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 
analogy 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 1 it tie 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 thetwo immense orders of 
Legutninosa and Graminca, 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. Man)' edible 
roots, stems and leaves have yet to be discovered or im- 
proved into value. 
A few species of the order Crucifem 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 obeyed in this matter by nations who break it in 
most others. 
The ordinance which restricted the Israelites to 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. Hut 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 ; yet 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 ihem 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, perse 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 bouche. 
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 {Ac tin ia mesem brya n them urn), 
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 mar. 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 marii e animals. 
Insects are 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 are largely consumed by the 
