The age-herald., 1902-04-30
Meat Eating is Not
 Essential to Human Life

supply the waste of the body and the energy and heat necessary to all animal functions and hard labor. in form we'll suiteu to digestion, and capable not on- ly of maintaining the body in a perfect condition, but also of furnishing the en- ergy necessary to the hardest kind of manual labor. The waste material in cereals is very small and, as compared with that in meats, practically none at all In fact, the ordinary wastes, such as the bran and germ are among the most nutritive components of the cereals, and both health and economy would be con- served as a rule by their consumption, in- stead of rejecting them, as in the ordi- nary processes of milling. The ordinary cereals of commerce contain only about 10 per cent of waste, and this Ia an exceedingly small proportion as com- pared with che percentage in meats.
 If meats should be used, as suggested above more for continental purposes as in the making of soups, stews, etc., and not more than once a day as one of the staple articles of the table, it would be better, in my opinion TOT the health and strength of the consumer, and es- pecially would 1t be a saving in the mat ter of household expenses.
 It is well known that men who are nourished very extensively on cereals are capable of the hardest and most endur- ing manual labor. Meats are quickly di- gested, furnish an abundance of energy soon after consumption, but are not re- foip paI l., enough to sustain permanent muscular exertion. On the other hand cereal foods are more slowly digested, furnish the energy necessary to digestion and the vital functions In more uniform man. her, and thus are better suited to sustain hard manual labor for long period of time.
 Cereals contain as their most abundant constituent an element of foods which is practically absent in meats, viz: Carbo- hydrates, of which starch and sugar are types. Starch and sugar alone are not sufficient to give permanent nourishment to the body, since they fail to contain the elements necessary to the nourishment. especially of the muscular tissues of the body. In cereals, however, the starch is combined with an abundant supply of nitrogenous materials, of which the glut- en of wheat flour Is a type. It so hap pens that the cereals contain all the elements necessary to the nutrition of the body, having In themselves the types of food which are represented by the fats, the nitrogenous or protien bodies and the carbohydrates. In addition to these they contain those mineral ele- ments of which the body structure of the body is composed, viz: lime and phos- phoric acid. If therefore, man were con- fined to single article of diet, there is nothing which would be so suitable for his use as the cereals. Starch and sugar are primarily the foods which furnish animal heat and energy, and hence should be used in great abundance by those who are engaged in manual labor. The work ingmen of our country, especially, should consider this point and accustom them selves more and more to the use of ce- reals in their foods. When properly pre- pared and properly served, they are pal- atable as well as nutritious, and their judicious use in this way would tend to lne CTdVlHg TOT HeSn Wnlcn, however, it is not advisable to exclude entirely from the diet.
 By persons whose habits of life are sedentary, requiring but little physical exertion. starch and sugar should be eaten more sparingly, since if not used for supplying energy for muscular exer- tion. they are largely converted into fat, thus producing a condition of stoutness which is looked forward to with fear by all who hope to retain undiminished their bodily powers. In other words, the we'll to-do person, as a rule, whose habits are sedentary, can eat meat with less danger of acquiring that excess of adipose to which reference has just been made.
 It seems probable that the prices of meat, now abnormally high, will never again descend to as low a point as they reached a few years ago, and hence the condition which now confronts us, which so accentuates the question of the cost of living, is probably one of considerable permanency. Without entering into a de- tailed scientific discussion of the clements of food and nutrition, 1t is hoped that in the above resume there have been pre- sented some of the essential principles which may guide our people in a wiser selection of their food, both in respect to its efficacy for. bodily use and it's de- mands upon the purse0