Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1868-01-01
The Philosophy of Eating.

DR.. Albert j. Bellows, professor of Chem
istry, Physiology and Hygiene has written,
and Messrs. Hurd and Houghton, of New
York, have published valuable treatise on
the Philosophy of Eating. The author says
in his preface
We have excellent practical treatises on
agriculture and horticulture and every intel
liscnt farmer or gardener may learn what
element Is deficient, in order successfully to
cultivate his grapes, his vegetables, or his
grains; and having also chemical analyses of
these fruits and grains, and of the materials
from which to obtain his deficient elements,
he has the means of adapting his soil to all
desirable productions.
We have also treatises raising horses
cattle, hens, pigs fishes, and even bees and
canary birds, but not single practical trea
tise raising children. We know perfectly
well that our horses will not, without care
III regard to their food and training, be devel-
oped in beauty, strength, or docility. Our
cows must he cared for, or they furnish little
milk Our hens must have appropriate food >
or they furnish no eggs. Our bees must have
their proper conditions Of life and health
complied with, or thev furnish no honey and
die -STthis everybody knows but children
are expected to live, and be perfectly devel-
oped, both mentally and physically, without
care or consideration.
And 20 perfectly ignorant arc people gem
orally OF the laws of nature, that they give
their pigs the food which their children need
10 develop muscle and brain, and give their
children what their pigs need to develop fat
For example, the farmer separates from milk
the muscle-making and brain feeding nitrates
and phosphates, and gives them to his pigs
in the form of buttermilk, while the fattening
carbonates he gives to his children in butter
He Sits out the bran and outer crust from
the wheat, which contains the nitrates and
phOsphates, and gives them also TO his pigs
and cattle, while the fine -four, containing
little else than heating carbonates, he gives
TO his children. Cheese, which contains the
concentrated nutriment Of milk, is seldom
seen on our tables. while butter which con-
tains not a particle of food for brain or mus
Gle. is on every table at all times of day
To supply this deficiency in practical sci
ence, and to correct these erroneous and
dangerous habits of society, is the object of
5his treatise.
From this Introduction the scope and val
Of the work may be inferred. What shall
we eat? Is question which is capable of
several answers. We certainly cannot eat
what we have not. nor cannot procure The
old recipe for cooking a hare began :. First
eaten your mare, ana IL is quite necessary
before one gets great way into the philos-
ophy Of eating that one should have some
thing to eat. The hungry man cares much
less about the philosophy than the fact of
eating But happily, in this country, it is
quite uncommon that one has not the power
of choice in respect to nutritive food, and
therefore II - I'll lille 90 determine Cnau
choice inteligently. We are - wonderfully
made - and it cannot fail to be of profit to
ue to know something how flesh and bone
and muscle and blood are constituted This
volume discusses the entire range of subjects
connected with the support of animal life by
eating, and furnishes a great variety of sta
tistical information, as we'll as the analysis
of the various kinds of food, and full expla
nation Of the mistakes we are making every
day in their use In looking over the book
we find every page full of information, and
containing suggestions which are dOubly val
uabie as they show how health, and muscu-
lar and brain activity, can be better well
as more cheaply served by an intelligent
selection and use of food. We hope hereafter
to give our readers some extracts from the
volume.