Eating for strength

Front matter

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Preface

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In no period of the world's history has there ever been so deep an interest in the subject of foods as at the present. At no time since Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden has agriculture and horticulture been so perfect, and the human race supplied with so many choice and nourishing articles of diet. And, also, at no time have so many been engaged in laborious researches on the nature of that which we eat and its relations to health and work. It would almost seem as if the time had nearly arrived when mankind would eat to live, would feed themselves so as to nourish their bodies most perfectly and render themselves capable of the most labor, and least liable to disease.

The object of this volume is to present the most recent facts of science in a way to make them valuable for actual use in daily life. There is no doubt but man may double his capacity for work and for enjoyment by improving his dietetic habits. Many have already done this, and multitudes more are only waiting for the knowledge which will help them to doit. A thorough understanding of the different divisions of food and their right relation to the needs of the body is necessary, and this has been fully stated. Several new features have been introduced. To meet the require ments of that constantly increasing class who have more and more desire to draw their nourishment from the vegetable kingdom, carefully prepared and elaborate tables have been arranged showing just how much of each particular food one needs to consume in order to provide the body with the required amount of proteids, carbo-hydrates and fats.

PBEFACE.

These tables have been especially prepared for this work and are full of interest as well as being of practical value. Another interesting feature of the work relates to the cost of the different articles usually consumed, as for instance the cost of proteids, fats and carbo-hydrates in oatmeal, beef, mutton, corn, eggs, butter, cheese, beer, etc., etc. These tables are so arranged as to show at once which are the most economical articles for the table and which the most expensive, and will be of great value to all who would choose their food wisely, and also for those who desire to reduce the cost of living to a minimum and yet nourish themselves perfectly.

The chapter on the use of the apple as a means of preserv* ing health and the one on the grape cure will, the author believes, meet a need long felt, as will also what has been said concerning the importance of the thorough mastication of our food.

The subject of drinks has also been treafed fully, and a very large number of recipes for wholesome ones given. What has been said on this subject cannot fail to prove helpful to those who are in doubt on many points.

The directions for feeding young and delicate children have in practice proved most satisfactory.

The time is near when a knowledge of the principles of diet

will be considered as important a part of our education as

a knowledge of the multiplication table. That this little

work may help to hasten this time is the sincere desire of the

author.

Contents

CHAPTER L

The Uses of Food : 9

A Happy Illustration 11

CHAPTER II. TheProteids 13

Fats 14

The Amyloids, or Carbo-Hydrates 20

Amount of Water Required for Men and Women 34

Amount of Water Required for Animals 35

Amount Required for the Sick 35

Purity of Water £6

Distilled Water 33

Gaseous Food— The Atmosphere ST

Accessory Foods 09

CHAPTER III What is a Day's Work 43

How much the Heart does 44

Constituents of a Sufficient Diet 45

Average Diet of Farm Laborers 43

Diet According to Work done 43

Composition of the Body 51

VI CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IV. Mouth Digestion— Mastication 65

Stomach Digestion 53

Conditions of Perfect Digestion .- 57

Chewing Food Thoroughly 53

The Eat Your Food Slow Society 58

Conditions that Favor Digestion 59

CHAPTER V. A Practical Chapter from a Chemical Standpoint 66

Diet for Hard Work . .. 67

" " Light Work 67

Normal Weight in Proportion to Height— a Table 68

Table of Principal Foods showing quantities required of each to furnish an ounce of Proteids 69

Table of Principal Foods showing quantities required of each to furnish an ounce of Carbohydrates = 70

Table of Principal Foods showing quantities required of each to furnish an ounce of Fat , 71

CHAPTER IX. Alimentary Products of the Vegetable Kingdom 102

Wheat : 102

A Beautiful Microscopic Object It4

CONTENTS.

