1 86 



NA TURE 



[December 25, 1902 



the fault of our Transatlantic cousins, however, if the reign of 

 ignorance and indifference in this department of domestic life be 

 permitted to continue, for the United States Board of Agricul- 

 ture has recently published a series of bulletins or reports on the 

 dietetic value of food stuffs of various kinds, embodying also the 

 results of dietary studies on individuals carried out in all parts of 

 the country. 



These studies have not been confined to a particular class of 

 persons, but have been undertaken in connection with the well- 

 to-do as well as with the very poor, and embrace people engaged in 

 hard physical work as well as those whose occupation is more 

 sedentary in character ; in fact, the common labourer and the 

 average professional man are both represented in the types 

 selected. 



Of particular interest are the studies recorded of the dietary 

 habits of the Chinese, for tradition assigns to this race the 

 highest attainment in the art of producing from a given area the 

 maximum amount of food material. This success is due firstly 

 to a much more " intense " cultivation of the land than is 

 customary in the western hemisphere, and secondly to the 

 utilisation of a great variety of food plants, many of which are 

 quite foreign to our culinary arts, but the employment of which 

 enables the Chinaman to exploit every kind of soil and climate 

 and compel it to yield up its quota of food material. 



Thus a European visiting the Chinese market of San Francisco 

 would have some difficulty in realising that the wares displayed 

 were for culinary purposes, for amongst other garden plants he 

 sees costly lily roots which he has been in the habit of importing 

 at a high price with which to adorn his conservatories, here 

 offered for sale as an attractive addition to the diner's menu. 

 Many varieties of lily bulbs are eaten both by the Japanese and 

 Chinese, but that principally on offer in the San Francisco 

 Chinese market is the /.. brownii. They are regarded as a 

 delicacy and an especially desirable food for invalids, and are 

 usually eaten but slightly cooked and with the addition of sugar. 

 Chemical analysis shows the albuminoids present to be distinctly 

 greater than in potatoes, but the most important constituent of 

 the bulbs is starch, which is present in sufficient amount to 

 endow them with a high nutritive value as a food stuff. But not 

 only are the bulbs of lilies eaten ; the dried flowers of the lovely 

 day lily, Hemerocallis fulva, so sought after by all lovers of 

 gardens on account of its rich colour and wealth of blossom, 

 are largely used and highly prized by the Chinese as a flivouring 

 ingredient. This article is sold under the name of " Kam 

 cham t'soi " or the " gold-needle vegetable, " and it has been 

 found to possess a not inconsiderable nutritive value, besides 

 being an attractive condiment. 



Space does nut permit of a reference to all the numerous and, 

 to our ideas, strange articles which a Chinaman draws upon for 

 dietetic purposes, but some mention must be made of the plant 

 which both tradition and art have from time immemorial endowed 

 with such a full measure of religious and classical associations. 



To those of us who associate the tfehtmbium speciosiem of the 

 botanist with the "mild-eyed, melancholy lotus eater," of the 

 poet " whose voice was thin as voices from the grave," whilst 

 " deep asleep he seemed yet all awake," the extensive economic 

 use to which the lotus plant is put comes as a surprise. Whilst 

 sought after on account of its surpassing beauty and grown in 

 some parts in great vases placed at the doors of the houses, its 

 more material applications are both numerous and varied. Thus 

 we read, in a report published by Jules Grisard in 1S96, that the 

 stamens are used in China as an astringent remedy and also for 

 the toilet ; the petioles and peduncles furnish a viscous sap 

 employed in India as a remedy for vomiting and diarrhoea ; the 

 fibro-vascular bundles of the petioles are made into lamp wicks, 

 and the carpophore furnish a popular remedy for blood spitting. 

 The seeds are eaten either raw, boiled or roasted, much as we 

 use chestnuts, but the dark green germ is very bitter and is 

 removed before use, and has given rise to the Chinese saying 

 "bitter as the plumule of the lotus seed." A kind of bread is 

 made of the seeds in Kgypt. whilst they are also used as a 

 remedy for indigestion. &c. Starch is extracted from the roots 

 which is highly prized for its reputed strengthening properties : 

 but this does not by any means exhaust all the virtues attributed 

 to this wonderful plant. The Chinese materia medica, however, 

 is said to present too many incongruities to permit of implicit 

 reliance being placed upon thenumerousmedicinal properties asso- 

 ciated with it, but the roots are on sale in considerable quantities, 

 Mr Blasdale informs us in his report, throughout the winter 

 and early spring months in the Chinese market of Sin Francisco. 



