Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-06-20

NO less a personage than Brown
~ ing sang of the bean, and DIR.
Yamei Kin, the only Chinese
woman graduate of an American
medical college, made it the burden
of her good-by song on the day she
left New York a few days ago for
the Orient to gather data on that
humble but nutritious food for the
Department of Agriculture at Wash
ington. The call for sustaining food
Is imperious; the cuisine of China is
one of the toothsome cuisines of the
world. These facts, coupled with
DIR. Kin's departure, make an illumi-
rating paragraph on the subject of
feedlng ourselves ana our allies.
Also, of more than sentimental in
terest is the circumstance that the
appointment of DIR. Kin marks the
first time the United States govern
n.ent has given so much authority to
q Chinese. That it is a woman in
whom such extraordinary confidence
IS now feposed detracts nothing from
the interest OF the story.
China has given the world many
things. Paper was manufactured in
China in the third century. If Europe
had enjoyed communication with
China 1t would have learned of print
ing many centuries before 1t did. In
China, also. gunpowder was first in
vented. This same astonishing race
produced the mariners compass in
the fourth century, porcelain in the
third, chess and playing cards in the
twelfth, and silk embroideries in al
most prehistoric times. And now
DR.. Kin is going to see If her native
land can teach the United States how
to develop a taste for the soy bean
in its numerous DISCUSSES. For about
1000 years the Chinese have been
practically self-supporting from the
productions of their own soil. The
price of porterhouse steak has never
bothered them appreciably, but what
they don't know about possible vari-
ations in the treatment of beans we
could learn over night.
"The world is in need of tissue
building foods" said DR.. Kin, land
cannot very we'll afford to wait to
grow animals in order to obtain the
necessary percentage of protein.
Waiting for an animal to become big
enough to eat is a long proposition.
First you feed grain TO a COW, and,
finally, you get return in protein
from milk and meat. A terribly high
percentage of the energy is lost in
transit from grain to COW to q
human being. Roughly speaking,
the process is not unlike the loss of
heat units in coal burned in a loco
motive before the wheels go round.
"All grains contain q certain per-
centage of protein, but all beans con-
tain very great proportion of pro-
tein. The statement is frequently
made that the Orientals live almost
exclusively upon rice, eating little
meat. 1t is not generally known, per-
baps, that deficiency in protein Is
made up by the consumption of large
quantities of products of the soy
bean, which takes the place in our
dietary of meat and other costly
nitrogenous foods. They are eaten
in some form by rich and poor at
almost every meal. Instead of taking
the long and expensive method of
feeding grain to an animal until the
animal Is ready to be killed and
eaten, in China we take a short cut
by eating the soy bean, which is
protein, meat and milk in itself. We
do not eat the plain bean in China
at all. 1t is never eaten there as
vegetable, but in the complex food
shoyu and similar dishes.
"The chief reason why people can
live so cheaply in China and yet pro-
duce for that nation a man power so
tremendous that this country must
pass an exclusion act against them
is that they eat beans instead of
meat; but nothing like the navy bean,
which by many ,pennle who do not