
POULTRY AS FOOD. 169 
meat and animal fat only seems suited to the Eskimo and others 
who live in polar regions, but is not wholesome or practical 
for temperate and warm climates. Hence the ordinary custom 
of living on a mixed diet of meats, or nitrogenous foods, and 
vegetables, or carbonaceous foods, is very sensible because it 
furnishes sufficient of both building material and fuel without 
loading the digestive organs with a great excess of either. 
When we compare the meat of poultry with that of beef, 
veal, lamb and pork, we find that, in general, the refuse in 
poultry is slightly less than in the other meats. ‘The amount 
of refuse, however, varies somewhat with the tastes and habits 
of the consumer. Cocks’ combs and chicken feet are used for 
broth and other purposes in some parts of Europe, but are 
usually thrown away by us. Some persons enjoy eating the | 
crisp skin of well roasted birds, while in other families it is dis- 
carded as undesirable. If the carcass is boiled for broth much 
of the nutritious material in the bones, which would otherwise 
be quite useless, is cooked out and saved from waste. In these 
and other ways it may be seen that the amount of actual refuse 
from poultry is a variable quantity. The figures representing 
the refuse in the accompanying tables include only the bones, 
as the head, feet, and entrails were removed from the birds be- 
fore analysis. If the amount of refuse in poultry is in general 
somewhat less than in the other meats, the amount of water it 
contains is, on the average, slightly more. The difference in 
the amount of. indigestible nutrients in the two classes is sur- 
prisingly small, on the average one-tenth of one per cent. less 
in poultry than in beef, veal and mutton. Reckoning these 
differences together we find that about 1 per cent. more of the 
poultry is actually available to the body than of the other 
meats. On the average, from 2 to 3 per cent. more of protein 
is furnished to the body from poultry than from the others and 
slightly more ash. But while poultry shows a slight superior- 
ity in these respects, in fuel value it is slightly inferior, as on 
the average it contains a smaller proportion of fat. To state 
these facts in another way, a slightly larger proportion of the 
material purchased in poultry is actually used by the body and 
furnishes a slightly greater proportion of the tissue-forming 
substances, but slightly less of the materials which give energy 
and -heat. These differences are very small indeed when 
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