A HARD-WORKING DIET. 31 
‘Such vegetables as cabbages and carrots contain so 
large a proportion of water—about 90 per cent.—they 
cannot be looked upon as sources of either nitrogen or 
carbon compounds, as the quantities that would have 
to be eaten are enormous. A pound of cabbage gives 
no more muscle-forming material than rather less 
than a quarter of an ounce of meat. Sixteen pounds 
of cabbage would furnish only as much as a quarter 
of a pound of meat. Vegetables have, however, other 
valuable uses. 
It may perhaps seem that a difficulty arises in 
regard to this table in working out the connection 
between these nitrogen compounds (which contain 
CHON) and the carbon compounds (which con- 
tain CH O)—see p. 26—with the figures given on 
p- 24. C 4,900, N 300. A table is given at the 
end of this handbook for helping calculations as to 
the amount of N present in N compounds. As ex- 
plained in the pages previous to p. 18, it is only by 
getting at the quantities of the edements taken in and 
given off in different forms we can know what chemi- 
cally takes place within our bodies. Recollecting 
what was mentioned on p. 28 about nitrogenous com- prepie 
pounds, it seems highly important to look at the nitrogen 
amount of N present in foods used in a hard-working a ee 
diet. In this next table they are therefore given in 
single column. Meat and fish are compared, for if, 
as seems not improbable, “The roast beef of old Eng- 
land” is to become merely a tradition, and the cheery 
song preserved as a curiosity among the ancient 
music in libraries, then it may be useful to know what 
fish most nearly correspond in the amounts of nitrogen 
