What we Eat.

Cromwell Argus, Volume 2, Issue 84, 20 June 1871, Page 7

What we Eat.

[From the Chicago Post. ] When we pour milk into a cup of tea or coffee, the albumen which is in the milk and the tannin in the tea instantly unite and form leather, or minute flakes of the very same compound which is produced in the texture of the tanned hide, and which makes it leather, as distinguished from the original skin. In the course of a year, a tea-drfj*ker of average habit will have imbibed feather enough to make a pair of shoes, if it could be put into the proper shape for the purpose. A great many things go into the month. This is not an original remark. We have seen it somewhere. But it is an alarming fact. Wc drink, everyone of us, a pair of boots a year. We carry iron enough in our blood constantly to make a horse-shoe. We have clay enough in our frames to make, if properly separated and baked, a dozen good sized bricks. We eat at least a peck of dirt a month—no, that is too large an estimate. The man who carelessly tips a glass of lager into his stomach, little reflects that he has begun the manufacture of hats. Yet such is the case. The malt of the beer assimilates with the chyle and forms a sort of felt—the very same so often seen in the felt factories. But not being instantly utilized, it is lost. Still further ; it is estimated that the bones in every adult person require to be fed with lime enough to make a marble mantel every eight months. To sum up we have the following astounding aggregate of articles charged to account of physiology, to keep every poor human on his feet for threescore and ten years Men’s shoes, 70 years, at 1 pah a year 70 pairs Horse-shoes, 70 years, at one a month, as our arterial system renews its blood every new moon 840 shoes Bricks, at 12 per seven years ... 120 bricks Hats, not less than 14 a year ... 980 hats Mantels, at 1,1 a year 103 mantels Here we are surprised to observe that we eat as many shoes as we wear, and a sufficient number of hats to supply a large family of boys ; that we float in our bloodvessels horse-shoes enough to keep a span of greys shod all the while ; and we carry in our animated clay, bricks enough to build a modern fireplace; and in our bones, marble enough to supply our neighbors with mantels. We have not figured on the soil at the rate of a peck a month ; but it i) safe to say that the real estate that a hearty eater masticates and swallows in | the course of a long and eventful career j would amount to something worth having,' if sold like the corner lots on State-street,! at 2,000 dol. a front foot.