Starch, which under the action of the saliva changes into glucose or grape-sugar, is present in vegetables and cereals.
Flesh foods, called as often nitrogenous foods, from containing so large a proportion of nitrogen, are made up of fibrine, albumen, caseine, gelatine, and gluten; the first four elements being present in flesh, the latter in vegetables.
Salts of various forms exist in both animal and vegetable food. In meat, fish, and potatoes are found phosphorus, lime, and magnesia. Common salt is largely made up of soda, but is found with potash in many vegetables. This last element is also in meat, fish, milk, vegetables, and fruits. Iron abounds in flesh and vegetables; and sulphur enters into albumen, caseine, and fibrine.
The simplest division of food is into flesh-formers and heat-producers; the former being as often called nitrogenous food, or albumenoids; the latter, heat-giving or carbonaceous foods. Much minuter divisions could be made, but these two cover the ground sufficiently well. For a healthy body both are necessary, but climate and constitution will always make a difference in the amounts required. Thus, in a keen and long-continued winter, the most condensed forms of carbonaceous foods will be needed; while in summer a small portion of nitrogenous food to nourish muscle, and a large amount of cooling fruits and vegetables, are indicated; both of these, though more or less carbonaceous in character, containing so much water as to neutralize any heat-producing effects.
Muscle being the first consideration in building up a strong body, we need first to find out the values of different foods as flesh-formers, healthy flesh being muscle in its most perfect condition. Flesh and fat are never to be confounded, fat being really a species of disease,—the overloading of muscle and tissue with what has no rightful place there. There should be only enough fat to round over the muscle, but never hide its play. The table given is the one in use in the food-gallery of the South Kensington Museum, and includes not only the nutritive value, but the cost also, of each article; taking beef as the standard with which other animal foods are to be compared, beef being the best-known of all meats. Among vegetables, lentils really contain most nourishment; but wheat is chosen as being much more familiar, lentils being very little used in this country save by the German part of the population, and having so strong and peculiar a flavor that we are never likely to largely adopt their use.
About an equal amount of nourishment is found in the varied amounts mentioned in the table which follows:—
| TABLE. | |
| Cost about | |
| Eight ounces of lean beef (half-pound) | 6 cts. |
| Ten ounces of dried lentils | 7 cts. |
| Eleven ounces of pease or beans | 5 cts. |
| Twelve ounces of cocoa-nibs | 20 cts. |
| Fourteen ounces of tea | 40 cts. |
| Fifteen ounces of oatmeal | 5 cts. |
| One pound and one ounce of wheaten flour | 4 cts. |
| One pound and one ounce of coffee | 30 cts. |
| One pound and two ounces of rye-flour | 5 cts. |
| One pound and three ounces of barley | 5 cts. |
| One pound and five ounces Indian meal | 5 cts. |
| One pound and thirteen ounces of buckwheat-flour | 10 cts. |
| Two pounds of wheaten bread | 10 cts. |
| Two pounds and six ounces of rice | 20 cts. |
| Five pounds and three ounces of cabbage | 10 cts. |
| Five pounds and three ounces of onions | 15 cts. |
| Eight pounds and fifteen ounces of turnips | 9 cts. |
| Ten pounds and seven ounces of potatoes | 10 cts. |
| Fifteen pounds and ten ounces of carrots | 15 cts. |
Now, because tea, coffee, and cocoa approach so nearly in value as nutriment to beef and lentils, we must not be misled. Fourteen ounces of tea are equivalent to half a pound of meat; but a repast of dry tea not being very usual, in fact, being out of the question altogether, it becomes plain, that the principal value of these foods, used as we must use them, in very small quantities, is in the warmth and comfort they give. Also, these weights (except the bread) are of uncooked food. Eight ounces of meat would, if boiled or roasted, dwindle to five or six, while the ten ounces of lentils or beans would swell to twice the capacity of any ordinary stomach. So, ten pounds of potatoes are required to give you the actual benefit contained in the few ounces of meat; and only the Irishman fresh from his native cabin can calmly consider a meal of that magnitude, while, as to carrots, neither Irishman nor German, nor the most determined and enterprising American, could for a moment face the spectacle of fifteen pounds served up for his noonday meal.
The inference is plain. Union is strength, here as elsewhere; and the perfect meal must include as many of these elements as will make it not too bulky, yet borrowing flavor and substance wherever necessary.
As a rule, the food best adapted to climate and constitution seems to have been instinctively decided upon by many nations; and a study of national dishes, and their adaptation to national needs, is curious and interesting. The Esquimaux or Greenlander finds his most desirable meal in a lump of raw blubber, the most condensed form of carbonaceous food being required to preserve life. It is not a perverted taste, but the highest instinct; for in that cruel cold the body must furnish the food on which the keen air draws, and the lamp of life there has a very literal supply.