13 



insufficient supply of this important foodstuff. Before life became so artificial 

 as it is to-day, instinct guided human beings to a surprising degree not alone 

 in the right choice of their foods, but in their correct combination also. Eggs, 

 rich in protein, have been eaten for untold generations with bread, ' rich in 

 carbohydrates, and butter, a form of pure fat. Some kind of vegetable has 

 been habitually consumed with meat or poultry ; beans, rich in protein arid 

 carbohydrates, are still allied with fat pork; veal, deficient in fat, is eaten 

 with rashers of bacon; the acid of apple-sauce is a usual combination with 

 the highly concentrated forms of protein and fat found in pork or goose. 



THE FAULT OF TO-DAY 



lies in the failure to adapt old and often in themselves good customs to 

 modern requirements. Thus the combination and quantity of certain common 

 foods, suitable to a man taking hard exercise or whose consumption is limited 

 by the difficulty of securing much of it, become unsuitable when selected by 

 the sedentary town dweller, or by the man in easy circumstances, who can 

 eat just as much as he likes; which is quite a different thing from just the 

 amount required by his body ! This point will be treated more in detail in 

 Part II. Meanwhile, further and fuller reasons must be given why other 

 means 



OF ESTIMATING FOOD-VALUES 



call for consideration, besides the method of identifying its chemical con- 

 stituents. Were a housewife to study these only, she might soon find herself 

 in the same plight as a friend of mine, who had listened with great interest 

 to a lecture on 



THE CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS OF OUR DAILY DIET, 



from which she learned that cheese and dried cod-fish contain very high pro- 

 portions of protein (cheese, 35 per cent.; salt cod, 25 per cent), and that 

 pleasant flavours promote digestion. This lady was most anxious to rear 

 up a family of tall children and loved to consult their tastes whenever 

 possible ; so she proceeded to apply to her menus the information thus 

 recently acquired. Soon the doctor was summoned to a houseful of 

 querulous, dyspeptic children, whose mother, full of the best intentions, had 

 been providing a diet in which cheese and salt cod figured daily ; and who 

 had permitted unrestricted access to jam and pickle jar, as well as to sauce- 

 bottle, in her desire to please their palates. 



Poor woman ; she learnt a very sharp lesson on 



THE RISKS OF TOO SLIGHT A KNOWLEDGE OF A BIG SUBJECT. 



The doctor explained to her that, in the first place, no child under ten 

 or twelve years of age should even know the taste of cheese, salt cod, pickles, 

 or sauces foods to be eaten at any age with discretion. In the second place, 

 he pointed out that she had gained this imperfect information because she 

 had attended but one lecture of a course. In the succeeding lectures to that 

 to which she went, the lecturer had explained why chemical analysis alone, 

 useful as it is in its place, is an insufficient guide as to the food-value to 

 the human body of the articles eaten at the different meals. 



