At first sight, it would appear that this runs counter to the argument that has been advanced; but we must take into account the fact that Professor Chittenden is here speaking only of vegetable proteid, and has made no mention of nuts; and, as we have seen from the tables, nuts contain a far larger percentage of protein than meats. When we take into consideration the small disproportion in the percentage assimilated, and find that when meat is mixed with other articles of food, as it invariably is, the percentage of its availability is reduced to 92 per cent., while vegetable foods are proportionately raised to the same figure, we see that the apparent discrepancy practically vanishes to nothing. And when we further take into account the fact that an equal amount of proteid can be obtained from a far less quantity of non-flesh food, we see that, from an equal bulk of food material, a far larger proportionate percentage would be assimilated from the vegetable foods than from the animal.
Another great argument which has always been advanced in favour of meat-eating, or the ingestion of proteid in the form of animal, as opposed to vegetable food, is that the proteid derived from the animal is far more quickly and readily assimilated by the system than vegetable proteid. The rapidity of the digestion of animal food has always been urged as one of the strongest arguments in its favour, and it is largely for this reason that it has been administered to invalids, and to patients in a depressed and weakened state of body. But now we find that physiological research has completely disproved this old dogma! Professor Chittenden, on p. 30 of his “Nutrition and Man,” says:
“It is evident from what has been stated that the gastric digestion of proteid foods is a comparatively slow process, involving several hours of time; and further, that food material in general remains in the stomach for varying periods, dependent upon its chemical composition.... It is a mistake to assume that the digestion of proteid foods is complete in the stomach. Stomach digestion is to be considered more as a preliminary step, paving the way for further changes to be carried forward by the combined action of intestinal and pancreatic juice in the small intestines.... The importance of gastric digestion is frequently overrated.”
Dr Sylvester Graham, writing on this subject years ago in his “Science of Human Life,” said:
“In vain have they attempted to regulate the diet of man on the chemical principles, and insisted on the necessity for certain chemical properties in the human element to sustain the vital economy. That economy has shown them that it can triumph over the chemical affinities and ordinary laws of organic matter, and bend them to its purposes at pleasure; generating and transmuting from one form to another, with the utmost ease, the substance which human science calls elements; and while the living organs retain their functional power and integrity, elaborating from every kind of element on which an animal can subsist, a chyle so nearly identical in its physical and chemical character, that the most accurate analytical chemists can scarcely detect the least appreciable difference.... Though, while the health and integrity of the assimilating organs are preserved, the physical and chemical character of the chyle are nearly identical, whatever may be the elementary substance from which it was elaborated, yet the vital constitution of the chyle and blood, and consequently of the solids, is greatly affected by the quality of the food. When chyle is taken from the living vessels, the vital constitution of that which is elaborated from flesh meat is capable of resisting the action of bacterial decomposition only a short time, and will begin to putrefy in three or four days at the longest; while the vital constitution of that which is elaborated from pure and proper vegetable elements, will resist this decomposing action for a much larger period, yet it will in the end putrefy with all the phenomena of that formed from flesh meat.”
The bearing of these facts on physical training, the health of the body, and the decomposition of the body after death, need only be pointed out.
It is really extraordinary how writers on dietetics, seem to take a delight, as a rule, in making as many mis-statements and misrepresentations as possible. Take, for example, the following passage in Dr C. S. Read’s Book, “Fads and Feeding”:—
“It is necessary, with the vegetable products, to take the nitrogenous product as Nature gives it to us, which is a drawback; and secondly, vegetable foods are relatively much poorer in this respect than animal foods.... A vegetable diet must needs be bulky, because of its wateriness, especially when cooked, and the large amount of indigestible matter it contains. This tends to abnormally distend the stomach and bowels. The capacity of the stomach becomes greater, more food can be taken, but the distention produces a feeling of satiety before sufficient nourishment has really been ingested. The dealing with such a bulk internally means the expenditure of much nervous energy which might have been better utilised. The wateriness of vegetable foods is extremely disadvantageous, since on absorption it tends to render all the tissues flabby. The individual who leads a sedentary life will feel the disadvantage of vegetarianism more than the active worker.”
Now, not a sentence in the above quotation is correct. If Dr Read had studied vegetarians at first hand, he would have found out his mistakes, and would not have written such rubbish. As a matter of fact, vegetable foods do not supply less nitrogen than meat, but on the contrary more; a vegetable diet need not be bulky, if properly selected—less of it need be eaten than of a mixed diet, because of its greater nutritive value; while the notion that the absorbtion of water from the foods make the tissues “flabby” is, of course, absurd. Altogether, this is almost the greatest string of inaccuracies regarding diet that I have ever come across.