A handbook of invalid cooking

by Mary A. Boland

The Extractives, usually classed with the protein compounds, such as meat extract, beef tea, etc., are not generally regarded as direct nutrients, but, like tea and coffee, are valuable as accessory foods, lending savor to other foods and aiding their digestion by pleasantly exciting the flow of the digestive fluids. They also act as brain and nerve stimulants, and perhaps also in some slight degree as nutrients.

The principal proteins or nitrogenous substances are albumen in various forms, casein both animal and vegetable, blood fibrin, muscle fibrin, and gelatin. All except the last are very much alike, and probably can replace one another in nutrition.

Modern chemists agree that nitrogen is a necessary element in the various chemical and physiological actions which take place in the body to produce heat, muscular energy, and the other powers. Every structure in the body in which any form of energy is manifested is nitrogenous. The nerves, muscles, glands, and the floating cells[24] in the various liquids are nitrogenous. That nitrogen is necessary to the different processes of the system, is shown by the fact that if it be cut off, these processes languish. This may not occur immediately, for the body always has a store of nitrogen laid by for emergencies which will be consumed first, but it will occur as soon as these have been consumed. The energy of the body is measured by its consumption of oxygen. Motion and heat may be owing to the oxidation of fat, or of starch, or of nitrogenous substances; but whatever the source, the direction is given by the nitrogenous structure—in other words, nitrogen is necessary to all energy generated in the body.

Protein matter nourishes the organic framework, takes part in the generation of energy, and may be converted into non-nitrogenous substances.[25] The necessity of the protein compounds is emphasized when we realize that about one half of the body is composed of muscle, one fifth of which is protein, and the nitrogen in this protein can be furnished only by protein, since neither fats nor carbohydrates contain it. It is therefore evident that the protein-containing foods, such as beef, mutton, fish, eggs, milk, and others, are our most valued nutrients. Our daily diet must contain a due proportion.

The proteins are all complex chemical compounds, which in nutrition become reduced to simple forms, and are then built up again into flesh. The animal foods are in the main the best of the protein compounds, for they are rich in nitrogenous matter, are easily digested, and from their composition and adaptability are most valuable in maintaining the life of the body.

A diet of lean meat alone serves to build up tissue. If nothing else be taken, the stored-up fat of the body will be consumed, and the person will become thin.[26] Athletes while in training take advantage of this fact, and are allowed to eat only such food as shall furnish the greatest amount of strength and muscular energy with a minimum of fat. The lean of beef and mutton, with a certain amount of bread, constitute the foundation of the diet.

Fats. Most of the fatty substances of food are liquefied at the temperature of the body. When eaten in the form of adipose tissue, as the fat of beef and mutton, the vesicles or cells in which the fat is held are dissociated or dissolved, the fat is set free, and mingles with the digesting mass. This is done in the stomach, and is a preparation for its further change in the intestines.

Fats are not dissolved—that is, in the sense in which meats and other foods are dissolved—in the process of digestion; the only change which they undergo is a minute subdivision caused principally by the action of the pancreatic juice. In this condition of fine emulsion they are taken up by the lacteals; they may also be absorbed by the blood-vessels.

It has been found that fat emulsions pass more easily through membranes which have been moistened with bile, and it is probable that the function of bile is partly to facilitate the absorption of fat. That the pancreatic juice is the chief agent in forming fats into emulsion was discovered in 1848. Bile is, however, essential to their perfect digestion, and we may therefore say that they are digested by the united action of the pancreatic juice and the bile.[27]

Fat forms in the body fatty tissues, and serves for muscular force and heat; it is also necessary to nourish nerves and other tissues,—in fact, without it healthy tissues cannot be formed. A proper amount of fat is also a sort of albumen sparer.