6Y8 



In an experiment on the effects of different food material in nutrition, 

 lean beef is often used to supply i)roteiu. In the physiological labora- 

 tory of the University of Munich, where more work of this kind has 

 been done than anywhere else, many analyses of such beef have been 

 made. The method consists simply in taking the ordinary beef as sold 

 in the market and trimming out the visible particles of fat as thoroughly 

 asi)ossil)le; the lean thus remaining is found to contain on the average 

 about nine tenths of 1 per cent of fat. Voit found this percentage 

 so constant that he felt warranted in assuming this figure for the 

 quantity of fat in the lean muscular tissue of beef used in exact physio 

 logical experiments. A number of s]»C(inu'ns of beei' were obtained in 

 Middlet^jwn, Connecticut, and prepared in exactly the same way, the 

 writer's experience in Voit's laboratory being use<l in ])reparing the 

 specimens in his own. They gave projiortions of fat ranging from 2 

 t<^^) .j.O i>er cent. An interoting liut brought out by the analyses last 

 referred to and others of similar character miwlo in Connecticut in the 

 same series of investigations, is the mutual replacement of fat and 

 water in mus<ular tissues. Leaving out of account the fat which is 

 visible to the eye, the remainder (that which is in microscopic par- 

 ticles) seems to take the place of water within the tissue much as shot 

 dropi)ed in a glass tilled with water will drive out their volume of 

 water from the vessel. This helps to explain why it is that ♦he <juan- 

 tity of fat in meat may be much larger than api)ears to the eje. The 

 excessive fatness of our meats results in part from the, composition of 

 the nuiterial from which the n)eat is made, for animals fattened on 

 products poor in jnotein and rich in carbohydiates and fats tend to 

 excessive fatness. It is also due in part to the fact that we have a 

 great excess of soil i>roduct in the valleys of the Ohio and Misissippi 

 and on the ranches of the ^^'est, and the natural tendency is to condense 

 as nuich of it as i)<)ssible into meat. 



The manufacture of meat is a ])roces8 of transforming the vegetable 

 protein, carboiiydrates. and fats <»f grass and grain into the animal i)ro- 

 tein and fat of bet'f. mutt4»n, and ])ork. In the normal gr(»wth of the 

 young animal to matnrity, a considerable portion of muscle, tendon, 

 and other tissue, of which ]»rotein is the basis, is formed from the pro- 

 tein of the food, but in the process of fattening it is chiefly fat which is 

 made from the food and stored in the body. As the animal becomes 

 fatter relatively less protein is formed and the material stored becomes 

 more and more exclusively fat. At present the swine grower and the 

 ranchman convert a laige i»art of the soil jnoduct of the country into 

 the fat of pork and beef. The European feeder can not afford this 

 extravagance. His soil ]>roduct is too precious. His feeding stuffs are 

 richer in j)rotein than tlie grasses and grain of the Central and Eastern 

 States. He makes tt'ndcr. Juicy beef, of excellent flavor, without excess 

 of fats. reoi)le there do not call for the lean of overfattened meat an<l 

 reject the fat as they do here. When the cattle lie is fattening have been 



