Graham Lusk

“ Heat from the sun enters into the composition of the food substances when they are being built up in the plants, and this energy, which is latent in the food, is set free in the animal body and is used as the source of power behind all the physical activities of the body. The energy can all be recovered as heat and measured in the form of calories. According to the principles of [24] the law of the conservation of energy, heat is not destructible. The understanding of the value of a calorie is indispensable for the comprehension of nutrition. ”

“ Any extraneous muscular movements are carried out in virtue of an increased oxidation of materials and the heat production rises above the level of the basal metabolism with increased muscular effort. For a long time the power for the maintenance of the human machine can be furnished by its own body fat, as is seen in cases of prolonged fasting, but usually the power is derived instead from the food-fuel which is taken. The great question in the world to-day is whether or not a sufficient quantity of food-fuel is available to support the human family. ”

“ If one gives an animal a mixture of purified food-stuffs, pure protein, pure starch, purified fat, and a mixture of salts like the salts of milk, the animal will surely die. But if one substitutes butter-fat for purified fat, and adds a water solution of the natural salts of milk, the animal lives and thrives.
Again, the illustration shows how corn may be so supplemented with other food-stuffs as to become extremely valuable in nutrition. It is especially valuable at the present time because corn is comparatively cheap and plentiful. ”

“ The poor in the mill towns of the South lived too exclusively upon a corn diet without admixture of milk or fresh animal food or even of cabbage, and pellagra has been the consequence.
The Food Administrator asks us to eat corn bread and save the wheat for export. It is a very small sacrifice to eat corn bread at one meal or more a day. Indian corn saved our New England ancestors from starvation, and we can in part substitute it for our wheat and send the latter abroad to spare others from starvation. The simplest elements of patriotism demand that we do this. ”

“ Meat, however, is by no means the essential that we have been wont to suppose and partial deprivation of it is not inconsistent with high bodily efficiency. Certainly no patriotic citizen would wish to insist on his customary allowance of roast pig at the cost of the food supply of his brothers in the trenches.
The United States Department of Agriculture has estimated that a pig that has reached the weight of 150 pounds should be slaughtered, because beyond that weight the cost of the quantity of feed required to maintain the animal is out of proportion to the gain in food value of the pig. ”

“ Not only is the taking of meat without beneficial relation to the capacity for muscular work, but, in fact, an exclusive meat diet results in the sensation that work is being accomplished with difficulty. When meat is metabolized it stimulates the body to a higher heat production, as great an increase as 55 per cent. having been observed in a resting man. No other food-stuff will accomplish so great an increase. ”

“ It would save food for milk production if steers were eaten as veal and not fed up into beef cattle. A suitable tax on all steers over a year old would accomplish this result. If all heifers were developed into milch cows and no cow capable of giving milk in quantity were slaughtered, the country would be placed on a much better basis than at present. It might make beef expensive, but there is every reason why it should be expensive. It would increase the dairy business, which is evidently a need of the times, something for the protection of the [20] welfare of mankind. ”

“ If one wishes to determine from the basal metabolism table the heat production of a person who is confined to his room, one should add to the metabolism of the twenty-four hours the increase above the basal for those hours of the day during which he is sitting in a chair or standing.
Passing to a consideration of the subject of mechanical work done by a man, one finds that it requires about 1.1 calories to transport a pound of body weight three miles during an hour, and that increasing power must be generated if the speed is increased above this rate of maximal economic velocity. ”

“ At any rate, it is clear that at the present time enthusiastic but ill-considered "booming" of live stock production may do more harm than good. If it is desirable to restrict or prohibit the production of alcohol from grain or potatoes on the ground that it involves a waste of food value, the same reason calls for restriction of the burning-up of these materials to produce roast pig. This means, of course, a limited meat supply. ”

“ The British people have suffered no hardship in the recent reduction of their meat ration.
A British Commission has reported to Parliament that it takes three times as much fodder to produce beef as it does to produce milk or pork of the same food value. Since cows eat chiefly hay and grass and pigs eat grain the cost of the production of a unit value of milk is much less than the cost of the same value in the form of pork. It takes only fifty per cent. more fodder to produce veal than to produce pork. ”

“ In most countries of the world people are short of food. In America we have more food than in any other land, and we must, therefore, be careful in our abundance, saving it to the utmost, while, at the same time, conserving the safety of our own people. ”

“ But while the people of our country are entirely given up as they are at present, to gross and promiscuous feeding on the dead carcasses of animals and to the untiring pursuit of wealth, it is perhaps wholly vain for a single individual to raise his voice on a subject of this kind. ”

“ In ordinary times the consumption of beef dripping, which is considerable among the poor, would to a large extent supply the lacking properties of a vegetable-oil margarine. But at the present time beef itself is expensive, and the opportunities of obtaining dripping are therefore minimized. At the same time the three important foods for children already enumerated (milk, butter, eggs) have risen in cost, so as to be almost prohibitive to those with slender incomes. ”

“ Upon such a diet, or less than that, the people of Germany are now living to-day. The principle involves eating meat very sparingly, taking half a piece where one would have formerly been taken, and using it only for its flavor. The wing of a chicken has little meat on it and yet if eaten together with vegetables it gives the meal a different quality than it would have had without it, and to this extent its use is warranted. The muscles are active when hard labor is done, but the muscles do not need meat for the performance of their work. A fasting man may have considerable power. ”

