VEGETABLE FOOD 123 



They are very poor in albumin, but rich in starch, so they 

 go well with meat and eggs. Potatoes require a greater 

 amount of time and energy in their digestion than bread 

 and yield less heat and energy, and leave more undigested 

 residue, and are more liable to ferment. 



188. Difference between animal and vegetable food. 



Animal and vegetable foods differ in several particulars : 



First. Animal food requires less energy in its digestion. Animal, 

 rather than vegetable, food is light diet. 



Second. Because of its longer time of digestion, and of the larger 

 amount remaining undigested, vegetable food is more liable to ferment 

 in the stomach and intestine, so that in severe sickness vegetable food 

 is usually entirely withheld. 



Third. Vegetable food alone contains too much starch and sugar 

 for the needs of the body. Fermentation is thus promoted. When 

 absorbed, sugar is more readily oxidized than fat or albumin, and an 

 excess of sugar takes oxygen from other parts of the body. 



189. Special use of vegetable food. While animal albu- 

 mins and fats are more easily digested, and furnish a greater 

 supply of heat and energy than the same kind of food of 

 vegetable origin, it by no means follows that man should 

 use them to the exclusion of vegetables. Their very ease 

 and completeness of digestion may lead one to eat too 

 much. Man's mouth and stomach combine the character- 

 istics of herbivorous and carnivorous animals, and he will 

 enjoy the best health when both classes of food are used. 

 He must use some vegetable food for the sake of its starch 

 or sugar. 



190. Effect of cooking. The distinctions between food 

 just given were based upon experiments made upon healthy 

 men, who ate slowly, and masticated food properly cooked. 

 All vegetable food should be cooked so that it is a dry and 

 crumbly mass which the digestive juices can easily pene- 



