4 THE TEXAS RICE BOOK. 



attention to the economic value of food nor its digestibility in our 

 efforts to gratify the appetite. In fact, fifty years ago such val- 

 ues were unknown to the scientific world. Now we realize the 

 amazing waste resulting from the selection of food on the basis 

 of tastes instead of the amount of nourishment contained. As 

 seven-eighths of the food consumed is on an average expended 

 in the production of energy, the value of foods should largely be 

 based on the amount of energy they will produce in the human 

 body. It is interesting to note what a revolution in prices this 

 would produce. On the basis of the amount of energy a food 

 will impart, taking wheat flour as a standard at 2 1-2 cents per 

 pound; good beef steak (round) should be sold at i i-io cents 

 per pound; porterhouse at i 66-100 cents; turkey the edible part 

 at 2 cents; chickens broilers at 3-4 of a cent; Irish potatoes 

 at 3 i-io of a cent; butter at 5 1-2 cents; cream cheese at 3 i-io 

 cents; red snapper at 4 i-io of a cent; corn meal at 2 47-100 

 cents; oat meal at 2 80-100 cents; invalid food, such as malted 

 milk, at i 6-10 cents, and rice at 2 52-100 cents. 



Three articles in this list are superior to rice, to-wit, oat- 

 meal, butter and cheese, but their superiority is due solely to the 

 large portion of fat in each. The consumption of fat in the body 

 is like burning pitch pine under a boiler. It makes steam, but it 

 soon burns out the shell. Fats make too hot a fire for warm coun- 

 tries. If perfect consumption and slight tax upon the system be 

 considered rice again takes rank among the first of foods in val- 

 ue. Where rice is the principal food dyspepsia and other forms 

 of indigestion are rarely found, and there is perfect health and 

 great endurance. 



In Japan it is a common saying among resident American 

 women, "I could do that if I had a Japanese back," referring to 

 the strength of loin possessed by the native women. Every trav- 

 eler in that distant land has noted with surprise the eas.e with 

 which a jinrickishaw boy will draw a man six miles an hour 

 along the streets of Tokio. In the late rapid advance upon Pe- 

 kin it was found that the Japanese could outmarch all the armies 

 of the Occident. With full equipment they advanced all day at 

 double-quick and repeated it till even the Russians fell behind ex- 

 hausted. These women with backs, these jinrickishaw boys with 

 the speed of a horse, and these double-quick soldiers, live on rice, 

 bean soup and fish. The Chinese coolie works in the rice marsh- 

 es of Siam, under a tropical sun, breathes malaria, drinks stag- 

 nant water, and remains in perfect health. He lives on rice. 



In selecting food for dense population certainty of the crop is 

 an important consideration, especially where-^ny considerable 

 failure is significant of the death of a portion of the people. 

 Rice, when properly cultivated, is the most certain crop of all the 

 cereals. In the Orient it has been bred and trained to withstand 

 the sweeping monsoon and the furious tornado. Last spring a 

 farmer on the Lower Colorado River, in Texas, planted 150 

 acres with imported Japan seed rice. The Galveston tornado de- 



