ABOUT MEAT FOODS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 53, 27 March 1909, Page 3

ABOUT MEAT FOODS.

(By Dr. Andrew Wilson.) Meat loods, by which we include such articles of diet as are represented bv llesh fooods and fowl, owe their chief value to the fact that they contain quantities of substances winch are valuable to us as body-building materials. Such KUbfctances as albumen, represented by white of egg, juice of meat, anil (the like;, casein, or tilt- curd of milk, are in tins respect foody-building foods, amongst others derived from meats. From vegetables we can also obtain body-building material*. Thus, gluten, which is found in Hour and many other vegetable products, and the legumen of !pea», beans, and lentils, have al«-o to be | ranked amongwt the body - building articles. It is true that from meat we also obtain other foods in addition to those which may Ik? considered as bodybuilders. T'lms meats contain more or j less fat, pork ranking highest in this respect. Whilst •white fish i* deficient in fat, eels, herring, and salmon contain a largp proportion of this singular food. Fat, it will be remembered, in a heat-producing fond, and also one which, through its consumption in the My. supplies Ur 1 with vnergy or the power of doing work.

THE VALUE OF .MEAT, i The value of meat foods, "which arc undoubtedly expensive items in our dietary, ir> that they are first of all easily digested. In their substance they resemble more or less closely the animal body itself, and, therefore, it requires relatively little digestive work to assimilate them and to convert them into a form in which they can be added to blood, and *o ntilisul for the nourishment of the frame. Although it is quite possible for man to live on vegetable foods alone, it is undeniable that these will require a larger amount of digestive power- than'meat foods, and, therefore, it falls to be considered that a larger proportion of digestive waste results from the digestion of vegetable matter than from that of animal matter. The typical dietary, indeed, U where we find a mixture of animal and vegetable foods combined, this- mixed diet naturally representing the mode of feeding represented in Britain. A* a matter of fact, we consume a far larger amount of vegetable matter daily in the shape of bread, rice, ta-pioea, potatoes, and the like than we do of any form of flesh food. The .stare-he* we obtain from vegetable matters form an extremely valuable food, because along with t'he sugar we consume, and also from the .sugarsinto whidi all starches are turned ■in'the body, we obtain heat, and also a I supply of" energy or working power ! chiefly represented in the action of our j muscles, MEAT ANALYSIS.

If meat is analysed it is found to consist. as we have *een. of certain nitrogenous or Uody-buihiing principles, a proportion or minerals, and a certain amount of water. Water, it may be mentioned, i.s a constituent of all foods, being chemically combined to form part of even the driest article we may consume. In addition, however, meat is found to contain certain principles called "extractives." There are really stimulating principles. They are not : foods in themselves, and they do not. .therefore, contribute to t'he nourish-j Iment of the body, but rather act very j much in the same way as tea. coflte, and alcohol may be said to act, namely, in stimulating the body to its work. To-day. more than ever, there i.s much that the public ishould be instructed in in the difference between true, meat foods and foods which are merely meat extracts. The former, as we have seen, are nourishing articles of food and bodybuilder*: the latter are mere stimulants. If meat extracts are used at all. the proper mode of using them is first, to make soup in the proper way. and then to add, if we choohe. meat extract to the soup by way of giving it stimulating properties. A caution I desire to impress upon my readers is under no circumstances to depend for nourishment upon meat extracts. At ithe present time a large variety of these substance* are i-rdd and consumed. \ am mhtv to say. nnd.'r idea that they represent nourishing foods.