
just referred to, owing to its richness in sugar.

174 FOOD AND FITNESS

In purchasing vegetables it is important that
the buyer should get all the food that he can for
his money. Thus Leeks should have large white
heads and small tops, rather than small heads and
abundance of tops. Cabbage should not be too
large and too coarse. With many outside leaves
and little heart there is both waste and absence
of nourishment. The heart should be large, white
and tender, and not large and coarse as in the
cow cabbage. Discoloured Cauliflower or Broccoli
should be rejected, while Brussels Sprouts should be
large, crisp, fresh, green and tender. Spinach
should be clean and free from sand; Lettuce of
medium size and filled with a large white heart;
Tomatoes sound, free from wrinkles, and with as
few pips as possible — the imported varieties being
coarse, of inferior flavour, thick skinned and
wasteful.

Large Rhubarb is cheaper than the small, and
much more economical, but it is of inferior flavour.
In buying Peas care must be taken by the unwary,
as the common field peas form a large proportion of
the summer crop, and these are sold at more than
their value. The buyer must see that peas are
young, large and tender, for without the requisite
care she may be supplied fives times out of six
with old peas of inferior quality. Runners and
French Beans should also be young — old beans

THE SELECTION OF FOODS 175

being stringy and wasteful, cooking badly. In
selecting either variety care should be taken to
reject beans which are dry, limp, or not fresh and
bright green in colour.

Fruit
There is no greater scope for economy than
in the purchase of fruit, where it is largely
consumed, and it should be eaten all the year
round. As a rule, and with the possible exception
of the banana and the orange, fruit is expensive
in winter. By forethought and care, however, in
the early purchase of apples, the most valuable of
all fruits for maintaining good health, a supply
may be obtained for the whole winter at very
small cost. Owners of orchards in this country
are always anxious to sell, and are willing to
accept a very moderate price where a quantity
is sold at one time. By timely inquiry, or by
replies to advertisements, which are always more
or less numerous, a grower is located with a
business result. A sufficient quantity of a few
long-keeping apples, should be secured to last until
April or May. Among the best of these are, for
dessert. Scarlet Nonpareil, which is ready for
eating from December to January, Blenheim
Orange, King of the Pippins, and Cox's Orange
Pippin — all of which I have found keep well until

176 FOOD AND FITNESS

March — Sturmer Pippin and Everlasting, which
keep until May. For early eating — July until
November — some of the best varieties are Devon
Quarrenden, Beauty of Bath, Worcester Pearmain,
Gravenstein and Ribston Pippin. Among the
best keeping cooking apples are Prince Albert,
Lord Derby, Hawthornden, Golden Noble, Bis-
marck, Bramley's Seedling, Beauty of Kent, and
Dumelow's Seedling — the last five of which will
keep until March and April. A study of the best
method of keeping must be made. When it is
possible to buy at a penny to twopence a pound,
it is obviously economical to do so, when the apples
are picked, instead of paying fourpence to sixpence
in winter. One qualification, however, must above
all things be observed — there must be no bruised
fruit, all must be hand-picked, or losses are certain
to follow. Apples should be as large as possible.
The waste in small fruit may equal one-half its
weight, whereas in large fruit it should not exceed
one-eighth. Thus a bushel of quite small apples
weighing 46 lb. would be reduced to 23 lb., whereas
a bushel of large fruit weighing the same number
of pounds would be reduced to 36 to 38 lb. At
2s. a bushel the small fruit Avould cost 4^. a bushel
net, while at 45. a bushel the large fruit would
cost only 45. 6d. and be in every way better.
Pears are almost proverbially believed to be

THE SELECTION OF FOODS 177

non-keepers. As I write, in the middle of March,
I have a small pear ripe, and a large variety, both
unnamed, which will not be ready for a month.
The pear buyer who can obtain full supplies until
Christmas at moderate prices should make a point
of obtaining all that he requires of the late keeping
varieties, and these include Bergamotte Esperen,
Olivier de Serres and Easter Beurre, for dessert,
and Catillac, Verulam and Uvedale's St. Germain for
stewing. All these varieties will keep until March
or April. It is not desirable to buy quantities of
early pears, so many of which ripen so rapidly
that there is at all times possible loss.

Pears, like all fruits, may be purchased from
Covent Garden and other market salesmen, by the
basket or sieve, but the practice needs considerable
care. Although prices are very much lower than
those of the retailer, my own experience is so varied
that I cannot recommend it, for the following
reasons : there is either short weight or short
measure, and sometimes spoiled fruit, and this may
be considerable in proportion to the whole. The
fruit selected is sometimes not the fruit which is
sent. There is delay in expedition and possible
overcharge in the freight. Baskets must be paid
for on the basis of a return of the money on receipt
of the empties, which are frequently long delayed,
or perhaps not returned at all.

