The particulars of the difference are instructive. The food which Nature provides for the human infant differs from that provided for the young carnivorous animal, just in the same way as flesh food differs from the cultivated and cooked vegetables and fruit within easy reach of man. These contain less fat, less nitrogenous matter, more water, and more sugar (or starch, which becomes sugar during digestion) than animal food. Those who advocate the use of flesh food usually do so on the ground that it is more nutritious, contains more nitrogenous material and more fat than vegetable food. So much the worse for the human being, says Nature, when _she_ prepares the food. But as a matter of practical fact there are no flesh-eaters among us, none who avail themselves of this higher proportion of albuminoids and fat. We all practically admit every day in eating our ordinary English dinner, that this excess of nitrogenous matter and fat is bad; we do so by mixing the meat with that particular vegetable which contains an excess of the carbo-hydrates (starch) with the smallest available quantity of albuminoids and fat. The slice of meat, diluted with the lump of potato, brings the whole down to about the average composition of a fairly-arranged vegetarian repast. When I speak of a vegetarian repast, I do not mean mere cabbages and potatoes, but properly selected, well cooked, nutritious vegetable food. As an example, I will take Count Rumford’s No. 1 soup, already described, without the bread, and in like manner take beef and potatoes without bread. Taking original weights, and assuming that the lump of potato weighed the same as the slice of meat, we get the following composition according to the table given by Pavy, page 410: +----------------+-------+---------+--------+-------+------+-------+ | | Water | Albumen | Starch | Sugar | Fat | Salts | | +-------+---------+--------+-------+------+-------+ | Lean beef | 72·00 | 19·30 | -- | -- | 3·60 | 5·10 | | Potatoes | 75·00 | 2·10 | 18·80 | 3·20 | 0·20 | 0·70 | | +-------+---------+--------+-------+------+-------+ | |147·00 | 21·40 | 18·80 | 3·20 | 3·80 | 5·80 | | +-------+---------+--------+-------+------+-------+ |Mean composition| | | | | | | | of mixture | 73·50 | 10·70 | 9·40 | 1·60 | 1·90 | 2·90 | +----------------+-------+---------+--------+-------+------+-------+ Rumford’s soup (without the bread afterwards added) was composed of equal measures of peas and pearl barley, or barley meal, and nearly equal weights. Their percentage composition as stated in the above-named table is as follows: