Slaughter of game as sport, a step backward
What is true of domestic poultry is also true of all wild game. The amount of actual food contributed to the world by the slaughter of game is exceedingly small. A similar quantity of domestic food could be produced at one-tenth the cost of time and labor, without slaughtering the wild creatures of our forests. The popularity of hunting as a sport, and the idea that the flesh of all wild animals is a rare and dainty article of diet, is merely an illustration of anthropoid inheritance. It is a step backward toward savagery instead of forward toward a higher civilization.
EGGS
Eggs and milk occupy a unique place in the catalog of foods. The purpose for which they were produced in nature throws much light upon their value as food.
Every form of life exists for itself alone
As will be learned from the lesson, "Evolution of Man," no living creature exists for the sole benefit of other creatures, but because once created, the inherent struggle of all living matter to survive and to reproduce itself has evolved wonderful and various adaptations. Every organic substance is primarily produced in nature for a specific purpose in the life of its species. The lumber in our houses owes its existence to the plant's struggle for sunlight, which made it necessary for the tree to possess a strong storm-withstanding stem to hold aloft its leaves above the shade of other foliage.
The leaves and the stems of grass are primarily an essential part of the life of the plant, and not food for animals. The greater part of the human food of plant origin represents in nature the nutrient material supplied by the parent plant for the early life of the seedling. All grains, nuts, fruits and roots, and tubers are merely modified forms of food material adapted to the rapid nourishment of the young plant.
The starch and the oil of seeds, the sugar of fruit, and the lesser quantities of nitrogen contained in all seeds, are in a more available form for cell-nourishment than would be the original mature portions of plant life.
Milk and eggs in the animal world occupy a position identical to that of seeds and fruit in the plant world; that is, they are created for the first nourishment of the offspring.