N

178 FOOD AND FITNESS

Soft fruit is much the most unsatisfactory to
buy from a market salesman. Before payment
for selected lots the fruit should be examined to
the bottom of the basket and the basket marked
or taken away at once. The buyer of soft fruit
should reject any sample that is damaged, dis-
coloured, or decomposing, for it is a danger to
health. The seller of abnormally cheap fruit j
should always be watched; like the costermonger,
he is liable to take advantage of the unwary by
giving short weight or spoiled fruit. Traders in
the best streets who supply the wealthy consumer,
to whom money is no object, are better avoided by
people with shallow purses. They pay higher
rents, rates and taxes, which they are obliged to
obtain from their customers for goods which are
no better than those which are supplied by more
modest competitors.

The Orange is not worth the attention of the
housekeeper until it is sweet. Jamaicas, which
are the first to arrive, are usually too acid for food.
Ripe oranges bought by the case of 250 to 400 are
very much cheaper than those bought of the
retailer, but, as mentioned already, no purchase
should be completed until the buyisr is certain that
they are all sound. I have known a case which
was paid for to contain on arrival 200 bad fruits.

The Banana is one of the fruits about which

THE SELECTION OF FOODS 179

the public can make little mistake, whether pur-
chased from the barrow of the coster or of a fruit
dealer. When the market is over-supplied the
banana may sometimes be purchased at three for
a penny; a stock of fruit not over-ripe should
then be laid in. Although the small Canary banana
possesses the better flavour of the tw^o varieties
known in this country, there is no reason to
believe that it is more nourishing than the large
banana which provides more food for the money.

As Nuts are costly as foods, owing to the great
weight of the shell, care must be observed in pur-
chasing samples which are so frequently bad. The
walnut is better bought from the " merchant " in
the street, who, without a character to recommend
him, provides the only assurance of fair treatment
in his pow^r, by cracking his nuts. I have found
by experience that this nut is most unsatisfactory,
for when a large number are bad the cost at 8d.
a pound may, and sometimes does, mean that the
actual kernel costs 2^. 6d. a pound. The abnormally
large w^alnut is better avoided; it is either too
costly or a large proportion is worthless. Brazils
have risen in price and should not cost more than
6d. a pound. They are much safer to buy when
they are new — an old sample containing a large
proportion of bad nuts. Chestnuts are much the
cheapest and most satisfactory of all nuts. If two

180 FOOD AND FITNESS

or three when opened are sound, they may be
purchased with safety; but they should not cost
more in normal times than Sd, a pound. Hazel,
Spanish and Almond Nuts are all too expensive as
food, judged by their cost and the weight of their
kernels.

CHAPTEH XII

FITNESS FOR WORK

It is important to every man to be " fit " for
his work. Fitness, however, does not solely depend
upon food. All that ensures health ensures energy.
Energy is expended by the heart in its never-
ceasing labours, in the expansion and contraction
of the lungs in the process of breathing, and in
the movement of every muscle in the body; and
no man can be fit unless his whole system works
as exactly as the clock.

To keep fit it is essential to breathe pure air, to
observe cleanliness, which so many ignore, exercise,
environment, and care in eating. The man who
sleeps with closed windows should learn that air
is of much greater primary importance than food.

Under normal conditions we breathe nearly
25,000 times in twenty-four hours, and the air we
exhale contains a dangerous gas, known as car-
bonic acid, which does much harm to the system,
where it poisons the air.

In an unventilated bedroom the air contains

four times as much of this gas as the air in the

181

182 FOOD AND FITNESS

street, but if we may judge by what we see every
morning in walking before most people are up,
the bedroom windows of nine houses out of every
ten are closed during most part of the year, and
the pure air which is more important than food
is excluded in favour of the poisonous mixture.
If there was no ventilation whatever a man could
not stay in his bedroom more than a few hours
without losing his life.

Pure air, too, is essential to the digestion, and
therefore to fitness, and the more a man passes
through his lungs under normal conditions, the
more he gets out of his food. It is partly for this
reason that he should take regular exercise.

If a man breathes fifteen times a minute when
he is writing at his desk, and thus uses 480 cubic
inches of air, he only employs about one -fifth as
much as if he were walking at the rate of four
miles an hour. If he increases his speed he also
increases his breathing, and takes in more air,
just as when he decreases his speed he inhales
less.

Thus, when walking very slowly the air inspired
is double as much as when resting or sitting at
work, and so it is that a man taking his exercise,
by increasing the oxygen taken into his lungs,
gets rid of the poisonous waste, and his system is
cleaner in consequence.

FITNESS FOR WORK 183

In maintaining fitness a man should walk four
miles at a stretch at a good pace at least once
every day. It improves his circulation, every
muscle and vital organ is helped, while the func-
tions of the liver and stomach receive an impulse
for good by every contraction and expansion of
the lungs.

It is stated on authority that when our soldiers
are on a quick march they step 116 times in a
minute. I find that in walking at a similar pace
I take 120 steps, but I am taller than the average
man. A man should make his own pace, too, or
he may lose power, just as the short soldier, with
a naturally smaller stride, loses power when he is
marching with taller men, because he is obliged to
keep step with them.

