BUTTER AND MEAT.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 576, 14 June 1913, Page 7

BUTTER AND MEAT.

A CHEMICAL MENACE. Vegetable "butter," made from cocoanut and other vegetable oils, has become an established factor in the competition with which our natural products have to contend, and it now aDpears that vegetable "meat" is entering the field against us. Full details of the products are contained in a recent number of La Revue, Paris, under the title of "The New Artificial Aliments." The new artificial milk, it appears, is made from the seed of the leguminou plant commonly known as the soya bean, or Chinese pea. The oil of the bean is said to be rich in nitrogen and in fatty matter. From its flour a bread is prepared for the use of diabetics. The process of making from it a liquid said to possess the qualities and nutritive value of natural milk has been introduced into France and Germany. The exact details are kept a 3ecret. We learn, however, that to the finely ground soya flour a definite proportion of water is added, the mixture is violently shaken, and finally treatment at high temperature removes the peculiar taste and odour of the bean, leaving only the flavour and colour of the milk. It is asserted that not only is a complete food, easily digested, and suitable for children, as well aB invalids, but cheese can be made from it. It is also claimed to possess special economic advantages. A cow demands fortv "ares" of pasture, besides a certain amount of fod der. She converts 58 per cent, of her food into effective nourishment, and 5 per cent, of it into milk. On the other hand it is alleged that the soya grown

on eight "ares"—rather less than 960 uquare yards—give 3 an equal amount of milk. The initial expense is less, and there is no loss to be feared like that from the illness or death of cattle. The labour involved in the manufacture of the soya milk is much less than that required in raising cattle, milking them, and caring for the milk and the meat. Obviously there is no meat obtained from the soya "cow," if we may so term it. The deficiency has been made up by a Belgian chemist, M. Effront, who proposes to utilise the refuse from breweries to make a palatable and nutritiops substitute for meat The brewers' "grains" which at present are given to cattle as food, are said to be particularly rich in the proteids from which meat derives its value as a source of energy for brain and muscle. The inventor, according to La Revue, firßt washes and then compresses the refuse malt. It is next placed in a bath of sulphuric acid, to which a prescribed quantity of chalk has been added. The subsequent processes are kept secret, but the final result is said to be a subtance which is said to resemble butcher's meat in taste and to be much cheaper. As to its food value, it is stated that a workman, usually illfed, who found 200 grams of butcher's meat daily an insufficient ration, put on weight, with more appetite and better health on the same amount of "viandine," as the new produce is termed. It has aIBO been tried, if not on "the dog," yet on rats with equal convincing results. Six rats fed on ten grains of meat, and a small handful of grain Jaily, died of starvation at the end of a week. Six others which received five grams of vindine daily, remained lively and active, with no Bign of illness. Doubtless if all these statements prove to be true, the new "milk" and "meat" will achieve a certain amount of popularity among vegetarians. We fancy, however, that the great bulk of the population will prefer to continue drawing its supplies of meat and milk direct from the laboratories of Nature instead of from the manufactories of the chemist.