American Woman's Home: Or, Principles of Domestic Science;: Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian HomesStowe, Harriet Beecher
Religion
American Woman's Home: Or, Principles of Domestic Science;: Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian Homes
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Home economics
These facts were ascertained by Liebig, a celebrated German chemist
and physicist, who, assisted by his government, conducted experiments
on a large scale in prisons, in armies, and in hospitals. Among other
results, he states that those who use potatoes for their principal
food eat them in very much larger quantities than their bodies would
demand if they used also other food. The reason is, that the potato
has a very large proportion of starch that supplies only fuel for the
capillaries and very little nitrogen to feed the muscles. For this
reason lean meat is needed with potatoes.
In comparing wheat and potatoes we find that in one hundred parts wheat
there are fourteen parts nitrogen for muscle, and two parts phosphorus
for brain and nerves. But in the potato there is only one part in one
hundred for muscle, and nine tenths of one part of phosphorus for brain
and nerves.
The articles containing most of the three articles needed generally
in the body are as follows: for fat and heat-making--butter, lard,
sugar, and molasses; for muscle-making--lean meat, cheese, peas, beans,
and lean fishes; for brain and nerves--shell-fish, lean meats, peas,
beans, and very active birds and fishes who live chiefly on food in
which phosphorus abounds. In a meat diet, the fat supplies carbon for
the capillaries and the lean furnishes nutriment for muscle, brain,
and nerves. Green vegetables, fruits, and berries furnish the acid and
water needed.
In grains used for food, the proportions of useful elements are varied;
there is in some more of carbon and in others more of nitrogen and
phosphorus. For example, in oats there is more of nitrogen for the
muscles, and less carbon for the lungs, than can be found in wheat.
In the corn of the North, where cold weather demands fuel for lungs
and capillaries, there is much more carbon to supply it than is found
in the Southern corn.
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