It is an accepted rule that the power expended
by the muscular system of a man weighing 150 lb.,
and doing an average amount of work daily, is equal
to lifting 300 tons one foot off the ground ; but the
soldier with his kit on his back, which adds 50 per
cent, to his labour, does much more than this on a
long m^arch, in addition to his expenditure of energy
in other directions.

An hour's quick walking before breakfast makes
a healthy man fit for the day, but he must not
make the mistake of supposing that he can split
up this time into two periods, for it is not the

184 FOOD AND FITNESS

same thing. Slow walkers should gradually accus-
tom themselves to a faster pace and longer dis-
tances, for fitness is not gained by a stroll. This
needs mental as well as physical training until the
habit is formed, when the healthy man at sixty
or seventy may become as fit as if he were twenty
years younger.

We Englishmen thrive on our morning tub of
cold water, not because it is good for us, but in
spite of it. A cold bath on rising from bed is
taken when the system has the least power of
resistance, and, however well the robust are able
to stand it, it is not the best time. Eleven or 3.30
is very much better, but neither is convenient to
the average man. Daily sponging with cold water
at 60° F. and a w^eekly warm bath will remove the
secretions, and maintain a clean skin.

It is important, too, where v/e labour. A
ploughman has a much better chance of maintain-
ing fitness and living a long life than a man who
is confined to an office, badly lit and badly venti-
lated. Next to pure air he requires sunlight, but
a man in a sedentary occupation can overcome
these personal troubles if he chooses to keep in
perpetual training — working, eating, sleeping, walk-
ing— to live, instead of living for perpetual pleasure.
I hold, too, that faith in the great future life is an
essential to that form of perfection in manhood

FITNESS FOR WORK 185

to which all healthy men should aspire. There is
no satisfaction in living without that.

No man can become fit for his place as a worker
if he eats like a pig. We all eat too much, and
most of us eat the wrong foods. Our belief in our
insular safety is a continual incitement to indulge
in luxurious living. While it is quite the right
thing to live as economically as w^e can, that we
may the better help our country and ourselves
should a rainy day arrive, it is equally true that
we should be much the better for it. Less poultry,
less meat, and less fish — or, still better, neither
one nor the other for middle-aged people at least —
less milk and cream, except for the children, and
more cereals, nuts, vegetables, and fruit, if more of
the first-named are needed. No alcohol, less coffee,
no afternoon tea — it is waste — for all these are
luxuries, and detrimental at that. Drink is much
the most useful in fruit.

CHAPTER XIII

SLEEP

I HAVE observed that there are two opinions
among medical men with regard to the importance
of time in our sleep. It was my misfortmie to
sleep very badly for years, whether with the
assistance of drugs or without. If long experience
confers the knowledge of the expert in insomnia,
then I am an expert on Sleep; and yet how little
we know or can learn from ourselves or the highest
authorities on the human machine. One of the
ablest medical writers on the art of the manage-
ment of life has remarked that " much sleep is not
essential for any one," and this expression of belief
has been emphasised by other members of the
profession, as well as by men who have lived to
great ages. On the other hand, there are still
stronger expressions of opinion by men of both
classes, some of whom attribute health and long
life to consistent and long hours of refreshing
sleep. My own belief is, that much depends upon

the temperament. A man of calm, happy dis-

186

SLEEP 187

position may lie awake consistently and content-
edly, enjoying four to five hours only, without
harm to his constitution, his temper, or his nerves.
Where, hov/ever, there is mental tension or a
highly strung, nervous temperament, short hours
of sleep are not only accompanied by unhappiness
and the expenditure of nervous energy, but are
followed by some exhaustion and consequent
unfitness for mental and physical work.

The abnormal acti^dty of the brain w^hich fre-
quently follow^s late tea or coffee drinking, owing
to the stimulation of the central nervous system
by the drug, caffeine, which these beverages con-
tain, at once deprives the individual of the power
to sleep and diminishes the energy at his disposal
for the work of the following day.

Sleep imparts strength, both to the fatigued body
and the tired brain, and is more abundant with
the physical than the mental worker. It is a
healer in sickness, a reviver in health, reimparting
the vigour w^hich has been diminished by the work
and thought of the day. When sleep fails him for
long a man is in a bad way. That every one
knows, for every one sees it. It is written in the
expression in the eyes, in the appetite, and in
every action of the limbs.

Failure to sleep, or insomnia, may result from
one of various causes —

188 FOOD AND FITNESS

Drinking tea or coffee late at night, or drinking
either to excess.

The habit of thinking out the problems of science
or business in bed.

Anxiety in relation to health, finance, the worries
of business, sickness, the loss of beloved friends,
failure to achieve some success on which the heart
is bent, scandal.

Pain, indigestion, disease.

Constructive work after the last meal of the
day.