“ If one takes milk with other foods, meat may be dispensed with. Thus Hindhede advocates as ideal a diet consisting of bread, potatoes, fruit, and a pint of milk. Splendid health, both of body and mind, the peasants' comparative immunity to indigestion, kidney and liver disease, as well as an absolute immunity to gout, is the alluring prospect held out by the following dietary:
This bread-potato-fruit diet gives a very excellent basis of wholesome nutrition. ”

“ The quality of the protein in corn is poor, but the protein in the leaves supplements that of corn, so that a good result is obtained. Olive oil when taken alone is a poor fat in a nutritive sense, but when taken with green leaves, these furnish that one of the peculiar accessory substances, commonly known as vitamines, which is present most abundantly in butter-fat, and gives to butter-fat and to the fat in whole milk its dominant nutritive value. ”

“ Alcohol gives a sham sensation of added force and in reality decreases the ability to do work. Alcohol is the greatest cause of misery in the world, and as Cushny has put it, if alcohol had been a new synthetic drug introduced from Germany, its importation would long since have been forbidden. On the other hand, good beer makes poor food [42] taste well. It also frequently leads to overeating. The cure for bad food is to have our daughters taught how to cook a decent meal. ”

“ Cattle and sheep, on the other hand, although less efficient as converters, can utilize products which man can not use and save some of their potential value as human food. From this point of view, as well as on account of the importance of milk to infants and invalids, the high economy of food production by the dairy cow deserves careful consideration, although of course the large labor requirement is a counterbalancing factor. ”

“ Eat meat sparingly, rich and poor, laborer and indolent alike. Meat does not increase the muscular power. When a person is exposed to great cold, meat may be recommended, for it warms the body more than any other food. In hot weather, for the same reason, it causes increased sweating and discomfort. In general, twice as much meat is used as is now right, for to produce meat requires much fodder which might better be used for milk production.
4. Eat corn bread. ”

“ Bread, corn, rice, macaroni, cane-sugar, these are par excellence the food-fuels of the human machine. In the dinner-pail of the laborer they testify as to the source of his power. They are convertible into glucose in the body, which glucose gives power to the human machine. They may be used for the production of work without of themselves increasing the heat production of the worker, as happens after meat ingestion. (See p. 18.) Fat also may be used as a source of energy, but unless carbohydrate is present a person can not work up to his fullest capacity. ”

“ The additional 80 calories is the equivalent of a butter ball weighing a third of an ounce, or an ounce of bread or half a glass of milk. It would seem to be the height of absurdity to object to such a trifle. But if this excess in food intake be continued for a year, the person will gain nine pounds and at the end of ten years ninety pounds. Such a person would find that he required a constantly increasing amount of food in order to transport his constantly increasing weight. ”

“ If one takes a pint of whole milk daily, or even, as we have seen, cabbage or beet-tops in its stead, one may take fat in the forms of olive oil or cottonseed oil, corn oil, cocoanut oil, peanut butter, or in other vegetable oils, without possible prejudice to health. ”

“ Since the total energy for the maintenance of our bodies can be measured in calories, and since this energy serves for the maintenance of the nations of the world, is it not surprising how little even educated people know about the subject? ”

“ The flavor of meat is such that it lends itself to the easy preparation of a palatable meal, but this flavor could undoubtedly be as well obtained if the present consumption of meat were cut in two. It is a question of habit, but with the present reduced supply of meat one must adopt new habits. It would be highly desirable if the grain now fed to fatten beef were given to maintain herds of milch cows.
Indulgence in meat is due to the desire for strong flavor. With the increased distribution of wealth, the demand for meat grows. ”

“ The vegetable-oil margarines still remain comparatively cheap, and the danger is that unless measures are taken to insure a proper milk supply for infants at a reasonable charge, these infants may run the risk of being fed, so far as fat is concerned, entirely upon an inferior brand of margarine, destitute of the growth-promoting accessory substance. It would be truer economy even for the poor to purchase smaller quantities of an oleo-oil margarine if they cannot afford the luxury of real butter. ”

“ Rather than seek to stimulate live stock husbandry the ideal should be to adjust it to the limits set by the available supply of forage crops and by-product feeding stuffs while, on the other hand, utilizing [21] these to the greatest practicable extent, because in this way we save some of what would otherwise be a total loss....
The hog is the great competitor of man for the higher grades of food, and in swine husbandry as ordinarily conducted we are in danger of paying too much for our roast pig. ”

“ Fisk he is a better insurance risk if after thirty-five he is under the weight which is the average for those of his years. Reduction in weight reduces the basal requirement for food, and reduces the amount of fuel needed for moving the body in walking. The most extreme illustration of the effect of emaciation upon the food requirement is afforded by a woman who after losing nearly half of her body weight was found to need only 40 per cent. ”

“ But is meat desirable? The Italian experimenters believed that the addition of four or eight ounces of meat to the dietaries of some of their subjects increased their physical and also their mental powers. The increase in mental power due to change in diet has always seemed to me to be a figment of the imagination and not susceptible of demonstration. Thomas lived for twenty-four days on a diet of starch and cream, during four days of which time the very small quantity of three ounces of meat was taken daily, and he found his mental and muscular power unchanged. ”

“ The food-fuel with which to accomplish work is [35] necessary not only for the soldier, but for the workman behind the line, and it should be adequate in quantity, satisfactory in quality, and not exorbitant in cost. ”