282 



GARDENERS' CHRONICLE 



^iiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiH nil inn nnnniiiiiiiiii tii nniu iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim iJiiiiiiiiiiinHiiiiiiiiii rnii tiiiiiinniiwiiiiiniiiiiii miniinnniniiiii iiJiiimiimiin iiiiiiii iiinniiiiini i iiinuniiiiiiiii iiiininiiin iiiniig 



1 A Lesson on the Dietic, Medicinal and Economic j 

 I Values of Vegetables | 



I Being One of a Series of Lessons of a Home Study Course on Gardening, Appearing Regularly in The Gardeners' Cheonicle | 



I Under the Direction of ARTHUR SMITH 1 



iiUlliiiiiiiniiiiniHiiiiii I II I iiniiiniiniiiiiiiiiiiiiittiuniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniii nil iNiiiiiiiiiiiinnn niiiiiiiiiiniinii iiniinni iHiiiiiiinntnnn i iiiiiHininnniiniinn in iiini i inn i luiiiiittininn i 1 



AS the dozen or so lessons under this heading have been_ in 

 the main devoted to matters connected with the production 

 of garden crops, it appears at this time fitting, or at least not un- 

 fitting, that we should consider some points relating to the use 

 of garden produce. 



The events of the past few years have brought nito existence 

 a large number of people who now grow more or less of the 

 vegetable requirements of their households : people who before 

 made practically no use of the ground surrounding their homes. 



Before the war, most people, even those who ahvays had plenty 

 of home-grown vegetables at their command, ate vegetables 

 simply as an adjuncfto animal food and even today they still do 

 so to a considerable extent. As much, or nearly as much, meat 

 was, and sometimes is, eaten when vegetables formed part of 

 the meal as when they did not. While many haxe realized tlie 

 wastefulness of such custom; have been forced to economize in 

 animal food bv substituting for it the direct fruits of the earth, 

 with such benefit to their physical welfare that very few would 

 be satisfied to return to the old regime, there are still numerous 

 families who net onlv do not make use of vegetables to the ex- 

 tent to which it is d'esirable, but who do not gain all the good 

 they might from those they do consume. 



We believe that to a certain degree there has been some check 

 to the greatest possible use of vegetables by the method of meas- 

 uring food-values entirelv by calories. 



A calorie is not a substance, but is a unit for measuring heat 

 expressed in food values, in the same way that a yard is a unit 

 for measuring length and a pound for measuring weight. 

 Roughly speaking a calorie equals the amount of heat required 

 to raise the temperature of a pound of water four degrees b. 



There is also something more contained in the word calorie. 

 What is called heat and what is called energy are really different 

 forms of the same force. .\11 the organs and tissues of the body 

 are built from the nutritive ingredients of food. With every 

 motion of the body and with the exercise of feeling and thou.ght. 

 material is consumed and which must be supplied and replaced 

 by food. In a sense the body is a machine, and like all other 

 rnachines, it requires material to build up its several parts, to 

 repair them as thev are worn out, and to serve as fuel. 



From the time foods are taken into the body they undergo 

 great chemical changes, very many of which liberate lieat It is 

 through these complex chemical and other processes that the 

 body derives energv- for internal and external muscular work 

 and" for the exercise of brain-power. Also, part of tlie material 

 which serves the body as a source of energy is used for build- 

 ing it up and keeping it in repair. ,,, t- . a 



The chief uses of food, then, are two: (1) To form the 

 material of the body and repair its wastes, and (2) to junn'*'' 

 muscular and other po\ver for the work the body has to do. and 

 to yield heat to keep the body warm. In forming and reforming 

 the tissues and the fluids of the body the food serves for build- 

 ing and repair. In giving power and heal it serves as energy. 



If more food is ealen than is needed, more or less of the sur- 

 plus may be, and sometimes is, stored in the body, chiefly in the 

 form of fat, which forms a sort of reserve supply of tuel and 

 is upon occasion utilized in the place of food. When the work 

 is hard, or the food supply is low, the body draws upon this 

 reserve of fat and grows lean. . 



In order to be sure that we are stoking our body engine 

 rightly we must be able to say both how much energy our food 

 yields' and how much energy our bodies use. This is where the 

 calories come in, for we can measure both food energy and body 

 energy in calories. j r ^ 



Varying according to age, size, occupation and climate, an in- 

 dividual requires to assimilate per day food containing trom two 

 thousand to five thousand calories. These calories only refer 

 to the three ingredients upon which food values have been based, 

 namely, protein, which has a value of 1,820 calories to the Poutid ; 

 fat, 4,040 calories, and carbohydrates with a value of l.b.U 

 calories to the pound. , , ■ , . 



