FADS AND MISTAKEN NOTIONS ABOUT FOODS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 492, 17 August 1912, Page 7

FADS AND MISTAKEN NOTIONS ABOUT FOODS.

—4 Dr. A. L. Benedict has made it his special business to formulate some of the so-called fads and notions about food which, according to his judgment, are quite as false as they are popular. Some of the most interesting of these and the doctor's criticisms are as follows : I.—That the average person eats too much Many do, but the others, leading solitary and monotonous lives, and thus lacking the stimulus of appetite, as well as others on account of false ideas of economy or of the. benefit of abstemiousness, cat too little. 2. —That a raw egg is more nourishing than a cooked egg. Cn the contrary, adventitious albuminuria is to be expected if five or sis egg whites are given. sweets or sugar is essentially injurious or even lacking in food value. Used in moderation, say 3 to 4J ounces a day, sugar is one of the cheapest and best forms of nourishment for the production of energy. Even when not digested the products of decomposition in the alimentary canal, like those of catabolism, are less injurious than those derived from fats and proteids. 4.—That human saliva is of great value in digestion. Starch digestion never advances far in a stomach of normal acidity, and the pancreas is abundantly able to take care of all the starch. s.—That fruits, nuts, desserts, etc.,, are .unimportant ingredients of the diet. One-fifth to one-half of the ordinary civilised diet consists of good things. A. large piece of pie, serving of ice ircam, nuts,, etc., often yield 400 calories, about one-ninth of the heat Di- work product of the day's ration. S. —That ordinary vegetable foods certain appreciable quantities of fat. Excepting olives, almost the only vegetable foods rich in fats are nuts though not necessarily so-called, as the -cocoa bean, a dense seed coat jeing necessary to the retention of :at. T. —That fish contains an excess of phosphorus or "brain food." The phosphorescence of fish is due to beginning putrefaction, and has little to do with phosphorus. Meat and various vegetable foodstuffs contain as much as or more phosphorus than fish. 3. —That when a man has eaten a fourth meal at midnight, with coffee or alcoholic beverages, it is fair to ascribe the logical disturbances of digestion to a Welsh rabbit or any atner single article. A Welsh rabbit is sterile, highly nutritious, and no harder to digest than a milk curd. Similarly, mince pie and various other, articles against which there is a strong prejudice are not necessarily difficult of digestion nor objectionable as articles of diet, although they may not be adapted to the nourishment of persons with grave 'digestive disorders. ). That bouillon or any clear soups or solution of meat extract can contain enough nourishment to sustain life. - " The best of those tested contained about six per cent, of proteid. Beef tea is about equivalent to egg tea — that is, to water in which an egg has been poached. L 0 eggs, milk, oysters, etc., have any greater. nutritive value than corresponds to their weights and composition. The day's ration in calories corresponds to about twenty-five eggs or three quarts of milk. A kilogram of raw oysters (2.2 pounds) contains 50 grams of proteid, the minimum proteid ration corresponding to about one-twelfth of the total day's ration in calories. 11- —That after a meal a healthy person is in a state of semi-invalidism, so. that he requires a nap or cannot tvork. Dawdling over meals is nearly as bad as bolting the food.