O'SHEA — ASPECTS OP MENTAL ECONOMY. 101 



entary people especially should eat sparingly of meat if they 

 are generous in their daily allowance of other protein-bearing 

 foods, 1 since elimination is a relatively serious matter for those 

 who are not active muscularly much of the time. Many be- 

 lieve, and it seems with a show of reason, that sedentary peo- 

 ple should get their albuminous foods in some other substances, 

 for the most part, than meat, since all flesh contains worn out 

 products that have not been eliminated in the life of the ani- 

 mal, and that are not only valueless for the purposes of nutri- 

 tion, but are moreover a sort of drug in the system. A stu- 

 dent eating a large amount of beefsteak, for instance, from 

 which the blood has not been thoroughly drawn, and not exer- 

 cising a great deal, cannot but be handicapped in mind and 

 body, since his organism must become clogged up with the toxic 

 products of his own activities and of those of the animal which 

 he imports into his system. 



§3. Specimen Dietaries Fulfilling the Requirements of Ade- 

 quate Nutrition. — In view of what has been presented in pre- 

 ceding sections it may be instructive now to show in actual bills 

 of fare how the principles which have been advanced can be 

 embodied in practice. Atwater, Atkinson, Kellogg, and others 

 have constructed dietaries indicating the required daily amount 

 of each article of food which in the total will give the right 

 quantity of the several nutrient elements. The food materials 

 used in these dietaries are substantially such as constitute the 

 body of the bills of fare of our students; and while some of 

 these could with great advantage be banished from our tables 

 and other articles substituted in their stead (for instance, nut 

 foods taking the place of pork in every form, and much of the 

 other flesh, cream being used more largely in the place of but- 

 ter, the nitrogenous cereals discussed in §4 being added to the 

 lists, etc.), yet it will be well to see what can be done with 

 those things, valueless as some of them are, that tradition keeps 



J See The North American Review, Vol. 164, p. 664, for expert opinion upon 

 this subject. 



