Muscle being the first consideration in building up a strong body, we need
first to find out the values of different foods as flesh-formers, healthy
flesh being muscle in its most perfect condition. Flesh and fat are never
to be confounded, fat being really a species of disease,--the overloading
of muscle and tissue with what has no rightful place there. There should
be only enough fat to round over the muscle, but never hide its play. The
table given is the one in use in the food-gallery of the South Kensington
Museum, and includes not only the nutritive value, but the cost also, of
each article; taking beef as the standard with which other animal foods
are to be compared, beef being the best-known of all meats. Among
vegetables, lentils really contain most nourishment; but wheat is chosen
as being much more familiar, lentils being very little used in this
country save by the German part of the population, and having so strong
and peculiar a flavor that we are never likely to largely adopt their use.
About an equal amount of nourishment is found in the varied amounts
mentioned in the table which follows:--
TABLE.
Cost about
Eight ounces of lean beef (half-pound) 6 cts.
Pages:
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98