The Food we Consume.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 327, 22 December 1888, Page 3

The Food we Consume.

One of the instances that have come undei my observation was that of a well to do professional man's family. None of the members except the servants were engaged in at all active muscular work. Theestimatea were of food actually consumed, due allowance being made for waste, which, under a , careful mistress, was unusually little, 'the protein exee'eded that of either Voit's standard or the writer's for a labouring man at moderately hard muscular work. The energy, the amount of which was made very large by the fat of meat and butter and the sugar consumed, exceeded the amount called for, either by Playfair for a ' hard worked labourer,' or by Voit or the writer for a ' man ab hard .work,.' and was over 50 per cent, larger than that of any of the few European dietaries of people of similar occupation which T have found reported. Yet this ' family regarded themselves as rather smalL'eaters, and would really be so if the other dietaries were to bo taken for the standard. I surmise that many a family would, ii they were bo compare their daily food consumption with the figures given, find similar excess of food and of nutritive substance. I£n a large number of dietaries thdt hay« come under my observation there has been, in nearly every' case, an excessive quantity of fat, and in several, if half of the meat? and sugar had been left out, there would have remained considerably more of both nutrients and energy than either, the standards above mentioned calls' for!' ' This all means great was,te of linoiiey, and, "as the hygienists tell us; still 'greater, injury to Health. t r " r ,''/'" It is often urged that appetite .is th 4 oroper measure of one's ,wants'.' As regards ohe kinds'offood b'efet for edch of us, doubtess rational experience gives thenaosb f ret "iable information. "'A; man ought "to eat chat which, in the long 1 run, agrees with lilm. But] either* 'the concurrent testimony of an immehse'a'rriount of %he r mosb'a'courate experimenting an'd' dbservirtiori*is' radically wrong," or i al'a 1 ' great *Warfy! 9 fr °s * ©*£ ' "? ar j fco ° muqh. b/ela better guide 'if it wer6;noi;4br We"demanblB,of the palate;

, Railway receipts* f or "tKe^presenfc^y r eai\up