Food-Grains of India. 



parts of water in the hundred is no unusual proportion. In the 

 muscular tissue or pure lean of meat the water constitutes three- 

 fourths of the whole. 



Mineral Matter or Salts. — Although nearly all the constituents 

 of food are capable of being burnt, and are therefore spoken of as 

 combustible compounds, yet water and certain necessary saline 

 matters are not the less nutritious because they cannot be burnt. 

 The human body contains in every tissue and secretion some 

 mineral matter ; in the bones and teeth a great deal. Phos- 

 phates, carbonates, sulphates, and chlorides are the chief among 

 the salts of the body. Lime, potash, soda, and magnesia are 

 the metallic bases of these salts. Sometimes, however, these 

 bases are united, not with the mineral acids (phosphoric, sul- 

 phuric, etc.), but with the acids called organic, which invariably 

 contain carbon. The mineral matters are generally supplied in 

 sufficient quantity by an ordinary vegetable diet — the " ash " 

 which figures in all analyses representing roughly the amount 

 of fixed or mineral matter present. Rice is perhaps the only 

 important food in which these compounds are deficient. Common 

 salt, however, has everywhere to be added to food as its two 

 constituents, chlorine and sodium, are present in very small 

 proportion in vegetable products, save in those which grow by 

 the sea-shore or in the sea. Iron and silica, of which minute 

 quantities are essential to the nourishment of the body, are 

 furnished in ample quantity by all kinds of vegetable foods. In 

 the analyses recorded in the following pages, some figures are 

 given representing the percentages of potash and phosphoric 

 ■acid in several food-grains ; it will be noticed that those grains 

 or seeds from which the husk has been removed are poorer 

 in ash than those which have not been so "cleaned." 



Albuminoids, Proteids, or Flesh-formers. — From a colourless 

 substance, which is the chief constituent of the albumen or 

 white of ^^^, a whole group of related organic compounds 

 containing nitrogen has been named "albuminoids." From the 

 variety of forms in which they appear, and the numerous changes 

 they undergo, the term "proteids" has also been applied to 



