Saint Mary's beacon., 1902-07-24

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Fool Ttleas % Food.
The Kansas City Journal tells d
. business man of that city who
claims 20 have solved The problem d
zReedy and easy eating. whichseems
70 be one q she ereas questions with
basy Annericans today. He takes
his lunch in the shape Of small tab.
lets carried in alittlet tin box. Zach
OF these Is said 70 be composed ol
concentrated food, and mixed with
matted milk. Three or four them,
he says, make . square meal. He
adds
Soon we will do all our eating on
the tabloid plan, and the odors ol
the kitchen lin fact. The kifxhen Il.
self-wiIl be obliterated. We will
carry our meals about with us inour
pockets, and when. we are hungry
we win eat. There will be no long
dinners, no walters, ,noquick lunches.
We viii take tablets and save all
worry over burned or undone steaks,
and will not have indigestion over
heavy pies and batter cakes. Ban
quets viii be . thing of the past.
Instead OF stufiing guest with half
q hundred things at one sitting, we
viii say: Have a tablet p and then
light our cigars and be done with
ii. It's the coming way"
This is all nonsense. ANY SEN
sible man, who has investigated the
subject, knows that It is as impos-
sible TO put pound of human nour-
ishment into an ounce as it is to put
a gallon of water into a pint pot.
Such statements as the above show
how extremely ignorant the average
person is on the important question
OF food. Nor is this ignorance en-
tirely confined to the laity.
When you have eliminated the
water that is found in all foods, and
the small percentage OF waste mat
ter that is found in most Of them,
You have done all that you can pos
sibly do in the shape of concentra-
tion. For instance, in the average
wheat flower there is ID per cent. of
water. Consequently, you can get
the nourishing elements of pound
OF wheat flower into thirteen ounces
mo less. Barley, oatmeal, corn
and rice contain about the same
amount of water, and can be cores
pondingly concentrated. Peas con-
tain q smaller percentage of water
than the other vegetable foods, hav-
ing only little more than per cent.
and therefore you could not concen-
trate pound Of dried peas into less
than about fourteen and a half ounces
of weight. Fresh meat contains a
much larger percentage of water,
which is one reason why il is so
much more expensiyethan vegetable
foods. Lean. beef, for instance, is
about three-fourths water, so that
you could concentrate q pound OF
nonrishment in the shape OF beef in
TO about four ounces-not, as the
Liebig's Extract people formerly
tried TO make the public believe, get
the nourishment of an entire OK into
a quart jar.
When we come to vegetables, we
find much larger percentage Of
water, and consequently much great
er possibilities of condensation.
Cabbage is over "a per cent. water,
and there is perhaps 2 per cent. Of
indigestible woody matter, so that
you could concentrate the nourish-
ment that is found in a pound ofcab-
bage into a tablet weighing about
haitian ounce. This, however, would
be poor kind of nourishment 10 do
hard work on, either physical or
mental.
In this age Of scientific investiga-
tion. when almost every publication
abounds with information of this
kind for the people. tits surelyabout
time that papers should cease to
publish such manifest absurdities.