When sleeplessness becomes habitual it is apt to
get pronounced, and to develop into insomnia.
Some men accept it with more or less complacency,
light their lamp and read, or rise from bed, make
a cup of tea and smoke a cigarette. I have met
with some sufferers from sleeplessness who make a
practice of going for a walk in their respective
towns, or in their gardens, in the small hours
of the morning, but seldom with effect. Effort
rather repels than rallies sleep.

The last resort with the normal man is too often
the first resort of the nervous and fearful — he
takes to drugs, which he should only be able to
obtain from a qualified physician. The almost
promiscuous sale of hypnotics by druggists is a
premium upon death, which takes an annual toll

SLEEP 189

of hundreds of our people. I warn the sleepless
against all these artificial remedies for sleepless-
ness, by whatever name they are called, and
however harmless they may be described.

Experience has completely demonstrated the
helplessness of science in the provision of sleep,
and especially of natural sleep. The unconscious-
ness which is closely allied to it, but which is
governed by drugs, is not the same thing, if we
may judge by the after results. Nor can the
sleepless always depend upon the action of drugs.
It is for this reason that the dose is increased, or
that two forms of hypnotic are taken at one
and the same time. Sometimes, too, a short
heavy sleep is concluded by a sudden awaking
with distress so appalling that another dose is
taken — and so the habit becomes unthinkably
dangerous.

The man who suffers from sleeplessness must
make up his mind to be brave ; he will need plenty
of courage in his effort to conquer it. Yet he will
conquer it if he makes up his mind to be resolute,
and regard his determination as something more
than a forlorn hope. There is no royal road to
victory over insomnia. The cause — and there is
always a cause — must be removed. This step
must be regarded as imperative, however much it
may cost, and it is here that immediate and

190 FOOD AND FITNESS

constant courage is needed. It must, too, mean
early to bed and early to rise. If sleep appears
to be hopeless, it must be remembered that as it
was long in departing it may be long in returning.
While the body is resting, the mind should rest
too — not expending the energy in thought and
anxiety which the body is needing. Though hours
may pass without sleep night after night, patience
will win in the end.

When the brain is actively thinking and con-
cocting, and the whole man apprehensively trying
to check it, it had better have rein, if everything
fails. This often quiets the fears, until nature
takes the matter in hand, and some sleep is obtained.
Sufferers from insomnia frequently get short
snatches of sleep without being aware of the fact,
and they are apt to deny it. A watch placed
within a glance of the eye will quickly convict the
most devout disbeliever on this point, if he will
test himself boldly. There should be no smoking,
no reading, in bed. Sleep cannot be cajoled until
habits which have scared her away have been
abandoned, whatever the remedies applied.

Among the numerous aids to sleep are the hop
pillow, which acts quite the reverse until one gets
accustomed to its presence, and then it has lost
any influence which it ever possessed. Hot milk;
milk and egg ; milk, egg, and brandy ; a light meal ;
a long walk, a rapid drive, hot water up to the

SLEEP 191

knees, a body compress, massage, a hot bottle to
the feet — all have their advocates, but all fail in
pronounced cases. A smart walk of a couple of
miles after dinner or supper is an excellent plan
as an assistant to health, with a glass of hot milk
on the return, if a sufficient time has elapsed since
leaving the table. Whatever conduces to re-
establish the health wdll assist in the re-establish-
ment of sleep. A wholemeal biscuit and butter,
or gingerbread, in the night is often found useful
to incite sleep, but this, too, is apt to fail if it is
taken in a regular way, and it is not wise to make
it a practice.

Insomnia should be treated calmly, for it means
nothing to the man that is sound. It is an illusion
to think that, unless much pronounced, it does any
serious harm. We must think of what others are
suffering — ^the w^ounded, the sick, and the dying,
no hope in this life, and sometimes, alas ! no hope
in the next. Yet with all our mental suffering hope
still remains — it is eternal in the human breast.
Excitement and fear must give w^ay to thankfulness
and rest. If we must lie and think, we can con-
struct plans for our daily life, its duties, its respon-
sibilities, its usefulness, remembering that we are
all here for a purpose. We must resolve to eat,
to work, and to act in order to live, to take regular
and sensible exercise, on foot or on horseback, and
keep as fit as w^e can, always doing one mile, and

192 FOOD AND FITNESS

if possible two, before breakfast in all weathers
and at all times.

What is the remedy for sleeplessness ? A
natural, simple, and objective method of living,
with a clean body, open windows at night, and a
low pillow. To exist for pleasure, for luxury, or
for business prosperity never yet made a good
man — still less a happy man. There is much
that we can legitimately enjoy in life without
making either of these ends the hub on which it
works. Simple meals are among the first points
to be observed, with abundance of fruit and salads,
for both give assistance to sleep. I am not de-
scribing a theory, but sensible, definite practice,
which has rebuilt broken lives, restored all that
makes life worth living, and conferred as much on
the intellect as it ever enjoyed.

