FOODS AND FOOD HABITS 



of vegetable products contain considerable starch which can 

 easily be converted into sugar, and almost any of these may 

 serve as a source of alcohol. The fermenting agent in all 

 cases is yeast. This is sometimes intentionally added to the 

 fermentable mass; but sometimes fermentation is caused 

 simply by the action of the so-called wild yeasts, i. e. germs 

 which exist everywhere in nature, and which may get into the 

 material from the air, or more often from the skin of the fruit 

 or other substance which furnishes the sugar. In wine and 

 cider making, for instance, the yeasts are on the skius of the 

 fruits, having dropped there from the air. The yeasts ferment 

 the sugars, converting them into alcohol and carbon dioxid, 

 and the fermented product is used to form the basis of 

 alcoholic and fermented liquors. 



Alcohol has a variety of undesirable effects upon the 

 different functions of the body, and they are sometimes even 

 disastrous, as will be pointed out from time to time in later 

 pages. Here a word is in place concerning its possible food 

 value. 



Alcohol has no power to build up the body. It furnishes 

 no tissue-building material and neither makes nor repairs any 

 organ. Hence it does not nourish in the sense of building up 

 the body. When taken in any except the smallest quantities, 

 it is nearly all excreted from the body as alcohol; it is thus 

 not utilized by the body and simply taxes the excreting 

 organs. 



A small amount of the alcohol taken, however, is not thus 

 excreted but is consumed in the body, and the effect of this 

 small portion must be considered. It is oxidized, and when 

 alcohol is oxidized, it yields heat. This will occur if the oxi- 

 dation takes place in a lamp and none the less surely if in the 

 body; hence to a certain extent, alcohol is a source of heat. 

 But only a small amount of our body heat can be derived from 

 alcohol, not enough to constitute any considerable part of the 

 supply needed for a day. Though a small quantity may fur- 



