12 THE POTATO 



plete food. Half a pint of rich milk will thus 

 balance a pound of baked potato; or an equally 

 good balance may be made by adding to a pound 

 of potato two ounces of white bread (two ordinary 

 slices) and an ounce of butter. 



"Bunge, the world's greatest authority on the 

 chemistry of foods, has called special attention to 

 the importance of the alkaline salts that are found 

 in vegetables, and in a much larger proportion in 

 the potato than in any other vegetable used as food, 

 the potato containing nearly forty times as much 

 of this useful element as some cereal foods. No 

 farmer would think of feeding his horses or cattle 

 on grain alone. Cereals of all sorts contain a con- 

 siderable excess of acid-forming elements. Grass 

 and herbage of all sorts, as well as fresh vegetables, 

 contain an abundance of alkaline salts, and hence 

 are a necessary part of the diet of animals. Human 

 beings, as Bunge has clearly shown, require such 

 vegetables for the same reason, and the potato is 

 the most valuable of all known foods as a source 

 of these essential elements. This is perhaps the 

 reason why the potato is an almost invariable 

 accompaniment of meat dishes. Meat contains 

 an enormous excess of acid-forming substances, 

 which are to some extent neutralized and anti- 

 doted by the basic salts of the potato. 



" Graham bread with butter, or beans with but- 

 ter, however, are much better combinations with 

 potato than meat, for the reason that both meat 

 and potato are lacking in lime. The body requires 

 about thirteen grains of lime a day. Meat con- 

 tains but half a grain of lime to the pound. The 

 potato contains only about a grain and a half to 

 the pound. Wheat flakes and other whole wheat 

 preparations contain four grains of lime to the 