But a sufficiencv of all of these m properly balanced propor- 

 tion can be consumed while at the same time the individual may 

 be badly nourished, in fact it is possible for starvation to result. 



There are many more ingredients besides protein, carbohy- 



drate and fat required for a nutritious diet and to prevent and 

 remove that malnutrition which is becoming more and more 

 prevalent among all classes of people and of all ages. The 

 average diet and its method of preparation appears to be getting 

 farther away from Nature and we are becoming more and more 

 a race that is sustained by artificially prepared products de- 

 signed by chemists in the laboratories. Hence nervous break- 

 downs and rest cures multiply. It has recently been publicly 

 stated that America is suffering from wide-spread malnutrition, 

 not from lack of sufficient food expressed in calories — on the 

 contrary the average number of calories consumed per head is 

 larger today than ever — ^^but from lack of those elements not 

 measured by calories. What is called "lack of vitality," "run- 

 down," "not thriving," can in almost all cases lie definitely traced 

 to an insufiicient supply of certain elements. 



In addition to protein, carbohydrate and fat, the animal body 

 contains, and therefore requires in its food, more or less of 

 chlorin, fluorin, iron, phosphorus, calcium, potassium, magnesium, 

 manganese, sodium, sulphur, silicon and iodine. It is important 

 to realize that the human body must be constantly supplied with 

 all of these although the quantity of each that is necessary is 

 ver\- small, and it is only by the consumption of vegetables that 

 we can be sure of obtaining them, and a superabundance of any 

 elements can never take the place of a deficiency in others. 



Unfortunately the prevailing methods of cooking and so-called 

 refinement, remove entirely most of these vital ingredients and 

 at the same tim-e greatly reduce the percentage content of those 

 which remain. 



.\11 these elements are contained in the soil in varying propor- 

 tions ; they are also all of them part of every plant's require- 

 ments, and as the plant has the power of obtaining them from 

 the soil, which the animal has not, it therefore follows that the 

 only natural way for ihe individual to obtain them is by con- 

 suming the plant. Of course plants vary in the proportions of 

 these ingredients they contain, as examples, spinach contains a 

 larger percentage of iron, while the cabbage contains more sul- 

 phur, than other vegetables. 



There is considerable analogy betw-een plant and animal life, 

 which as regards food requirements, is almost complete. In 

 both, a!! their constituents must be present in their food, and 

 no excess of one or more will make up for deficiency in others. 



Xot long ago a scientist took up the work of demonstrating 

 what an important part the mineral salts play in plant life. This 

 investigator placed seeds of grain in a solution of water, iron 

 oxide, calcium nitrate, magnesium sulphate, potassium nitrate, 

 potassium chloride and phosphoric acid. In this solution the 

 plants attained to normal, healthy growth, but in other solutions 

 from each of which one or more of the above salts had been 

 omitted the plant was seriously affected. When the grain was 

 .grown in a solution from which iron had been omitted the plant 

 was lacking in the development of chlorophyll, which substance 

 gives the plant its green color, and corresponds with the 

 iic-emoglobin, or red coloring matter of the human blood. Just 

 as there can be no satisfactory plant life without chlorophyll, 

 there can be no animal life without hemoglobin. Both depend 

 upon iron for their existence. Other experiments have indicated 

 that magnesium, calcium, iodine, silicon and manganese exert a 

 powerful influence in the growth and development of plants and 

 in the same manner we know that their presence is equally 

 necessary in human foods. 



One of the mysteries of plant life is how they are able to 

 take certain mineral elements and compounds, some of which 

 are deadly poisons, and so change them that when absorbed into 

 the human system their action is not only without harmful ef- 

 fects, but is actually beneficial, and in fact their presence is neces- 

 sary for health.- Iodine, for example, would not be a healthy 

 solution to swallow, but when the thyroid gland is deprived of 

 it the health of the whole body is sure to sufifer. 



The lack of understanding of the chemical practices of Nature 

 has led us into many errors. When the chemist analyzes human 

 blood he reports that the iron of the red corpuscles is iron 

 oxide. However it is a fact that the iron in the blood does 

 not exist in such form. The failure to understand that a de- 

 ficiency of certain minerals in the body cannot be remedied by 



