68 



SCIENCE. 



NEW SOURCES OF FOOD. 



BY W. N. LOCKINGTON. 



Advance in civilization is marked by an advance in the 

 choice of food. In the words of Spencer, "There is an 

 analog)' between progress in bodily nutrition and progress 

 in mental nutrition. The higher types of mind, like the 

 higher types of body, have greater powers of selecting 

 materials fit for assimilation." 



As there is room for much further advance in mental nu- 

 trition, so is there for much advance in bodily nutrition. 

 The choice of food has hitherto been determined empiri- 

 cally. Prejudice is the usual guide. A few experiments 

 with foods, and finding some hitherto unused or little known 

 article to be exceedingly nutritious, or to supply a want, 

 they recommend its adoption, but either their recommenda- 

 tion is unheeded, or the new article wins its way into favor 

 with exceeding slowness. 



The multitudinous forms of animal and vegetable life 

 could furnish us with many an article of food equal or 

 superior to those in use. We have not yet been through 

 the full range of nature in our search for food. Yet our 

 wide-spreading commerce has made us familiar with many 

 foods that were formerly unknown, so that, prejudiced 

 though we are, our range of food is wide compared with 

 that of our ancestors, or that of a savage, but almost all the 

 plants we grow for food purposes, as well as almost all the 

 animals we eat, are, if not those used by our own ancestors, 

 those which have been used for ages by other peoples with 

 whom we have come in contact. It is the same with 

 animals and vegetables used in the arts. We have adopted 

 them from others — few indeed have had their merits dis- 

 covered and utilized. 



The seed of certain grasses and certain leguminous 

 plants have for thousands of years been the chief sources of 

 nutriment procured by man from the vegetable world, and 

 they fulfill his purpose well; but the two immense orders of 

 Leguminoscz and Graminea, the latter entirely, the former 

 chiefly composed of plants that are adapted for food, could 

 furnish many additional species that would not only vary 

 our dietary, but give us a supply or food under conditions 

 that preclude the growth of species now in use. The num- 

 ber of fruits cultivated might be greatly increased. Almost 

 every section of country furnishes some nut or berry which 

 even in its wild state is pleasant to the taste. 



What might not cultivation do for some of these. It has 

 given us all the varieties of plum and cherry, apple and 

 pear, from sour and unpromising originals, and the long 

 category of vines from one European species. Many edible 

 roots, ster.is and leaves have yet to be discovered or im- 

 proved into value. 



A few species of the order CrucifercE are eaten, while the 

 rest are neglected. Yet the whole order is good for food. 

 A botanist could multiply examples throughout the range 

 of vegetable life, but it will suffice here to give one more ; 

 the mushroom or fungus tribe, so little known, so much 

 dreaded, yet containing so many edible species. Again 

 and again it has been shown that the same amount of ob- 

 servation which enables a man to distinguish night-shade 

 from the potato, or carrots from hemlock, would enable 

 him to discriminate between the poisonous and edible 

 mushrooms, yet only an enthusiastic band ever dares to 

 venture beyond the conventional species. The species 

 favored by the Anglo-Saxon is in ill-favor with the Italian, 

 who has a wider range of edible fungi, as have also the 

 Frenchman and the Russian. 



As mushrooms can be grown in places where ordinary 

 plants will not flourish, an increased taste for and knowl- 

 edge of them would be of great benefit to our poor. If 

 from the vegetable world we turn to the animal, we find 

 prejudice and ignorance still more rampant. The Mosaic 

 law is still jbeyed in this matter by nations who break it in 

 most others. 



The ordinance which restricted the Israelites lo the use, 

 for food purposes, of such quadrupeds only as chew the 

 cud and divide the hoof, was in the then state of knowledge 

 a wise and safe one. 