Comfort in sleep may be better obtained by
clothing the bed like the body, by the indications
of the thermometer, which should hang in the
bedroom. One blanket less or more makes a great
difference in very changeable weather, for sleep is
often broken by chilliness on the one hand, or by
perspiration when there are too many wraps on
the bed, on the other. Some people fall off to
sleep w^hile counting five hundred, or w^hile reciting
a poem. I suggest the silent recital of hymns
which direct the thought to that one Source of
Love Whose Name should be the last on our lips.

CHAPTER XIV

RECORDS OF WEIGHTS OF FOOD BEFORE AND AFTER

COOKING

1. Leg of Lamb.

lb. oz.
Weight before baking .... 5 6
Weight after baking . . . . 3 13
Dripping saved on potatoes beneath.

2. Mutton Chop.

oz.

Weight barely 9 @ 1/6

Weight after cooking .... 6
Weight, less bone and skin . . 4|

Cost of meat, including surplus fat and inedible
tissue, 3/- lb.

3. Shoulder of Muttmi.

lb. oz.

Weight 6 1 @ 1/1

Weight after roasting ..51

Bones 11

Dripping 4j

Net weight, including the dripping, 4 lb. 6 oz.,
increasing the actual cost of the meat to 1/6 lb.
o 193

194 FOOD AND FITNESS

4. Pork (lean loin).

^ lb. oz.

Weight 4 12 @ Ud,

Weight after cooking ..42

Dripping 3

Bones 5

Cost of meat, 1/2 lb.

5. Rihs of Beef .

lb. oz.

Weight 3 12 @ 1/2

Weight cooked .... 3 2
Bones 14

Net weight 2 4

Cost of meat, 1/11 lb.

6. Sirloin of Beef .

lb. oz.

Weight 4 0 @ 1/2

Weight after roasting ..34
Bones 12

Net weight of edible meat . 2 8
Cost of meat, 1/10 lb,

7. Boiled Beef.

lb. oz.

W^eight 4 1 @ 1/1

Weight cooked 2 8

Bones 4

Net weight of meat ... 2 4
Cost of edible meat, 1/11| lb.

WEIGHTS OF FOOD 195

8. Fat Brisket of Beef .

lb. oz.
Weight 6 0

Weight after baking ... 4 8

Bone 12

Dripping 4

Net weight of meat, with

dripping 3 12

Cost of edible meat. 1/7 lb.

9. English Shoulder of Mutton.

lb. oz.
Weight 6 15

Weight after cooking .... 5 4
Bones and waste 1 0

Edible meat cost, 1/8 lb.

10. Turkey.

lb.
Weight with insides . . . . 10 @ 1/3
Ready for cooking .... 7

Cooked 6

Bones and waste 3

Edible meat cost, 2/1 lb.

11. Plaice.

oz.

Weight 18 @ 1/- lb.

Weight cleaned . . . .17
Weight after cooking . . .14
Bones and waste .... 4^
Edible meat 9J

Cost, 1/8 lb.

196 FOOD AND FITNESS

12. Rice Pudding.

oz.

Rice 5

New milk, 3 pints 60

Little butter and sugar

Weight of cooked pudding ... 54

11 oz. each for 5 persons. Cost, l|c?. each.

13. Ribs of Beef (fat).

lb. oz.

Weight 7 13 Cost, 8/6

Weight after cooking . 6 10
Bone 1 8

5 2

Cost, 1/8 lb.

14. Beef.

lb. oz.

Weight 49 4

Weight after cooking .... 38 8
Bone, gristle, and dripping . . 10 0

28 8

Price not supplied. If 1/- lb., the cost of the
edible meat would be 1/9 lb.

15. Beef.

lb. oz.

Weight 43 8

Weight after cooking .... 36 4
Bones, waste, and dripping . . 10 0

26 4
At 1/- lb. this meat would cost 1/8 lb.

WEIGHTS OF FOOD 197

16. Rihs of Beef.

^ -^ lb. oz.

Weight .... 11 10 @ 1/1 = 12/7

Weight after cooking 6 9

Bones and waste . 3 10

2 15

Cost, 4/2 lb.

17. Beef (topside).

lb. oz.

Weight 5 9 @ 1/2 = 6/6

Weight after cooking . 4 9
No bone

Cost, 1/5 lb.

18. Wing Rih of Beef

lb. oz.

Weight 7 1 @ 1/2 = 8/3

Weight after cooking . 5 4
Dripping 4 oz., bones 12 oz. 1 0

4 4

Cost of edible meat, 1/11 lb.

19. Beef

lb, oz.
Weight 6 0 @ 1/- = 6/-

Weight after cooking . 4 8
Drippings oz., bones 14 oz. 1 6

3 2

Cost of meat, 1/11 lb.

198 FOOD AND FITNESS

20. Mutton (joint unknown).

Weight

Weight after cooking
Bone and waste

Cost of meat,

Loin of Mutton.
Weight ....

Weight after cooking .
Bones

Dripping IJ oz.

Cost of meat,

lb.
. . 9

oz.

o@i/-

. . 7
. . 1

0
3

21.

