Oysters and clams unfit for food
Oysters and clams, which are generally eaten uncooked, are recommended by many authorities as valuable sources of proteid. The serious objection to their use, and especially uncooked, is the fact that they are grown in the sea-water around harbor entrances which are flooded with sewage, and hence they are likely to be contaminated with typhoid, or similar germs. The actual food value in shell-fish is quite small. They contain only about ten per cent of proteids, and are scarcely worth considering as a source of nutrition.
POULTRY AS AN ARTICLE OF FOOD
The objections that I have made against the use of the flesh of fish and mammals as an article of food may also be assessed against the use of domestic and wild fowls. There are a few special points, however, in favor of poultry as food that are worth special consideration.
The production of chickens and other domestic poultry is one of the most prolific industries in America, and is of great importance to the general public because it is capable of being carried on in communities too thickly settled for the economic production of beef and other meats.
Poultry superior to the flesh of mammals
Another point to be observed in the use of poultry as food is that, because of the ease with which every farmer and villager can keep a flock of chickens, it is possible for him to have fresh meat produced under the most sanitary and hygienic conditions, while if he uses meat as food, he will be compelled to depend upon the various meat products of unknown age and origin, secured from the general market.
Another reason why the use of poultry, from a hygienic standpoint, is less objectionable than the use of pork and beef is that the quantity consumed is usually much smaller than the amount eaten of these heavy-blooded meats.
For example: When five pounds of beefsteak is purchased in the market, the amount consumed would be almost the full weight of the purchase. If the money were invested in a five-pound chicken, a goodly portion of this weight would be lost in preparing the fowl for the table, while a still further loss would occur in the bones and in the inedible portions, so that the actual amount of flesh consumed would not be more than perhaps two pounds.