All such animals are herbivorous, and are better fitted for 



food than carnivorous mammals. They are of large size, 

 furnish an abundance of healthy muscle, and have in many 

 instances been domesticated forages. But numerous other 

 large animals are herbivorous also, and extensive series of 

 small animals are graminivorous or frugivorous, devourers 

 of seeds or fruits. Why should not these be eaten? The 

 omnivorous pig, whose diet, at least in a state of domesti- 

 cation, is not particularly choice, and whose flesh is less 

 nutritious and less wholesome than that of most other 

 mammals, is largely eaten by man, yet the prejudice against 

 horse flesh is almost universal among Aryans. 



We occasionally eat a hare or rabbit, but the rest of the 

 rodentia, mostly seed or root eaters, are neglected. The 

 ground squirrels, a plague on the Pacific slope of the 

 United States, would cease to be so were man to make a 

 systematic onslaught upon them to gratify his taste. Their 

 flavor is pronounced excellent by all who have tried them. 

 The taste for this or that particular article of food is to a 

 great extent acquired. 



Many who ultimately become fond of oysters dislike them 

 at first. The same remark holds true of many other foods 

 in common use. The muscles of all birds and mammals 

 are suitable for food when in a perfectly healthy condition. 

 More care is necessary in the case of carnivorous mammals, 

 since their flesh decays more rapidly ; yet it is doubtful 

 whether one person in ten could distinguish cat from rabbit 

 were they cooked alike and the more tell-tale portions re- 

 moved. 



The strong or fishy flavor of marine mammals and birds 

 would doubtless be objebted to by those whose gustatory 

 nerves had learned to relish high game and Limburger 

 cheese, yet as safe sources of nutriment they would at least 

 be superior to the former. 



Civilized nations of Aryan descent devour many mammals 

 and birds, some batrachia and many fishes ; but the inter- 

 vening class of reptiles is almost wholly ignored. Why? 

 Simply because of the pious horror of the snake. Lizards, 

 as they have long tails, are viewed only a little less unfavor- 

 ably, while tortoises— thanks to their widely different form 

 — are accepted with some reservation ; j'et the flesh of snakes 

 and lizards is as firm, as nutritious and as healthy as that of 

 fishes, if not more so ; and those who have eaten them when 

 among peoples who do not share our prejudices, have had 

 their own shaken. The Frenchman, who is a good cook, 

 eats frogs ; the Englishman cannot conquer his prejudice. 



Leaving the vertebrata ; the choice made by civilized 

 nations among the invertebrata is highly eccentric. 



A Spaniard or Frenchman relishes a cuttle fish, which an 

 American or Englishman shudders at ; and the harmless 

 snail and slug, per se as good food as oysters, are esteemed 

 by some nations and detested by others. 



There is little doubt that the great majority of mollusks 

 of sufficient size are healthy food, and that man has yet to 

 discover among them many a bonne douche. 



Descending lower still, sea-urchins, sea-anemones and 

 sea-cucumbers are eaten by some highly civilized nations, 

 and who can tell how acceptable they might prove to an 

 Anglo-Saxon could he but conquer the horror he feels at 

 their appearance. 



P. H. Gosse, so well known for his interesting works on 

 natural history, tells us how he cooked the common sea- 

 anemone of the English coasts {Actinia mesembryanthemum), 

 and how fond his little one became of it, asking for "more 

 tinnies." 



Probably the classes of animals which are of least value 

 as food to man are those included in the sub-kingdom 

 Arthropoda, namely, insects, arachnids, myriapods and 

 Crustacea, the multitudinous types groaped together as 

 Vermes, or worms, and the uni-celled organisms, or Proto- 

 zoa. Some of the larger Crustacea, known as crabs, lob- 

 sters, crayfish and shrimps, are eaten as delicacies, and it 

 is probable that many other species are equally edible, but 

 the vast majority of the class is only of value to man inas- 

 much as it furnishes food for larger marir e animals. 



Insects arc eaten by many wild tribes. Some of the 

 Indians of the Pacific coast find in the abundance of grass- 

 hoppers that plague the white man, an abundant store of 

 food. Similar Orthoptera arc largely consumed by the 



