The Stock-Feeder's Manual / the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and feeding of live stock

by Sir Charles Alexander Cameron

I have examined for Dr. Morgan several specimens of the corned beef recently prepared in South America, by "Morgan's process." The following were the average results of three analyses:—

	Per cent.
Water	40
Fatty matters	21
Lean, or muscular flesh	27
Mineral matters (chiefly common salt)	12
	————
Total	100

It may not here be out of place to direct attention to the composition of a kind of animal food extensively purchased by the poorer classes, and known under the term of slink veal. It is the flesh of calves that are killed on the first day of their existence, and also, I have reason to believe, that of very immature animals—of calves that have never breathed. The flesh is of a very loose texture naturally, and is still further puffed out by air, which is usually supplied from the lungs of the operator. This kind of meat, though regarded as a delicacy by some people, is not held in much estimation, otherwise its price would be higher than it is. It is at present sold at about 4d. or 5d. per pound, sometimes even at a lower rate. Apart from the disgusting process of "blowing" veal, so generally adopted, the use of this food is extremely objectionable, owing to its great tendency to produce diarrhœa. To the truth of this assertion every physician who has studied the subject of dietetics can testify. I have analysed a specimen of it (purchased from a person who admitted that it was part of a calf a day old), and obtained the following results:—

100 parts contain—

	Per cent.
Water	72·25
Fat	6·17
Lean flesh	18·46
Mineral matter	3·12
	————
Total	100·00

I believe that a large portion of the lean flesh is indigestible; and altogether I may safely say of this kind of meat that it is, especially during the prevalence of cholera, an unsafe article of diet. Of course these observations do not apply to fed veal, the only kind which respectable butchers, as a rule, offer for sale.

Young meat is richer in soluble albumen and poorer in fibrine and fat than the matured flesh of the same animal. The flesh of the goat contains hircic acid, which renders it almost uneatable, but this substance is either altogether absent from, or present but in minute proportion in, the well-flavored meat of the kid. The flesh of game contains abundance of osmazome, a substance which is somewhat deficient in that of the domestic fowl.

Owing to the marked individuality which man exhibits in the selection of his food, and to the intimate relationship subsisting between food and the organism it nourishes, it is impossible to arrange the alimental substances in the strict order of their nutritive values. You can bring a horse to the water, but you cannot compel him to drink it; you can swallow any kind of food you please, but you cannot force your stomach to digest it. It is, therefore, vain to tell a man that a certain kind of food is shown by chemical analysis to be nutritious, when his stomach tells him unmistakeably that it is poisonous, and refuses to digest it. In the matter of dietetics Nature is a safer guide than the chemist. Many substances, when viewed only in the light shed upon them by chemical analysis, appear to be rich in the elements of nutrition, yet when they are introduced into the stomachs of certain individuals, they disarrange the digestive organs, and sometimes cause the whole system to go out of order. Every day we see exemplified the truth of the proverb, that "one man's meat is another man's poison." There are persons who relish and readily digest fat pork, and yet they cannot eat a single egg with impunity; others enjoy and easily assimilate eggs, but their stomachs cannot tolerate a particle of fat bacon.

It is not merely the composition of an aliment and its adaptability to the organism which determine its nutritive value—its digestibility and flavor are points which affect it. There are few people in these countries who are disposed to quarrel with beef; but no one would prefer the leg of an elderly milch cow to the sirloin of a well-fed three-year-old bullock: yet if our selection were to be determined by the analysis of the two kinds of beef, we would be just as likely to prefer the one as the other. No doubt the relative tenderness of meats may be ascertained by experiments conducted outside the body; but tenderness is not in every case synonymous with easy digestibility. Veal contains more soluble albumen, and is, consequently, far more tender than beef; yet, as every one knows, it is less digestible. It is curious that maturity renders the flesh of some animals more digestible, and that of others less digestible. Flavor has something to do with these differences. Beef is richer than veal in the agreeably flavorous osmazome, and the flesh of the kid is destitute of the disagreeable odour of the fully-developed goat. The superiority of wild-fowl over the domesticated birds is solely owing to the finer flavor of their flesh.

The habits of animals, and the nature of their food, affect the quality of their flesh. Exercise increases the amount of osmazome, and consequently renders the meat more savory. The mutton of Wicklow, Wales, and other mountainous regions is remarkably sweet, because the animals that furnish it are almost as nimble as goats, and skip from crag to crag in quest of their food. The fatty mutton, with pale muscle, which is so abundant in our markets, is furnished by very young animals forced prematurely into full development. Those animals have abundance of food placed within easy reach; their muscular activity is next to nil, and the result is, that their flesh contains less than its natural proportion of savory ingredients. It is the same with all other animals. The flesh of the tame rabbit is very insipid, whilst that of the wild variety is well flavored. Wild fowls cooped up, and rapidly fattened, lose their characteristic flavor; and when the domesticated birds become wild their flesh becomes less fatty, and acquires all the peculiarities of game. Ducks, whether wild or tame, ordinarily yield goodly meat; but the flesh of some of those that feed on fish smacks strongly of cod-liver oil. Birds which subsist partly on aromatic berries assimilate the odour as well as the nutriment of their food. The flesh of grouse has very commonly a slight flavor of heather. Foster states that in Tahiti pigs are fed upon fruit, which renders their fat very bland and their flesh like veal. Animals subjected to certain kinds of mutilation fatten more rapidly than they do in their natural state. Capons increase in weight more rapidly than cocks, poulards than hens, bullocks than bulls, and cows deprived of their ovaries than perfect cows. Why it is that the flesh of mutilated animals should be fatter and more tender than that of whole animals, we know not; we only know that such is the fact. The hunting of animals renders their flesh more tender; the cause assigned is, that the great exertion of the muscles liquefies their fibrine, which is the toughest of their constituents. The meat of animals brought very early to maturity is seldom so valuable as the naturally developed article. Lawes and Gilbert state that portions of a sheep that had been fattened upon steeped barley and mangels, and which gave a very rapid increase, yielded several per cent. less of cooked meat, and lost more, both in dripping and by the evaporation of water, than the corresponding portions of a sheep which had been fed upon dry barley and mangels, and which gave only about half the amount of gross increase within the same period of time.