VI 1

Oats 105

The Most Strengthening Fool 10)

The Cooking" of Oatmeal ... 109

Oatmeal Gruel and Milk Ill

Barley 112

Eye H2

Indian Corn 113

Rice 115

Best Method of Preparing* Rice 113

Peas, Beans and Lentils 117

Composition of Peas, Beans and Lsntils a Table 119

The Potato 120

The Sweet Potato 121

The Onion 122

Other Roots 122

The Cabbage 122

Spinach 123

Rhubarb 123

Celery.. 123

Asparagus. 123

Lettuce 124

Cress 124

CHAPTER X. The Apple, its Use and Healthf ulness 127

The Nutritive Value of Grapes 133

Their Physiological Effects 134

The Grape Cure - - - 1C5

Methods of the Grape Cure 133

Choice of Grapes for the Grape Cure 142

Other Fruits 143

Nuts 144

CHAPTER XL

Food for Different Ages, Conditions and Seasons— Diet in Infancy 145

Diet in Childhood and Youth 146

Diet for Working- Men— For the Brain-Worker 147

Diet in Old Ag*e 148

Diet in Training 149

Vlll CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XII Food in Various Diseases— In Dyspepsia 155

In Fevers 157

In Constipation 7 153

In Bright's Disease— Chronic Rheumatism 159

In Gout— Diabetes 161

In Diarrhea and Summer Complaints— Consumption 162

In Nervous Diseases 163

Diet in Cancer— Ulceration of the Stomach 164

For the Thin— Marasmus 165

For Inebriates 166

For Orphan Asylums, Prisons, etc 167

Pure Food 168

Climate and Seasons— Cookery 169

RECIPES.

Soups 171

Porridges including Mushes : 174.

Remarks, Rules and Recipes for Making Good Bread 175

To Cook Eggs • 187

Preparations of Cheese 189

Sandwiches 189

Cooking Vegetables 190

Pies and Pie Pastry 196

Custards • • 201

Puddings • 203

Cakes • 206

Molded Farinacea 208

Miscellaneous Dishes 239

Simple Beverages from Fruits . . . . \ 220

Drinks from Various Substances. 333

Cocoa 235

Chocolate 235

Methods of Preparing Tea, Coffee, Cocoa, etc. 236

Chapter I. The Uses Of Food

Why do human beings eat ? Why do all animals, from the simplest worm to the most civilized man, depend for life on food and drink ? Why does a child become hungry, and if deprived of food beyond a certain time, become ravenous ? Why does a hard-working man enjoy his food so well, and demand so much of it ? Why do great men and powerful thinkers eat so abundantly ? Why so many millions of acres of land devoted to agriculture and horticulture ? Why so many more farmers producing food than people of any other occupation ? It is because food is so necessary to life and health. What, then, are the uses which it performs ?

1. It furnishes material from which to construct the body. The child receives milk from its mother's breast, which increases its size, and a large body is the result. Farmers increase or diminish the weight of domestic animals, within a certain limit, by increasing or diminishing the food supplied to them. The development, within constitutional limits, to which a child may attain is, to some extent, dependent on the supply of food it receives and digests. Abundance of food, with plenty of air, exercise and sleep, insures a healthier growth than a scanty diet.

1* (9)

10 USES OF FOOD.

2. Another use of food is to replenish the loss that goes on in the body from its daily wear and tear. This waste varies with different persons, and with the amount of work done. Great workers wear out, use up daily several pounds of blood. New food is demanded to make good this loss. A month of sickness sometimes wastes away a third of the weight of the body ; but a hearty appetite and food restore it to its full size. There are men of powerful frames who, if they do hard work, rapidly lose many pounds of their bodily weight, and require much food to replace it. Small workers and lazy, idle people eat less ; and there are many corseted and inactive young women, and idle young men, who waste little of the tissue of the body,, and who eat little. It is not a bad sign to see healthy people eat heartily ; they must do it to work and live.

3. Another use of food is to maintain the heat of the body. So important is this, that it has been computed that four-fifths of our nutriment is used to maintain a bodily temperature of 98i degrees. In order to understand the heat-producing power of food, let any one go in cold weather without eating for a day and still continue exposing himself to the cold, and he will learn that food will warm his body more effectually than clothing or fire.

