On the Composition of Animals slaughtered as Human Food. 299 



body, CO per cent, in the case of calves and oxen, 50 per cent, in 

 lambs and sheep, and 78 per cent, in pigs, would be consumed as 

 human food. Of the total fat of the bodies, on the other hand, it 

 was supposed, that in calves and lambs 95 per cent., in oxen 80 per 

 cent., in sheep 75 per cent., and in pigs 90 per cent, would be so 

 applied. 



Assuming the proportional consumption of the fat and nitrogenous 

 compounds to be as here estimated, there would be, in the fat calf 

 analysed \\ time, in the fat ox 2^ times, in the fat lamb, fat sheep, 

 and fat pig nearly A\ times, and in the very fat sheep 6^ times as 

 much dry fat as dry nitrogenous or flesh-forming constituents con- 

 sumed as human food. 



It would perhaps be hardly anticipated, that in the staple of our 

 meat-diet, to which such a high relative flesh-forming capacity is 

 generally attributed, there should be found such a high proportion 

 of non-flesh-forming to flesh-forming matter as above indicated. 

 The result of such a comparison as present knowledge permits in 

 regard to the same point between the staple of our animal food and 

 the more important kinds of vegetable food, will certainly not be 

 less surprising. 



Of the staple vegetable foods, wheat-flour bread is, at least in this 

 country, the most important. It will be interesting, therefore, to 

 contrast with this substance the estimated consumed portions of the 

 analysed animals. To this end some assumption must be made as 

 to the relative values (on the large scale), for the purposes of re- 

 spiration and fat-storing, of the starch and its analogues in bread, 

 and of the fat in meat. It is assumed that, in round numbers, 1 part 

 of fat may be considered equal to 2^ parts of starch in these respects. 

 If, therefore, the quantity of fat in the estimated consumed portions 

 of the analysed animals be multiplied by 2*5, it is brought to what 

 may be conveniently called its " starch-equivalent ; " and in this way, 

 the Meat and the Bread can be easily compared with one another, 

 in regard to the relation of their flesh-forming, to their respiratory 

 and fat-forming capacities. 



Reckoning the amount — say 1 per cent. — of fat in Bread itself 

 (and it probably averages not more than ^ per cent.), to be equal to 

 2\ parts of starch, and adding this to the amount of the actual starch 

 and allied matters which it on the average contains, the calculation 

 gives — assuming this stareh-equivalent to represent specijilly the 

 respiratory and fat-forming, and the nitrogenous substances the 

 flesh-forming matter — C*8 parts of respiratory and fat-forming, to 1 

 of flesh-forming material, in Bread. 



Taking the relation of the one class of constituents to the other, 

 in the estimated total consumed portions of the animals assumed to 

 be in fit condition for the butcher, there was only one case — that of 

 the fat calf — in which the proportion of the so measured respiratory 

 and fat-forming, to the flesh-forming capacity, was in this our meat- 

 diet, lower than in Bread. In the estimated total consumed portions 

 of the fat ox, the proportion of the starch-equivalent of non-flesh- 

 formiug matter to 1 of nitrogenous compounds, was 6*9, or rather 



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