46 "FISH CULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 
mals. To the epicure it is more dainty, while the poor man can 
purchase nutritive materials in dried agd salt fish for only a 
fraction of their cost in ordinary meats. 
In general, fish has somewhat more water and less solids 
than the beef, pork, mutton, and other common meats. Like the 
latter, the fatter it is the less water it contains. The amount of 
fat in the flesh of different species of fish, and in the same fish at 
different times, varies widely.Cod, bass, and bluefish, have usually 
but little fat, while the flesh of eels, shad, trout, and salmon, in 
their season, is very fat. With the leaner fish we use butter or 
oil to make up the deficiency of fat. 
For the best apprehension of our subject, it will be well to 
devote a few minutes to 
THE CHEMISTY: OF FOODS. 
We eat meat and fish, milk and bread, to build up our bodies, 
to repair their wastes, to supply heat to keep ourselves warm, 
and strength with which to work. This is the common way of 
putting it. Speaking as chemists and physiologists, we should 
say that our food supplies, besides mineral substances and water, 
albuminoids, carbohydrates and fats, whose functions are to be 
transformed into the tissues and fluids of the body, muscle and 
tendon, blood and bone, and by their consumption to produce 
heat and force. That we may fix more clearly in our minds the 
nature and functions of the food materials, allow me to call 
your attention to the table before you, in which I have tried to 
condense some of the more important facts respecting foods and 
nutrition ; 
NUTRIENTS OF FOODS. 
ALBUMINOIDS, CARBOHYDRATES, AND Farts. 
ALBUMINOIDS OR PROTEIN COMPOUNDS. 
NITROGENOUS. 
Contain Carbon, Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Nitrogen. 
In Plants.—ALBUMEN ; CASEIN; FIBRIN, e. g., in gluten of 
wheat. 