4. Still another very important use of food is to furnish force. This comes in no other way. When plants grow they store up the energy of the sunshine, and. when we consume these plants this energy is transferred to our bodies. It is manifested in many ways. First, in the form of motion ; then in the form of sensation : feeling, seeing, hearing and thinking. Our ability to do any of these things

A HAPPY ILLUSTRATION. 11

is conferred by food. The body has the peculiar power of abstracting its force from what we eat. Go without food, and all these functions of thebody gradually die away, and life becomes extinct. To illustrate. Give a child a hickory bow and arrow. He bends the bow on its string, adjusts the arrow and pulls the string back a few inches. Now what has he done ? He has stored up in the bow a part of the strength of his arm. But how did he get that strength ? The sunshine of last summer stored it up in the bread and potatoes he has eaten. His body has the power to unfasten this force and apply it to bending the bow. When he lets go of the string the arrow flies away, and that force is, so far as he is concerned, spent. The food we eat does for us what the coal does for the engine on the railroad track, it furnishes the motive power; only the body is a complicated living machine and can think and feel, which the engine cannot do.

To recapitulate : we eat, then, to increase the size of the body; to supply the waste or loss by its daily wear and tear ; to maintain a proper degree of warmth and to supply the energy by which to do work.

Chapter II. Classification Of Foods

The classification of foods is quite simple. All the substances used come under one of the following divisions :

1/ Proteids, or albuminous foods.

2. Fats, sometimes called hydro-carbons.

3. Amyloids, or carbo-hydrates.

6. Gaseous food, or air.

7. Accessory foods, or condiments.

THE PROTEIDS.

The proteids are also known as albuminoids and nitrogenous substances. Their principle use is to construct and repair the active tissues of the body and to furnish material out of which to form the various digestive fluids, as the saliva of the mouth, the gastric juice of the stomach, the bile of the liver, and juices of the pancreas. The nerves, the muscles and the glands are composed of living matter, of protoplasm, and cannot be built up, or the glands furnish their secretions without albuminous matter. Every structure in the body in which any form of force is manifested is mainly built up of these proteids. Muscular tissue is a good example; the brain cells are also examples.

The proteids are complex ^bodies and contain carbon, 53 parts; oxygen, 21; hydrogen, 7; nitrogen, 15, and sulphur 1. The proteids of the body have only a slight affinity for oxygen, and, consequently, are not readily consumed. They grow old in time and decay, but do not burn up. What is known as the protoplasm, or living matter of our bodies, is composed of proteids, and we all know how living matter resists decay and change.

The principal sources of proteids are the muscular parts of animals, eggs of which the white or albumen is almost a pure proteid, the gluten of grains, the casein or curd of .milk and the vegetable casein of peas, beans and cereals.

The proteids are digested in the stomach, this organ not digesting either starches or fats. Digestion makes them very soluble, and they are easily taken up through the walls of the digestive organs. In their soluble condition they are called peptones instead of proteids. If they were to remain soluble while in the blood there would be danger of their passing out through the kidneys, and so they are changed again to proteids in the blood.

THE FATS.

The fats are also called hydro-carbons. They con- [ tain some oxygen, but never enough to satisfy the affinities of the carbon and hydrogen. They are powerful generators of heat. An ounce of fat when burned produces about two and half times as much heat as dry starch or sugar. Some idea of its heating properties may be gained by the fact that ten

FAT AND ANIMAL HEAT. 15

grains of fat burned will raise the temperature of twenty-three pounds of water one degree. This would give sufficient force to raise 18.000 pounds one foot high. Their uses are to maintain animal heat and to liberate force. The man who does a hard day's work, does so by virtue of the fact that he is, so far as his labor is concerned, a living engine. The muscles do not furnish the strength, they only transmit it. The engine does not furnish the power; that comes from the steam so highly charged with heat from the burning fuel.

