PRACTICAL PAPERS—CHEESE AS FOOD. 
215 
I have said that we consume, on an average, about 2 1-4 
parts of fat-forming to one of flesh-forming material, and this 
is all we can consume. Whatever is in excess of these pro¬ 
portions is of no value. Wheat contains over 6 to 1, while 
cheese, it will be seen, contains an excess of albuminoids, that 
is, it has only 11-4 of the respiratory matter to one of’flesh¬ 
forming, whereas it should have 21-4. This disproportion 
comes in consequence of its loss of milk sugar. If eaten 
alone it would not be consumed to the best advantage. Wheat 
flour stands in the opposite relation. It has nearly three times 
as much starch, &c., as is necessary for, or that can be used 
with its albuminoids; and hence, if used alone, is used to a 
great loss, besides the liability to disturb the healthbd condi¬ 
tions of the body by its great excess of starch, &c. A mo¬ 
ment’s thought will enable any one to understand, that to use 
cheese with any preparation of wheat flour, would tend to bal¬ 
ance both their excesses, and make them both more valuable 
and nutritious than they could be alone. And the same is 
true with all the cereal grains, corn, buckwheat, rice and fruit. 
The use of cheese, therefore, with every variety of bread, 
pastry, fruit &c., is not only proper, but earnestly to be recom¬ 
mended, as a positive aid in preserving a proper equilibrium 
in the elements of food. Cheese used in connection with the 
bread grains, &c., as suggested above, has an economical value 
that it is well-worth . while for purchasers of food to consider. 
Cheese is an animal food, and may, with advantage, be sub¬ 
stituted for meat. At the current prices, it is cheaper food 
than butchers’ meat. The average retail price of the latter for 
the past season, at our markets, after divesting it of bone, has 
been twenty cents per pound, and cheese the same. But cheese 
contains more nutriment than meat when equal weights are ta¬ 
ken. Meat, it is true, is perfect nutrition, and is all consumed. 
Assuming no waste, a pound of flesh may make, a pound of 
flesh again. It cannot do more; while a pound of cheese, 
simply by absorbing water, will furnish the material for more 
than a pound of flesh. It is, therefore, the cheaper food of the 
two, and may be profitably substituted for it. But its highest 
