Eating Scientifically Considered.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 182, 11 December 1886, Page 8

Eating Scientifically Considered.

A temperature above that of the body retards digestion. Meat, which ia digested by the gastric juice ot the stomach, has time to cool before it get 3 there ; but farinaceous food, which depends upon its conversion into chyme on the salivary glands, suffers a serious loss if, by reason of being too hot, it cannot avail itself of the saliva supplied by the mouth. It should alao be borne in mind that a temperature much above that of the body cracks the enamel of the teeth Ex ceaaive concentration impairs digestibility. The removal of water is an injury to viands, and drying, salting, overfrying, overroasting, and even overboiling, renders them lesp soluble in the digestive juices, and so less nutr itious. The attainment of nutritiousnesd by concentration is of considerable importance to travellers and in military medicine. There are not a few strategists who attribute the success of the Germans in the War of IS7O to the easily carried and easily prepared food supplied to them by the saufeagt-makers of Berlin, The sausage thus supplied by the sauaage-makeTS o£ Berlin was invented in Prussia in the year IS7O, during the war with Franco, and for which the Prussian Government paid the inventor tho sum of 637,000. It was at first manufactured exclusively for the army, but it i^ not unlikely that it may become in common u^e and enter into general commerce. This dish is not &o much a sausage as a complete meal prepared fiom peas filled into a bladder and dried and made to keep. The secret consisted in the addition of salts which prevented the sausage from turning sour. The advantage accruing from such prepared meat for the maintenance of the soldiers in camp and during war is apparent. The large herds of animals need not be driven with the advancing army, and are not exposed to malarial diseases; and the many thousands of tons of bones and hides remain at home and in the neighbourhoods of markets. The sausage factory in Berlin during the war employed no less than 1,200 persons, of whom twenty cooks, on forty boilera, prepared the meat, which waa filled by 150 men into bladders, with the aid of a so-called sausage syringe. Every day were required 22,500 pounds of bacon, 45,000 pounds of peameal, 28 bushels of onions, 4,000 pounds of salt ; 75,000 sausages were daily packed in 600 boxes, each box holding 100 to 150 sausages. The soldier had only to put into boiling water and his meal was ready. j