8 4 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



more fat than vegetable food. So much the worse for the human 

 being, says Nature, when she prepares 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 con- 

 tains an excess of the carbo-hydrates (starch) with the smallest avail- 

 able quantity of alhuminoids and fat. The slice of meat, diluted with 

 the lump of potato, brings the whole down to about the average com- 

 position 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 ex- 

 ample, 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 composi- 

 tion, according to the table given by Pavy, page 410 : 



Rumford's soup (without the bread afterward added) was com- 

 posed of equal measures of peas and pearl-barley, or barley-meal, and 

 nearly equal weights. Their percentage composition as stated in above- 

 named table is as follows : 



Here, then, in one hundred parts of the material of Rumford's half- 

 penny dinner, as compared with the " mixed diet," we have forty per 

 cent more of nitrogenous food, more than six and a half times as much 

 carbo-hydrate in the form of starch, more than double the quantity of 

 sugar, about seventeen per cent more of fat, and only a little less of 

 salts (supplied by the salt which Rumford added). Thus the John 

 Bull materials fall short of all the costly constituents, and only excel 

 by their abundance of very cheap water. 



This analysis supplies the explanation of what has puzzled many 



