PLAIN LIVING IN WAR TIME

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2540, 14 August 1915, Page 6

PLAIN LIVING IN WAR TIME

"The 'Eat Less Meat' campaign, to which the Board of Trad© gave a sendoff some weeks ago, is well worth thinking about, both in itself and as part of a wider effort to economise in things which can be done without," says tho "Chronicle." : "On the diet question most experienced vegetarians will agree regarding certain rules for the novice. li'irst, if you do without moat, you must eat substitutes. Mero abstinence cannot long avail; it will reduce efficiency. Secondly, all practical meat substitutes fall into four classes. These are:—(l) the pulses (peas, beans, and lentils); (2) eggs and egg-products (omelettes, custairds, and the like); (3) milk and milk-products —cheese (most digestible when cooked with liquid), dried'millc, and many dishes compounded of these; (4) nuts and nut-products—also to bo wrought into numberless dishes.' Class (4) is only much used by very strict vegetarians ; a nut diet is very hard for beginners to digest. "Beginners -will find salvation easiest with classes (1) and (2); though many experienced vegetarians use them little, because they resemble meat so closely as to share with it certain undesirable features which' people who have abandoned meat altogether often desire to avoid. The novice often fears that in any case very elaborate cooking can alone see him through the experiment. This is quite an illusion; the longer vegetarianism is practised, the simpler as a rule become the demands of the palate, which tends to be blunted by the strong flavours of a meat dietary, and when freed from them appreciates much more adequately the flavour of simple things."