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Sample Copy sent on Application, 



36th Year. 



CHICAGO, ILL., OCTOBER 8, 1896. 



No. 41. 



Honey as Food — Why It Should be Eaten. 



BY TROF. A. J. COOK. 



There are four kinds of food that are necessary to health 

 and life. These are the inorganic elements, like water, salt, 

 phosphate and carbonate of lime, etc.; the non-nitrogenous 

 organic — so-called because they owe their origin to organic 

 nature, and contain no nitrogen — and the nitrogenous. The 

 second class — the non-nitrogenous organic — contain oxygen, 

 hydrogen and carbon, illustrated in starch, the various sugars 

 and the fats. The last class all contain nitrogen, and resem- 

 ble in many ways the white of an egg, and so are often called 

 albuminoids. Muscle, white of an egg, cheese, and blood 

 albumen, are illustrations of the nitrogenous food elements. 

 That we need all of these in our food, is shown in the fact 

 that we hunger for them if they are not represented, or if 

 they are too scantily represented in our food. Again, milk 

 and egg, which may be regarded as typical food, contain all 

 of these substances. 



In this article, we are concerned only with the second 

 class of food principles — the non-nitrogenous organic. Of 

 these, the fats do not interest us at present, although impor- 

 tant in all complete food rations. Bees get their albuminous 

 and fatty food elements in the pollen. We thus have before 

 us now only the starch and sugars. These not only contain 

 oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon, but always contain the oxygen 

 and hydrogen in proportion to form water, that is, two atoms 

 of hydrogen to one of oxygen. Thus the formula for starch is 

 Cs Hio O5, and of water is E-z 0. Glucose and laivulose, the 

 sugars of honey, have the following formula, Cii Hl'J Oj. From 

 the fact that starch and sugar contain oxygen and hydrogen 

 in proportion to form water, they are called carbo-hydrates. 

 The carbo-hydrates, then, including starch, and all sugars, as 

 cane sugar, which includes beet sugar, and maple sugar, milk 

 sugar, and all the glucose or reducing sugars, are very impor- 

 tant food elements, so important that we are not left, as in 

 case of most foods, to the chance of securing them in our food 

 that we eat, but the liver is constantly forming liver sugar, 

 which is very much like the sugar of honey. The liver, then, 

 is a marvelous chemist, for it can do what no human chemist 

 can do — form sugar, though we only eat the purest muscle, 

 like the beef's heart. To change nitrogenous material into 



carbo-hydrates, is a wondrous transformation, that man has 

 never yet been able to perform. The liver can. and does, do 

 it. In our early development, before the liver is sufficiently 

 formed to be functionally active, a purely pre-natal organ — 

 the placenta — forms sugar. We all know how children long 

 for candy. This longing voices a need, and is another evidence 

 of the importance of sugar In our diet. 



Until a comparatively recent date cane-sugar was un- 

 known, if we except maple sugar, and that must have been a 

 very unimportant food article. Thus, in the olden time honey 

 formed the almost exclusive sugar, and so must have been a 

 very important substance. We know by the references to it 

 in classic writings, and in the Bible, that it was held in very 

 high regard, as well it might be, for it, with starch, composed 



President A. I. Root. 



the entire stock of carbo-hydrates to be drawn upon by the 

 caterer of the olden time, as he worked to satisfy the need.', 

 or, what is about the same thing, the appetites of his patrons. 

 I have been told by some excellent physicians that thi y 

 thought that some of the worst diseases of modern times — 

 especially Bright's disease of the kidneys — was far more prev- 

 alent than formerly, and they thought it due to the large coj.- 



