Incidentally, also, food should be of such taste and nature as easily to excite the saliva, which is almost indispensable to procure digestion.

Now the one great necessity without which we die is proteid, because proteid supplies (and nothing else in the world supplies) the waste which daily and hourly goes on in the body. It is present in conveniently large quantities in all meat foods, which is one of the main causes of their being eaten, but it is present also in large quantities in cheese, milk-proteid, grains, nuts, and pulses, though in certain other fruits and vegetables it is almost completely absent. It would be practically impossible, for instance, to eat enough cabbages to supply the necessary amount of pure proteid per diem, which must, and this is important, not only be swallowed but be digested. On the other hand, it is easily possible to get enough proteid per diem by a meat diet, but it is even easier to get enough from a diet of grains, nuts, pulses, and milk-proteid,[5] provided the right sorts are eaten.

The following abridged table giving the values of certain common articles of diet both in proteids and also in fattening and heating products will make this clear.

TABLE OF FOOD VALUES.

(ABRIDGED FROM “FAILURES OF VEGETARIANISM.”)

Foods—uncooked,
unless otherwise stated.		 Proteid.Fat.Carbo-hydrates.Salts.
Beef (with moderate amount of fat) 20. 1.5 ... 1.3
Mutton (with moderate amount of fat) 14.5 19.5 ... 0.8
Pork 12. 26.2 ... 1.1
Fresh fish 10.5 2.5 ... 1.
Milk 2.3 4. 4.5 0.7
Plasmon 69. ... ... 8.5
Cheddar cheese 33.4 26.8 ... 3.9
Eggs (white) 12.6 0.25 ... ...
Eggs (yolk) 16.2 31.75 ... ...
Hovis bread 9.9 1.6 42.3 1.2
Wholemeal bread 6.3 1.2 44.8 1.2
(“Manhu” is similar)
White bread 6.5 to 3 1.0 51.2 1.0
Boiled rice 5.0 0.1 41.9 0.3
Macaroni 10.89 0.45 76.05 0.64
Dried peas 21.0 1.8 55.4 2.6
Lentils 23.0 2.0 58.4 2.7
Haricots 23.0 2.3 55.8 3.2
Potatoes 1.2 0.1 19.1 0.9
Turnips 0.9 0.15 5.0 0.8
Onions 1.6 0.3 6.3 0.6
Cabbage 1.8 0.4 5.8 1.3
Tomatoes 1.3 0.2 5.0 0.76
Cucumbers 0.81 0.1 2.1 0.4
Apples 0.4 ... 12.5 0.4
Plums 1.0 ... 14.8 0.5
Cherries 0.8 ... 8.9 0.5
Strawberries 1.0 ... 6.3 0.7
Bananas 1.5 to 3 ... 22.9 0.9
Lemons 1.0 ... 8.3 0.5
Dried dates 4.4 ... 65.7 1.5
Dried figs 5.5 ... 62.8 2.3
Chestnuts 10.1 10.0 ... 2.7
Walnuts 15.6 62.6 7.4 2.9
Sweet almonds 24.0 54.0 10.0 3.0
Cocoa bean 6.3 50.44 4.20 2.75

It is obvious then, that as far as the theoretical reasons for eating food at all are concerned, it is perfectly easy to obtain all the essentials for support without touching animal food, and without in any way loading the stomach with unnecessary bulk; and leaving out of the question, for the present, the economical advantage of adopting these simple foods, there is one enormous advantage which they possess for many. These are they who, especially in town life, and when they are not able to take the requisite amount of exercise, suffer chronically from slight biliousness or congested liver, and the depression attendant thereon, who feel sleepy or fatigued when in better health they would feel neither. Their ailments may rarely or never amount to what they would call “an attack,” but habitually they are slightly clogged. Now in nine cases out of ten this feeling is due to the presence of uric acid in the body, which is produced in larger quantities than the system, without the aid of daily perspiration, which gets rid of acids to a large extent through the skin, can throw off. This uric acid is a product of waste within the body, and the foods which cause it are (to a much larger extent than all others) flesh foods.

Many people know this without knowing it; in other words, many men who have an attack of biliousness, lumbago, or gout (all direct results of the presence of uric acid in the body), at once cut off, even without consulting a doctor, their daily consumption of flesh. But then their ignorance makes them suffer, for they most likely in the curtailment of flesh-food do not take enough proteid, with the effect that after a day or two of such treatment they feel lowered. Naturally: they have been starving. And the lowered feeling they put down to the absence of flesh-food, whereas it is chiefly the absence of proteid from which they are suffering. They could easily have avoided this by eating instead of flesh some of the fleshless foods which are valuable in proteid, and they can—humanly speaking—if the abstinence from flesh-foods, as is almost invariably the case, relieves their attack, guard against such attacks in the future, by a diet, complete or modified, of the kind which has relieved them. But, and this is highly important, it is a fatal mistake not to take enough proteid, and not to remember that it is easily possible to eat heavy meals without taking enough. Four or five ounces per diem of proteid, not only swallowed but digested, is said to be the average required.

Now there are many people in excellent health who live in the ordinary manner i.e., on a varied diet including meat, and as long as they are well, there seems to be no reason, except to be humane and to save the money they spend in food—and that may be a great inducement—why they should try a new diet when their present one suits them well, except that, for all they can tell, another diet might suit them better. At the same time there are certainly many people who are perfectly aware that they have periodical attacks of liver or biliousness directly traceable to diet, and many others who put themselves down as having chronically bad digestions, with which any food is continually liable to disagree. It is to these particularly that a trial of the simpler foods is recommended, whether they are adopted in toto, or used to modify existing diet. Similarly, also, the simpler foods are recommended as worth a trial by athletes who are in training for some special event, to whom either economy is an object (for a most varied diet of simpler foods can be had at a daily cost of less than a shilling), or whom the present heavy though wholesome meals do not suit. Furthermore, it is quite possible, as we said, that even those who consider themselves well might be still better without flesh-foods.