Almonds were next used, and were found to make a delicious nut paste, or butter, which by the addition of water and a little salt, became a most delicious cream. In the form of almond cream or milk nothing could be conceived in the way of nourishment which the body can more easily appropriate and more fully utilize.
As regards the necessity for eating meat, this question was definitely settled by the Inter-allied Scientific Food Commission which met during the war, without doubt the most authoritative body on the subject of food and nutrition that was ever brought together.
The question of a minimum meat ration was discussed by the Commission, and it was decided to be unnecessary to fix a minimum meat ration, since, in the words of the commissioners in their report, "no absolute physiological need exists for meat, since the proteins of meat can be replaced by other proteins, such as those contained in milk, cheese and eggs, as well as those of vegetable origin."
Quite in line with this official action was an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which states that "man's health and strength are not dependent on the assumed superior virtues of animal flesh as a dietary constituent."
A supreme advantage of nuts over meats is that they are absolutely free from any possible taint of disease. Those delectable foods, the walnut, the pecan, the hickory nut and the almond, are never the vehicle for parasites or other infections. Nuts are not subject to tuberculosis or any other disease which may be communicated to human beings.
Speaking of his childhood diet, Professor Stephen Mizwa says: "We had chicken, too, but I rarely tasted one unless I was sick and the chicken was sick." The voluntary eating of sick animals may be less common in this country than in Poland, but the eating of the flesh of diseased animals may nevertheless be much more extensive.
Within the year 1918 there were slaughtered in the United States a hundred million beeves, sheep, pigs and goats, one whole beast for every man, woman and child in the United States. Of this vast multitude of animals the Federal inspectors examined nearly two-thirds (60,000,000) and found one and a half per cent so badly diseased that the whole or part of the carcass was condemned. In other words, nearly a million (900,000) carcasses were found seriously diseased. But there were 40,000,000 other beasts killed and eaten which were not inspected; and they were without doubt much more badly diseased, a fact which was in many cases, most likely, the reason why no inspection was made. Allowing that three per cent of these were diseased, which is a low estimate, the total number of diseased animals found in the 100,000,000 slaughtered was not less than 2,000,000, or one in fifty of the total number. And most of these were eaten by human beings either wholly or in part.
If we should abandon meat eating in favor of nuts we would not have to worry about what our victuals died of.
By the substitution of nuts for meats all dangers associated with flesh eating may be avoided; hence their use should be encouraged in every practical way. National and state legislators should make liberal appropriations for the study of the soil and climatic conditions best suited to nut culture, and otherwise encourage this infant but most important industry.