The Natural Food of Man: Being an attempt to prove from comparative anatomy, physiology, chemistry and hygiene, that the original, best and natural diet of man is fruit and nutsCarrington, Hereward
Science
The Natural Food of Man: Being an attempt to prove from comparative anatomy, physiology, chemistry and hygiene, that the original, best and natural diet of man is fruit and nuts
Carrington, Hereward
Food; Vegetarianism
Now, when we turn to dairy products and to the vegetable kingdom for
our fats, we find that a very large amount of fat is contained in a
number of articles of diet—far greater than in any of the fattest
meats. Thus, butter contains 85 per cent. fat; American cheese, 38.3
per cent. fat; California cheese, 33.4 per cent. fat; cheddar cheese,
36.8 per cent.; cream cheese, 58.0 per cent.; full cream cheese
averages 33.7 per cent.; old English cheese, 42.7 per cent.; etc.
Cream, on the other hand, contains less than we should suppose, being
but 18.5 per cent. fat, and milk only 4.0 per cent. fat.
Our great source of fats, however—leaving out all dairy products,
which, it might be claimed, are indirectly derived from the animal
kingdom—is nuts. The great value of these articles of food will
become apparent to us when we see that not only are they at the head
of the list in protein percentage and in fuel value, but also in
the percentage of their fats. Thus we find almonds average 54.9 per
cent. fat; beech-nuts, edible portion, 57.4 per cent.; Brazil-nuts,
edible portion, 66.8 per cent. fat; butter-nuts, 61.2 per cent. fat;
cocoanuts, 50.6 per cent. fat; filberts, 65.3 per cent.; hickory-nuts,
67.4 per cent.; peanuts, 38.6 per cent.; pea-nut butter, 46.5 per
cent.; pecans, 71.2 per cent.; pine-nuts, 60.7 per cent.; California
walnuts, 64.4 per cent.; black California walnuts, 53.3 per cent.;
soft-shell walnuts, 63.4 per cent. Chocolate also contains 48.7
per cent. fat. If now we compare with these figures those “highly
nutritious” invalid foods, meat soups, etc., we find the fat
percentages to run as follows:—Beef soup, .4 per cent. fat; chicken, .8
per cent.; clam chowder, .8 per cent.; and meat stew, averaging 4.3 per
cent. fat.
Let us now compare the relative percentages of carbohydrates. In the
majority of meats these are so very low that it might almost be said
they contain no carbohydrates at all. In the above tables from Atwater
and Bryant’s analysis, it will be seen that no figures at all appear
in the column for carbohydrate percentages. With the single exception
of tripe, which contains an average of .2 per cent., no mention is
made of a percentage of carbohydrates in any of the meats. Hens’ eggs
also contain practically none. Poultry and game, when cooked, average
from 2 per cent. to 5 per cent.; fish contain practically none, while
shellfish range from 1 per cent. to 3 per cent. This is all the
carbohydrates that the animal kingdom affords us!
Turning now to dairy products, we find that various cheeses furnish
from 2 per cent. to 4 per cent. carbohydrates; milk averages 5 per
cent., but condensed, unsweetened milk, or evaporated cream, average
11.2 per cent. It will be seen, therefore, that dairy products, coming
as they do, indirectly from the animal kingdom, furnish a comparatively
small percentage of carbohydrates.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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