(2) It is acid-forming to a high degree.
(3) “Meat proteins are much more susceptible to putrefaction in the intestine, giving rise to absorption of putrefactive products which are more or less injurious (producing ‘auto-intoxication’) than are the proteins of most other foods.”[21]
(4) It is stimulating to the flow of gastric juice, especially the extractives, which are found particularly in meat juices, meat broths, beef tea. As an acid-forming food it is stimulating, and easily irritating, to the nerves, and therefore is disadvantageous with nervous children, or when the nervous system is yet highly sensitive, as it is in early childhood.
(5) Carnivorous animals, such as the cat and the dog, do not permit their young to have meat until the teeth are developed. Meat given experimentally to young kittens produced convulsions.
(6) It is an expensive form of protein. Beef juice contains chiefly the stimulating extractives, and a slight quantity of iron.
(7) Protein in milk, selected vegetables, and (usually) eggs, is more easily digested; and iron can be supplied by selected vegetables and fruits.
The following table gives approximately the comparative value of a 100-calorie portion of beef juice (requiring 3½ pounds of lean beef) and an equal bulk of milk.
| Quantity | Calories | Protein[22] | Fat[22] | Carbohydrates[22] | Lime[22] | Phosphorus[22] | Iron[22] | |
| Beef juice | 14.1 oz. | 100 | 19.6 | 2.4 | .015 | .46 | .003 | |
| Milk | 14.1 oz. | 276 | 13.1 | 15.9 | 20 | .649 | .832 | .0009 |
The meat at twenty-two cents a pound costs seventy-seven cents; the milk at ten cents a quart costs five cents. One pound of meat will give little more than one fourth of this food value; one ordinary serving (2 ounces) only 3 per cent. of the above values.
Physicians, on the other hand, more often advise meat, especially for the iron and the stimulation to digestion.