Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1890-11-11
BEANS srTTea T.tAN WHEAT.

BEANS BITTER THAN WHEAT.
The Former sai.s 70 He More Espseistly
she Food ~ Civilization.
The bean - d better food than wheat.
and Is more especipily linz food ii twill
zation The average graham bread has
but Do per cent. OF protein, while beans
have IS. per cent, or two and 4 half
times as much. The function of protein
as food II principally % form the basis 81
blood, muscle, connective fissue. etc.
Herein y the nitrogen that furninhee
nerve and brain nourishinenf. Graham
bread has Ia per cent. Of fat, while
beans have 81 per cent. or carbohy.
drates, beans have 53.7 per cent. and
graham bread 53.3 per cent, including
woody fiber for the latter. The service
Of carbohydrates is to be transformed into
rat and 70 be burned as fuel. as III he
case Of the fats themselves. The chief
use Of the carnohy drates of wheat bread
seems to be to serve for fuel, though they
are also transformed into fats. In power
70 keep the body warm and 20 furnish
muscular energy mot muscle). graham
bread hardly equals beans, and If We
take into account the animal fats which
men have always instinrtiyely combined
with beans. no doubt the cooked bean Il
much richer than wheat as d heat and
force food. The mineral matters b
| graham bread, which are reduced to /
per cent. in wheat bread, amount to only
l.6 per cent, while beans have 3.6 per
cent. a them. These help largely tc
form bone and blood.
In no respect, then. arc cooked beans
inferior to graham bread as food, and in
most respects they are more than twice
as nutritious, particularly in those sub
stances that go to brain and nerve nour.
ishment and to the building up Of the
muscles and bones of the body. Il is
fair to presume that beans would have
made more vigorous man than wheat
has done, with its large amount Of starch
TO be converted into fat and heat. In
case OF famine and small supply Of
food, the advantage of beans over wheat
would have been considerable, and the
same may be said of them for long
marches and military campaigns It Is
matter OF common experience that people
are made corpulent by eating starchy
foods, and these unwieldy bodies are not
30 healthy and workable as the leaner
bodies OF other people. A good diet for
| persons who want to reduce flesh is made
up of leguminous foods, and these have
been eaten in such cases with successful
result. 1t is not easy to over eat the
| leguminous foods, for they soon satisfy
the cravings of hunger. Professor At
water maintains that the bodily ills re-
shifting from over eating are greater and
more common than those resulting from
| the Incorporate use of alcoholic drinks.
Whether this is fully true or not, the ills
from over eating are incalculable, and
they would have been and would be
greatly reduced if beans had been sub
stituted for wheat.
Other things equal, the bean eater win
prevail over the wheat eater and over the
potato and the rice eater. The Arabian
bean eaters came within one battle OF
spreading Mohammedan civilization all
over Europe. The superiority Of the
bean over wheat would have made Eu-
ropeans stronger and better nourished
/ people than they have been as wheat
eaters, and equally as energetic, and they
| would have had the food that would
have made possible, not to say probable,
a higher degree of intelligence.
If beans had been substituted for wheat,
the effect ON the agriculture of the world
would have been incalculable. In Massa-
chusetts, in 1880, 1858 acres produced
Is, 768 bushels of wheat, or 16 1-3 bush
els per acre. The average product in the
United States in that year was but IS
bushels. The product of beans in Massa-
chusetts in 1875 was Al. 879 bushels from
1854 acres. or 81 bushels per acre.
Therefore, since beans are about two and
a half times as nutritious as wheat (the
animal fat mixed with cooked beans re-
duces the exception in the matter OF
fuel, and since an acre produces twice
as much beans as wheat, then it follows
that five times more nutEiIaent is got
from an acre of beans than from an acre
of wheat.
The western farmer might till but one
acre in five of his wheat area if he could
raise beans, and people would cat them
instead of wheat. The savings of land
tillage in the United States would amount
to four-fifths Of the wheat area, or te
"A, $50 square miles, according to the
census of 1880. and the same amount oi
nutriment would still be got for the
nation and the world-that is to say, ar
, area larger than the state of Pennsyl
vania. and larger than the state of Ohio
would be freed from the necessity of pro
ducing sllstenance for the human race
] taking account of the land in the Unitet
e States alone When the time comes
: which is generally expected when th'
: pressure of population will try the ability
of the soil to sustsin it, the substitution
of beans for wheat viii be live ques
4 tion.-Good Housekeeping.
\ n~avhoctrs 70 H,gsepss living.