Qu e of its uses is to prevent the loss of animal heat. \A thick layer of fat is very useful in diminishing the chances of catching cold on exposure to drafts ; and where the coating of fat under the skin is deficient or absent we must use an additional quantity of warmer clothing. A fat person suffers less from the cold, other things being equal, than a lean one, and does not require so much flannel to keep him warm. In very cold latitudes a layer of fat under the skin is a useful protection ; but in hot climates it becomes oppressive, as we may see by observing corpulent persons or fat animals during the high heat of summer. In many animals, especially those of tropical climates where the summer heat is great, although the cold of winter may also be considerable, we find that fat, instead of being uniformly distributed over the body, is collected in masses in certain parts, as in the Brahmin bull of India, in the yak of Tartary, in the American buffalo, as well as in the camel of Africa, on whose back a huge lump of fat is found. On a careful examination of these lumps of fat, especially in a well fed camel, we find them firm and solid, projecting upwards ; but at times it appears that they lose this firm solidity and: become limp, swinging from side to side and doubling up like a half empty bag. The cause of this is, we are told, that when ! their food is insufficient the hump becomes loose and flabby, a large proportion of fat having been ab sorbed. If the animal be kept without food for several days this protuberance almost entirely disappears. If the animal is well fed again the hump regains its former size. What has become of this fat? Some has undergone combustion to keep up heat, while the remainder may have been used to supply the waste of some organ of the body. The blood contains about one half of one per cent, of fat ; the muscles from three to four per cent., and the brain eight or nine per cent. The nerves contain much more, sometimes as high as 22 per cent. Its use is to form a layer around the conducting part to isolate it. Fat may be supplied to the body in many ways, especially by fatty foods, starch and sugar. The two last are converted into fat within' the body. The fatty parts of the body are not always of the same quality. Those accustomed to the fattening of animals know that sometimes the fat on them is soft and poor, and at others pure and hard, depending mainly upon the kind of food they have eaten Nurses understand that some foods stick fast, while others are fickle and easily squandered. It seems that fats laid on rapidly are not so permanent as those more slowly acquired. One of the causes of consumption is the insufficiency of fat in the body. Either the stomach does not digest enough, or the food may be deficient in it. fj)i\ Hughes Bennett

DISLIKE FOR FATTY FOOD. 17

used to tell his students that a frequent cause of consumption was the high price of butter and the great abundance of pastry cooks. v The latter Dr. Bennett accused of causing consumption among the upper classes by disordering the digestion of younggirls with pies, pastry and other things that spoil their appetites for the more substantial articles of food. Many people have a strong dislike to fatty foods, and even some physicians have advocated that this was a natural instinct ; but the fact that there is in the body an arrangement for the digestion of fatty matter is a strong argument in favor of its use in a suitable amount. Dr. Brown says : " There are many children who refuse to eat a piece of fat meat. They will eat the lean, but cut off the fat, and submit to punishment rather than eat it. The instinct of the child is perfectly right, and its indications are not to be disregarded." Fat swallowed under compulsion generally disagrees with a child and makes it ill. The proper thing to do in such cases is to give it in some more agreeable form. Nuts contain a sufficient amount of oil ; and sweet fruits, abundant in sugar, may to some extent supply its place.

If a lump of butter is swallowed by itself it will very likely make one sick, but spread upon bread it can be taken without discomfort. The reason of this is plain : we get the oily substance in a finer state of subdivision, so that it is more easily digested. A lump of fat swallowed alone would melt in the stomach and float about there without being digested, would begin to decompose and yield acrid bodies which would irritate the stomach and perhaps cause severe headache. When finely comminuted with bread it forms a creamy mass, which passes quickly into the duodenum where it is digested. Many a child has been made sick by a piece of fat bacon swallowed with only a small piece of bread and a large piece of butter.

Fatty foods are most useful in bronchitis, consumption and nervous diseases. Hard brain work uses up a great amount of force, and this is largely supplied by the consumption of the fats, starch and sugar. A well known English lawyer always takes a meal of some easily digested fatty food before making a great intellectual effort, and an English physician has found that in his intellectual work he is best sustained by considerable of the same material.

