THE GENERAL NATURE OF DIET 149 



eat the two most characteristic of all animal foods, eggs and milk. Con- 

 sistent vegetarians are omnivorous animals, who try to make themselves 

 into herbivora. Some of them, so far as the source of their food is con- 

 cerned, succeed in this endeavor, but only at no little cost in force to 

 themselves. For this extravagance of organic force there are three main 

 causes: (1) The relative great difficulty in general of masticating and 

 digesting the proteid out of cereals, lentils, vegetables, and fruits, as 

 compared with that from fish and meat, eggs, and milk. (2) The rela- 

 tively small absorbability of the alimentary proximate principles derived 

 from foodstuffs other than animal. The table compiled by Atwater 

 (page 137) shows the second of these objections well, and in particular the 

 fact that from animal foods 98 per cent, of the proteid, 97 per cent, of 

 the fat, and 100 per cent, of the carbohydrates is absorbed into the cir- 

 culation and utilized, while from other sorts of foods an average of only 

 82.5 per cent, of proteid is absorbed, 90 per cent, of the fat, and 96.5 

 per cent, of the carbohydrate. The greatest loss, then, is in proteid, and 

 in the struggle for existence of the multitude of men this actual loss of 

 15.5 per cent, is of considerable importance, of far greater moment 

 certainly than are the lives of certain animals which never would have 

 lived at all unless raised solely for this high and biological purpose of 

 feeding man and other animals. One has only to glance at the teeth of 

 man, comparing them with those of cattle and of dogs (page 165), and to 

 understand the rudiments of the digestive chemistry of the various sorts 

 of animals, to be assured that the whole human organism is naturally 

 omnivorous: carnivorous quite as much as herbivorous. 



COOKERY. The variety of foods which most of the brutes naturally 

 use is small. What they shall eat is largely predetermined by instinct, 

 by the chance of what happens to be near and by habits originated by 

 these other two conditions. The food-range of carnivora is doubtless 

 larger than that of herbivora, while naturally the range of omnivora, 

 like many fishes and birds and man, is larger than that of those species 

 which use only plants or only animals. Man's intelligence doubtless 

 would have led him directly to have tried many sorts of food, but it cer- 

 tainly has taught him one great art which has accomplished the same 

 important result indirectly, and which, as much as any other thing, 

 biologically differentiates him from his "poor relations," the brutes. 

 This art is that of cookery, of preparing food for the pleasurable nourish- 

 ment of man and other animals. In this definition of cookery three words 

 are emphatic: "Preparing," indicating the wide range of the art; "pleasur- 

 able," suggesting one of its important purposes; and "nourishment," 

 indicating its basal usefulness, and the essential requisite of all proper 

 cookery. The range of the art of the cook is wide, physiologically at least, 

 for it includes as certainly the proper care of milk and the sterile 

 cleansing of lettuce as the concoction of a seashore chowder or the proper 

 roasting of a turkey. It is the cook's proper business to be in a position 

 to guarantee to his trustful clients the adequate nourishment, the pleasant 

 flavor, and the entire safety of the food he prepares for them. The last 