NO. 173O, VOL. 67] 



It is popularly supposed that the Chinese live almost entirely 

 upon rice and that their diet is limited in amount, the apostles 

 of vegetarianism not infrequently quoting the Chinaman as an 

 example of how large an amount of hard work can be accom- 

 plished on a vegetarian diet. Studies, however, made in the 

 Chinese quarter of San Francisco ' do not support this theory, 

 but show that whilst much more varied than that of an American 

 ot European, the Chinese diet is neither scanty in amount nor 

 inferior in nutritive quality, whilst it is decidedly more varied 

 and far cheaper than that of the former. 



Thus, in the dietary study of a Chinese dentist's family living 

 in comfortable circumstances and fairly typical of the average 

 Chinese professional man, it was found that whilst the total 

 amount of nutrient actually consumed per man per day agreed 

 very closely with that suggested, as the result of inquiry, as a 

 standard for a man engaged upon light muscular work, viz. 

 112 grams protein and 3150 calories of energy, the cost per 

 man per day in the case of the Chinaman's family was about 

 50 per cent, less than that which experience has shown to be the 

 average expenditure in the family of a professional man of the 

 same position in the United States. 



< In inquiring more closely into the nature of the diet of this 

 Chinese family, we find that as regards the source of animal pro- 

 tein pork took the first place, supplying nearly one third of the 

 total : fish comes next, followed by chicken, and last on the list 

 is beef. The main vegetable food was rice, but considerable 

 quantities of bread and other cereal products were also used, 

 and a large amount of cheap green vegetables, the greater part of 

 the latter being Chinese varieties. Amongst the unfamiliar articles 

 of food recorded were dried crabs, dried shrimps, dried radishes, 

 taro root, bean sprouts, bean cheese, dried fungus, lily petals, 

 algae, bamboo shoots and the leprosy gourd. Tea and coffee were 

 used as beverages, and the daily expenditure per head for these 

 was o'5 cent. 



Dietary studies of Chinese engaged upon hard physical labour 

 such as prevails on a Chinese truck farm or vegetable garden, 

 again, showed that the diet adopted furnished very nearly the 

 amount of animal protein and calories of energy commonly 

 accepted as the standard of that required by a man in active 

 work, i.e. 150 grams protein and 4500 calories. In this case 

 also the diet was very varied, and we find included among the 

 peculiarly Chinese articles of food water-lily roots, dried lily 

 flowers, water chestnuts, bean cheese, dried fungus, &c. The 

 cost per head per day was 197 cents, and Prof, Jaffa, who 

 furnishes the report on these Chinese diet studies, says that as 

 regards the Chinaman's capability for work there is no question; 

 "tew Americans could walk as he does for hours at a .stretch, 

 often up and down hill, burdened with a load of from 300 to 400 

 pounds in the baskets which he carries suspended by ropes to 

 a pole balanced across one shoulder, whilst in adverse cir- 

 cumstances, such as long hours, great heat or exposure to cold 

 and dampness, a Chinaman can not only do more work, but can 

 stand the strain better than a strong white man." 



Let us now turn to some of the dietary studies made in New 

 York city amongst the poorer classes and reported by Messrs. 

 Atwater and Woods. The district selected is described as " one 

 of the worst congested and typical of the portions of the city 

 known as slums," whilst the families selected for dietary study 

 were chosen as representative of the population of the district. 

 The diet of no less than twenty-one different families over a 

 period of ten days was carefully recorded, and the results 

 obtained are of much economic importance, showing that in 

 many cases unwise expenditure is fully as responsible for distress 

 as a too limited income. 



As an instance of this the case of a mechanic's family in very 

 poor circumstances may be cited. This family had received a 

 great deal of help from the Association for the Improvement 

 of the Condition of the Poor, and yet it was found that the 

 expenditure on food was nearly twice that per head in the family 

 of a well-to-do professional man, hardly anything being left 

 over from the wages earned for fuel, lights, clothing and the 

 many other requirements of a family. The food consumed 

 furnished at least 25 grams of protein and 600 calories of 

 energy per head in excess of that required by a man at moderate 

 work. Whilst the amount of food purchased could have been 

 reduced 25 to 30 per cent., a more judicious selection of the 

 same and more skill in its preparation would have enabled a 



1 From inquiries it was ascertained that the system of diet adopted by the 

 Chinese'in San Francisco differs but little from that of the Chinese in their 

 own country. 