We have seen that the nervous system contains much fat, and we may imagine that if the food is deficient in it the brain will suffer Very thin people are more likely to be nervous than fat ones ; and it is said that Bantingism; practiced to cure corpulency has caused many porsons to become very nervous. It does not follow because fat is necessary that people should eat all they can of it. It should be taken in reasonable quantities^ and always thoroughly comminuted and mixed with other foods which will divide it up into very small particles, else it may cause indigestion and pass out of the system unabsorbed. Good butter, cream, olive oil and nuts are rich in fat, and in a form most agreeable. Potatoes, corn-meal, oatmeal and nuts containing starch, are all fat producers. We once advised a boy who rejected every form of fat usually found on his mother's table, to eat freely of hickory nuts, and it proved to be very good

FORMULA FOU FOOD. 19

advice for him. That popular nut, the peanut, which even many physicians condemn as indigestible, has been of like service to others.

The chemical formula for fat is, carbon 10, hydrogen 18, oxygen 1. Its original source is the vegetable kingdom, in which it abounds. Palm oil, olive oil, cottonseed oil, flax-seed oil, cocoanut oil, peanut oil, etc., are examples.

Fat is a very concentrated fuel food, and is not in any way digested in either the mouth or stomach, but in the duodenum, where it is emulsionized, or broken up into very minute globules capable of being passed through the absorbent vessels.

Fat often disturbs delicate stomachs, and persons with such should choose the most agreeable kind.

Fat frequently become rancid, and in this state is very injurious to the civilized stomach, causing dyspepsia, sick headache, heartburn, etc.

Besides these important and principal functions of fat, it has minor uses in the processes of digestion, assimilation and nutrition, and, it is believed, in the formation of bile. Food digests more readily if a certain amount of fat is mixed with it. It also plays an important part in the formation of cells, blood corpuscles, and even the generation of blood. It is present in large quantities in the tubules of the nerves, insulating them so that the nervous force is not dissipated, but travels along the nerve to its center; and in all the nervous centers serving an important function there.

The distribution of it in every tissue, and its accumulation around certain organs, serves to fill up the cavities of the body and give roundness to the form, equalizing the external pressure diminishing friction ; and, by its bad conducting property, retaining animal heat. Fat, therefore, must ever be regarded as highly important to the physical development of the body, and any system of diet that excludes it is faulty and to be condemned.

THE AMYLOIDS OR CARBO-HYDRATES.

This class of foods is best represented by starch and sugar. They are called amyloids because this word, from the Greek, means resembling starch, They are also called carbo-hydrates because chemically composed of carbon and water. The chemical formula for starch is carbon, 6 ; hydrogen, 10 ; oxygen, 5. That of sugar is slightly different ; cane sugar , being, carbon, 12; hydrogen, 11; oxygen, 11, and grape sugar being, carbon, 12; hydrogen, 12, and oxygen, 12.

STARCH.

Starch and sugar have their origin in the vegetable kingdom. Starch abounds in all the grains, in rice, in peas and beans, and in the common and sweet potato. It is also present in many other substances. Starch is insoluble in water, and this is a wise provision of nature; otherwise it would be easily dissolved by the rains and washed out of plants. In its insoluble state it is useless as a food, but during the process of digestion it is converted first into soluble dextrine, which has the same chemical formula as grape sugar, and a little later into grape sugar itself. The change takes place partly in the mouth by the action of the saliva during the process of mastication, but owing to the acidity of the gastric juice of the stomach the digestion of starch ceases soon after it reaches this organ. After the food has been passed into the duodenum, where the secretions are akaline, the digestion of its starch proceeds very rapidly until it has been completely converted into grape sugar, in which state it is soluble and easily absorbed. If the food has not been properly masticated and mixed with saliva in the mouth it is liable to embarrass the stomach and cause indigestion ; indeed this is one of the most fruitful sources of dyspepsia. On the other hand, if the food has been thoroughly masticated and allowed to remain in the mouth until it has been converted into a milk-like condition, even raw and uncooked starch is so thoroughly changed, as not to disturb the digestion of the albuminoids as it goes on in the stomach.

It is well known that many persons are not able to digest the starch of bread. By toasting it, however, the heat changes a portion of it into dextrine, in the same manner as the saliva does. A little more chewing would accomplish the same result.

SUGARS.

Sugars, although very different in their character and nature from starch, are all carbo-hydrates. Sugars may be divided into crystaline or cane and into glucose or grape sugar. The latter is the food of young plants, and is found in all young shoots. It does not need to be digested ; but it is believed that cane sugar is converted into grape sugar, or at least into invert sugar, in the alimentary canal. Experiments made by Sir William Eoberts, M. D., go to show that considerable cane sugar in food taken into a healthy stomach does not retard digestion.

1 The carbo-hydrates form a most important part of our food and are contained in nearly everything we eat. They are fuel foods and supply animal heat. They are also, like fats, an important source of the force or strength of the body.

HEATING POWER OF TEN GRAINS OF THE VARIOUS SUBSTANCES IN THEIR NATURAL STATE.

Lbs. of water raised IS F.

Grape sugar 8.42

Starch from Arrow-root . . . .10.06

From this it will be seen that fat is more than twice as valuable a heat-producing agent as starch.

There is also the same difference in the amount of work these substances will accomplish when burned, as the following table will show :

MOTIVE POWER OF TEN GRAINS OF THE SUBSTANCE IN ITS NATURAL STATE.

Lbs. lifted one foot high.

Cane sugar 6,647

MINERAL MATTER.

We read in the Bible that God created man out of the dust of the earth. Whether this is to be interpreted literally or figuratively I leave to theolo-

ONE ORGAN DIFFERS FROM ANOTHER. 23

gians to decide. For the scientist it has plainly a symbolical significance. The materials of which our bodies are composed are partly earthy, and it is not possible to think of them as composed without earthy substances. We call these constituents salts, and if they were not present in our food life could hardly be continued as at present.

There is a very simple method by which any one can obtain the salts of any organism. We have but to burn that body and most of them remain as ashes. Whatever belongs to the organic world volatilizes in vapor and smoke. The same result is reached by the slow process of decomposition. The salts remain while the organic part of the organism escapes into the atmosphere.

Only a limited number of minerals take part in the formation of our bodies. Each organ has a composition of its own. The same parts in different men and animals are of nearly the same composition, but one organ differs from another in a slight degree. The bones, the hearts, the stomachs of all animals are nearly the same, but the composition of the heart and stomach in the same person differs.

These facts prove the great importance of the mineral matter of our food. Had each organ the same composition a less variety of mineral matter wxmld suffice ; but as each demands a special salt for itself there must be considerable variety. In one organ is needed the salts of potash ; in another, those of soda or phosphorus. Another reason for variety is the fact that the processes of osmose and endosmose, or the exchange of fluids inside and outside the cells, depend largely on the fact that the constituents of the fluids on one side of the walls of these structures differ from those on the other side. Without this difference no change, or scarcely any, would take place, and the growth and nutrition of each part would come to a standstill for want of new and appropriate material.

Professor Forster, of Munchen, has made a large number of experiments to discover the importance of mineral matter in our food. Two pigeons were taken for one experiment and fed on food containing every other requisite : albumen, carbo-hydrates, etc., but entirely freed from all mineral matter. These pigeons took their food regularly, but soon lost all their liveliness and sat dumb and motionless on the bars of their cages. After the tenth day they ate but little and lost in flesh. On the twentyfourth day one of them had a fit, and both refused to eat. He then fed them by compulsion. One died on the twenty-sixth day by a return of the fit, and the other lived on to the thirty-first day, when it also had a fit from which it did not recover. An examination of the bodies of the pigeons revealed no traces of any disturbance of digestion.

He then took a dog and fed him in the same manner. He soon showed signs of weariness, lay sad and dull in his corner, had sudden fits as of madness, became weak and uncertain in his motions, trembled and showed signs of nervousness, became weaker and weaker till he could scarcely crawl, and still there was no disturbance in the digestion of his food.