5

1/7 lb.

lb. oz.

6 4 @

13

1/2 = 7/3 J

4 91
111

3 131
1/11 lb.

22. Two Legs of Colonial Mutton.

lb. oz.
Weight— each . . . 4 6 @ 1/- = 4/4|

each

After cooking — each . 3 8
Dripping 3 oz. bone

10 oz 13

2 11

Cost of edible meat, in each case, 1/7| lb.

WEIGHTS OF FOOD 199

23. Bacon (boiled).

oz.

Weight 12 Cost, Hid.

Weight after cooking . . 8
Rind i

71
« 2

Cost, 1/lOj lb.

24. Ham (steamed).

lb.

Weight .... 14 Cost unknown.

Weight after cooking. 13
Shin-bone and fat

wasted .... 3

10

At 1/2 lb., cost 1/71 lb.

25. Portion of Ham.

lb. oz.
Weight . . . . 4 12 @ 1/6 = rm

Weight after cooking . 3 12 J
Bones 10 oz., rind Sjoz. 15J

2 13

Cost of meat, 2/6 lb.

200 FOOD AND FITNESS

26. Three Salmon.

lb. oz.
Weight 31 0 No price

given.

Weight after cooking . 27 4
Bones, head, and skin . 5 0

22 4

At 1/8 lb. the cost of the meat would be
2/4 lb.

27. Rock Salmon.

lb. oz.

Weight 1 8 @ 8c?. = 1/-

Weight after cooking . 1 5

Skin and bone. ... 0 2

1 3

Cost, lOd. lb.

28. Turkey (before dressing).

lb. oz.

Weight 24 0

Weight dressed ... 19 0

Bone and skin ... 4 4

Net weight .... 14 12

WEIGHTS OF FOOD 201

29. Guinea-chick {dressed).

lb. oz.
Weight 2 5 Cost, 3/9

Cooked and stuffed . . 1 12 J
Stuffing 4

1 H

Bones 7

1 H

Head, feet, and entrails . 10

Cost of meat, 3/5 lb.

30. Rice.

oz.
Weight 5

Milk, 1 qt 40

45
Weight baked 40

Cost, Qd. Sufficient for five people.

CHAPTER XV

FOOD VALUES IN RELATION TO PRICE

The figures in this table are only approximate,
for foods of all kinds vary both in composition and
price. Prices, too, have in some instances been
largely increased since the commencement of the
war, and this fact has been taken into account.
The figures relating to flesh and fish foods repre-
sent the edible portion only, while those relating
to vegetables and fruits include edible skins, but
not stones. The nutritive value of all vegetables
and fruits is materially reduced by boiling. The
foods are arranged in the order of their economical
value — those which provide the largest quantity
of nutritive matter for a penny taking the highest
places. It is, however, important to remark that
this matter is relative. Sugar and the fats and
oils are food — but fuel foods only — inasmuch as
they have no bone- or muscle-building value,
containing neither protein nor mineral matter.

They are, therefore, placed by themselves.

202

FOOD VALUES 203

Cereals and Pulses

Providers of heat and energy, and muscle- and

bone-builders

Cost Approximate

per lb. No. of Units

d. for a Penny.

Wheat li 1060

Maize-meal or Polenta ... 2 800

Rice in the husk .... 2 750

Rice (clean) 2j 640

Wholemeal Bread .... 2 625

White bread 2 625

Lentils 2 J 640

Rolled Oats 3 580

Pearl Barley 3 520

Peas 3 520

Beans 3 520

Semolina 3| 450

Macaroni 4j 360

Animal Foods

Providers of heat aiid energy, a7id muscle- and

bone-builders

Cost Approximate

per lb. No. of Units

d. for a Penny.

12 170

1 150

2 125
12 125
12 50

English Pressed Cheese
Separated Milk .
New Milk, 1 pint = Ij lb.
Curd Cheese (ripened) .
Eggs (8 to the lb.) . .

204

FOOD AND FITNESS

Chiefly muscle-builders

Fat Bacon
Sausage (good pork)
Fat Loin of Pork
Beefsteak with some fat
Beef, medium fatness
Chicken (sHghtly fat)
Mutton, medium fatness

Tripe

Sweetbread .
Brains ....
Calves' Head .
Fresh Herrings (3 to the
Bloaters (4 to the lb.)
Mackerel (2 to the lb.)
Salmon ....
Plaice (waste 25 per cent.)

lb

Cost

per lb.

d.

Approximate
No. of Units
for a Penny.

12

295

10

200

12

104

16

75

14

72

12

70

14

72

10

70

18

46

10

36

10

28

4|

88

10

75

10

40

18

33

13

10

Vegetables

Providers of heat and energy, and health- givers.

If these foods are boiled or their edible skins
removed, their value will be reduced.

Potatoes

Parsnips

Beetroot

Onions

Turnips

Leeks .

