The Food Question: Health and Economy — John Shaqi
The Food Question: Health and EconomyVarious
General
The Food Question: Health and Economy
Various
Food
As in the heat engine, energy for light, heat, or power does not come
from burning copper, lead, or iron filings, but from carbonaceous
materials, as coal, coke, fuel oils, etc., so in the human body, energy
for warmth and muscular effort comes not from oxidizing the metal
repair foods, the proteins, but from those foods which are rich in
carbon, the starches and the sugars, called the carbohydrates.
_2. Flesh Food a Stimulant_
Whence then come these "illusions," these "false notions of the
strengthening effect of meat"? They come from the fact that foods of
this class are stimulating. A stimulant is a counterfeit for strength.
It is a physical deceiver. It makes a person believe he is strong
because he "feels" strong, when it is not true at all. That which is
interpreted as strength is only nervous excitement. A stimulant never
builds up; it only stirs up. While pretending to contribute energy, it
actually robs the body of strength. The resort to stimulants to whip
up the flagging energies of the body is an effort to trick nature in
playing the game of life. It is like borrowing money. Some day the
principal must be returned with interest to a relentless creditor.
Beef tea contains less than one per cent nourishment, but one can get
the same kind of exhilaration from a cup of beef tea as from a cup of
brandy. This is due to the drug effect of the beef tea, which is a
solution of the waste products, the poisonous extractives, of the meat.
Every animal organism is constantly throwing off these extractives,
such as urea, uric acid, creatinine, etc. The kidneys have no other
function than the removal of poisons. If an animal is deprived of the
use of its kidneys, it will die of self-poisoning in a few days. When
an animal is slaughtered and the blood ceases to circulate, this stream
of urinary products on its way to the kidneys for excretion stops in
the tissues, and is devoured by the consumer with the flesh.
Friedenwald and Ruhrah, in their book "Diet in Health and Disease,"
say: "The extractives are probably of no value either as a source of
energy or in the formation of tissues. They act as stimulants and
appetizers, and it has been stated that the craving some individuals
have for meat is in reality a desire for the extractives."
Armand Gautier, the eminent French dietitian, says on this point, "Like
the opium smoker, the individual who accustoms himself to meat, feels
that he misses it when he does not take the usual excess."
If the poisonous waste products be removed from meat, it is insipid,
and is no more stimulating than the same amount of bread.
_3. Ptomaine Poisoning_
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