Cost

per lb.

d.

i

Approximate
No. of Units
for a Penny.
440

4

330

1

300

1

250

i

250

1

250

Preparedness

The Vital Factor—

not alone in affairs of the Nation, but with the health
of every citizen.

One seldom knows when the common enemy, illness,
in one form or another, is about to strike ; and the best
form of preparedness is to keep body and brain healthy.

Active brains and vigorous bodies are the result of
right living — food plays a big part.

Gxape^Nuts

FOOD

made of whole wheat and malted barley, supplies all
the bone- and brain-building, nerve- and muscle-making
elements of the grains, including the vital salts, phos-
phate of potash, etc., often lacking in the diet of many,
but imperative for bounding good health.

Grape-Nuts is easily digested — comes ready to serve
from the moisture- and dust-proof packet. With
good milk or cream Grape-Nuts supplies complete
nourishment.

A ration of Grape-Nuts each day is a safe play for
health, and

"There's a Reason"

Sold by Grocers everywhere.

The "Way to
Get W^ell

Will you kindly read this interesting: letter?

"To THE WALLACE 'P.R.' FOODS CO., Ltd., Hornsey, London, N.

"Gentlemen, as I am forwarding you an order I will take the opportunity
to thank you for the benefit I have derived from your ' P. R.' Biscuits. An
explanation of my case will take too long to write, it is one of greatly
impaired digestion, non-assimilation and mal-nutrition, and when I tell you
that for the last six years I have been obliged to subsist principally upon
Peptonised Milk (for the first twelve months I could only take Peptogenic
Milk Baby's Food) you will understand mine is no ordinary case of indigestion.

"Having in vain tried many of the advertised 'easily digested nourish-
ments, ' I can assure you it was in a very sceptical frame of mind that I tried
your 'P.R.' Biscuits, and \v^as most astonished to find they
did not Vipset me. Then I decided to persevere with them, and for
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at last being nourished instead of half-starved as formerly. In fact, the
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The ' P.R.' Biscuits certainly deserve all you claim for them, and I hope
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Deal, Kent, December 'S>th, 1915.

There are some 40 varieties of the ** P.R." Biscuits, as
well as a number of other *'P.R." Products of great
excellence and high health=vffllue. Their regular use is
both delightful, genuinely economical,

and the Way to

Keep

We will gladly send a small box

of Samples, with full details, post
paid for <)d., or, better still— for it
enables a fuller test to be made — we can
send our Special Trial Parcel for ^s.
carriage paid in U.K.

The Wallace " P.R." Foods Co., Ltd.,
126 Tottenham Lane, Hornsey, London, N.

In cases of Dyspepsia the "P.R." Malt Biscuits, which
are made from materials of superlative quality and
purity, are invaluable. Send two stamps for Sample.

fTHE ACME OF PURITY r

FOOD VALUES

20r

Cost

per lb.

d.

Carrots 1

Celery 1

Salsify 2

Cabbage {white hearts) ... 1

Artichokes 1

Brussels Sprouts .... 2

Green Peas (without shells) . 3

French Beans 2

Cauliflower 2

Spinach 2

Lettuce 3

Asparagus 18

Nuts

Chestnuts (new) 3

Hazel, Spanish, or Filbert Nuts

(old) 16

Walnuts (new kernels) . . .16

Approximate
No. of Units
for a Penny.

200

200

170

150

150

100

100

90

75

50

25
6

500

190
125

Dried Fruits

Providers of heat and energy

Cost Approximate

per lb. No. of Units

d. for a Penny.

Currants 5 300

Figs 6 250

Dates 4 250

Raisins 6 250

Prunes 6 265

Apples 8 150

208 FOOD AND FITNESS

Fresh Fruits

Health-givers

Cost Approximate

per lb. No. of Units

d. for a Penny.

Bananas (7 to the lb.) . . . 4 62

Plums 4 62

Cherries 4 62

Oranges, edible parts (5 to lb.) . 3 58

Apples 4 50

Pears 4 50

Currants 4 50

Gooseberries 4 50

Water Melons 6 S3

Tomatoes 4 30

Whortleberries (Bilberries) . 4 27

Strawberries 6 25

Raspberries 6 25

Apricots 12 18

Pineapple 18 14

Sugar 4 450

Butter 16 185

Margarine 8 370

Lard 10 400

Dripping 8 500

PrjNTED UN Great Britain by Eichard Clay & Sons, Limited,

BRUNSWICK ST., STAMFORD ST., S.E., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.

The Food which maintains physical fitness
better than any other is

WINTER'S

** Marked Malty Flavour"

The Laacet

BREAD

No other Bread provides you with the essential elements
for maintaining vigorous health in such a complete form,
and the weakest digestion can assimilate it with ease.

Winter's Bread has a delicious flavour, and the Fruit
variety is a delicacy which appeals to young and old
alike.

The Medical Profession and thousands of users have
unhesitatingly proclaimed it The Premier Bread.

4d., 6d., Is., and Is. 6d. per loaf.

The 6d., is. and is. 6d. sizes are the most economical
to buy, and if you desire the greatest amount of food
value for every penny you spend, then you must
purchase Winter's Bread.

Sold by all the leading Bakers, Confectioners, Grocers,
and Stores.

Name of nearest Agent sent on request to the

SOLE PROPRIETORS AND MANUFACTURERS-

R. WINTER, Ltd., Birmingham.

The finest and most com-
plete of all Foods is

FRESH MILK

absolutely pure and free
from all forms of Pre-
servative, as guaranteed
and supplied by the

EXPRESS DAIRY CO. LTD.

HEAD OFFICE—
26/30 TAVISTOCK PLACE,

LONDON, W.C.

with Branches in all parts

of the Metropolis and

suburbs.

THE MARVELLOUS
FOOD VALUE OF NUTS

is found in the most digestible form in Mapleton's
Nut Foods, which are far more wholesome,
nourishing and economical than meat.

They include NUT SOUPS, NUT MEALS,
NUT BUTTERS, etc., and are all food and no
waste or water. They require little or no pre-
paration, and save the housewife's time and
trouble as well as her pocket.

YOU WILL BETTER EVERY MEAL

by the addition of a packet or two of

MAPLETON'5 ORIGINAL

Made
entirely
from fruits
and nuts
compressed into
delicious cakes.

FRUITARIANj
GAKES

Uncooked
but ready
to eat.
Highly
concentrated
and nourishing.

TWENTY VARIETIES, 3(1. and 6d. PER PACKET.

Sold by leading Grocers and Health Stores.

MAPLETON'S NUT FOOD CO. Ltd.

GARSTON, LIVERPOOL.

We
Offer

post free

a sample of
Fruitarian
Cake and a
complete list
of all our
Foods, in-
cluding a
pamphlet on
Nut Butter,
and much
useful in-
formation.

Write for
it to = day

J

We have all you need in
foods that keep you fit.

We stock all the best-known Health Foods, etc., together with several
specialities of our own. Free delivery within 3 miles. Parcels of 7/6 and
upwards sent carriage paid anywhere in the United Kingdom.

Write to-day for our Booklet list, " A Guide to Good Things," full of
helpful and interesting matter. We send it post free for a penny stamp.

You can test food reform in comfort in our spacious Restaurant Saloon.

A grand sustaining food,
highly eoneentpated and
delicious. It keeps the
system nourished and
regulated, and so tends
to expel and prevent dis-
ease. In packets, 5d. each.

^HF ARISI'^ HEALTH FOOD STORES AND RESTAURANT,

231/234 Tottenham Court Road, LONDON, W.

Telephone : Museum 540.

THE

Health-Giving Change of Diet

HOW BEST TO BEGIN IT
EASILY, COMFORTABLY, ECONOMICALLY, SUCCESSFULLY.

Write to EUSTACE MILES for an INVALUABLE FREE

BOOKLET. Enclose a pennj' stamp for postage. If, when you

write to him, you mention any difficulties or ailments, mark the

envelope " Private and Personal."

INSTEAD OF MEAT

Use the Eustace Miles Proteid Food

"EIV8PROTE"

The Best Body-Building Food-Basis. Ready for use and
needs no cooking. Per J lb. yd.

WHEN IN TOWN

HAVE ALL YOUR MEALS AT

THE EUSTACE MILES RESTAURANT

40 CHANDOS STREET, CHARING CROSS, W.C.

INEXPENSIVE DAINTY MENU.

COOKERY— Cookery Up.to=Date.

By Mrs. Humphrey. Crown 8vo. ^s. 6d. net.

COOKERY— Indian Dishes for English Tables.

By Ketab. Crown 8vo, no pages, 2s. 6d. net.

COOKERY— Hilda's "Where is it?" of Recipes.

Containing many old Cape, Indian, and Malay Dishes
and Preserves ; also Directions tor Polishing Furniture,
Cleaning Silk, etc. ; and a Collection of Home Remedies
in Case of Sickness, By Hildagonda J. Duckitt.
26th Thousand. Crown 8vo, 45. 6d. net.

COOKERY— Sick-room Cookery.

From the Official Handbook for the National School for
Cookery, South Kensington. Compiled by " R. O. C."
Crown 8vo, sewed, 6d. net.

COOKERY— Dinners in Miniature.

By Mrs. Earl. Crown 8vo, is. net.

COOKERY— The Kingswood Cookery Book.

By H. F. WiCKEN. Crown 8vo, 2s. net.
CHAPMAN & HALL, LTD., LONDON, W.C.

TTT^T'F?"' "^TT^

T ^ v>Y > "■. V

THIS BOOK IS nTTT.

^J^ ifc> DUE ON Trrc t .

STAMPED BE^^^^ DATE

KOV 10 1932

■J/i^ai OdOf -'^^^

1/1

Subject to recall after

NOV 4 - 1972
0EC18 1972JD£CI

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U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES

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UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY