Consommé

“ We need to concern ourselves particularly with the character of our public water supply, air supply and food supply, the number of bacteria in milk, the fitness for human consumption of the meat, fowl, fish, and shell-fish sold in the public markets, and the use of adulterants and preservatives in canned and bottled goods. ”

“ Constituents of Food.—It is hardly necessary to say that, whether one lives on animal or vegetable food, the same constituents must be present. Water, starch, or sugar, salts, and flesh-formers are not less demanded by one class of the community than the rest. ”

“ There are many sorts of Consumptions; as, some are Consumptions of the Vital Parts, as the Liver, Lungs, Kidneys, or the like Parts: Others, a Consumption of the Radical Parts: Others a Consumption of the Spiritous Parts: Other Consumptions are only of the Flesh; which, in my opinion, is the only Curable Consumption. But, all Consumptions, are not only an Alteration, but a Wasting and Dis-uniting of the Fundamental Parts; only those Consuming Parts do, as it were, steal away by degrees; and so, by degrees, the Society of a Human Creature is dissolved. ”

“ But when the inexorable necessity for duly considering economy has been complied with, the next aim is to render food as easily digestible as possible, and agreeable to the senses of taste, smell, and sight. ”

“ The influence of visible supply or of passing or permanent opportunity of possession is a most powerful suggestion in the cultivation of economy or prodigality, of greed or moderation, of healthy nouriture or plethoric indigestion.
Man was constructed and intended to hunt his food among the grains, nuts, roots, and other fruits of earth, and in hunting food to earn a keen appetite. He found his food scattered and ate it as he found it, with the true appreciation that difficulty of possession gives. In the primitive state the requirements of natural digestion are safeguarded ”

“ The daily rate of wasting of the system which I have mentioned is that which is brought to light by very many observations, carried on by many persons in various ways, with a view to regulate the food-rations of soldiers and sailors and prisoners, and other ration-fed people; and as to the proportion of carbon and nitrogen in lean meat and in bread the evidence is sufficiently conclusive. ”

“ To obtain the quantity, which he requires to meet the demands of his system, a man consumes every year, about three-fourths of a ton, or fifteen hundred pounds of water. Some of this supply comes, of course, from waste and vegetables, which are, on an average, three-fourths water, and from bread, which will average 45 per cent. A certain quantity is also generated in the combustion of food, but the greater proportion is taken in drink. ”

“ No one can explain all the different intricate changes which a particle of food undergoes from the moment it enters the mouth until its final transformation into tissue or some form of energy; but by comparing the income with the outgo, ideas may be gained of what goes on in the economy of the body, and of the proportion of nutrients used, and some of the intricate and complex chemical changes which the different food principles undergo in the various processes of digestion, assimilation, and use. ”

“ Traversing here and there the earth's surface, covered by that vegetation on which human life depends, and in which, as we say, the units of a society are imbedded, there are formed indefinite paths, along which some of the necessaries of life occasionally pass, to be bartered for others which presently come back along the same channels. Note, however, that at first little else but crude commodities are thus transferred—fruits, fish, pigs or cattle, skins, etc.: there are few, if any, manufactured products or articles prepared for consumption. ”

“ If, in the whole animal economy, where all is admirable, there be one operation which on reflection appears more wonderful than another, and which evinces in a higher degree the prodigious resources and power of the Creator in fashioning every thing to His own will, it is perhaps that by which the same kind of nutriment is extracted from the most opposite varieties of food consumed by living beings. ”

“ Object.—Rational feeding of man has for its object the regulation of the food supply in accord with the demands of the body. It is based upon the same principles as the rational feeding of animals; in each, the best results in the way of health, amount of labor performed, and economy are secured when the body receives nutrients sufficient for the production of heat and energy and for the repair of worn-out tissues. Rational feeding is simply regulation of the food, both as to kind and amount, to meet the needs of the body. ”

“ If the food be cereals or condensed meats, it is sent by pneumatic express, done up in bottles or in pellets. All such food is carried about in one’s pocket. We take our food as we drink water, wherever we may happen to be, when it’s handy and when we need it. ”

“ Economy.—On the ground that the assimilable nutriment from a given weight of selected fruit and grain and nut and vegetable foods will cost less than the same nutriment obtained from flesh foods.
3. Social Economy.—On the ground that an acre of cultivable land under fruit and vegetable cultivation will produce from two to twenty times as much food as if the same land were utilized for feeding cattle. ”

“ A glance at the table (page 283) will show us that both fuel value and tissue-building value is present in some foods from vegetable sources, as well as in those from animal sources, and that the vegetable foods are much cheaper. The American people are far less economical in their purchase of food than most other nations. ”

“ The vegetable world is incomparable in its efficiency for supply of food for man when its resources are thoroughly understood and correctly applied. 3. The supplies of food for man are most economically and safely drawn direct from the vegetable world. ”

“ That of considerably diminishing the consumption of sugar, the produce of the cane, and of giving the greatest extension to the manufactories of grape syrup.
2. That of preserving for use in all countries and all seasons, a number of alimentary and medicinal productions, which being very abundant in some places at certain seasons, are therefore wasted, being considered as of no value; while the same substances, under other circumstances, being much wanted, become of double and even four-fold value; and sometimes cannot be procured at any price, such as butter and eggs. ”

“ Every change in the consumption-customs of a people, in this respect, should be most carefully observed; thus, for instance, whether brandy is exchanged for beer, tobacco for meat, cotton for cloth, or the reverse. ”

“ Man, and all domestic animals, may be supported, may even be fattened, upon vegetable food alone: vegetables, therefore, must contain all the substances which are necessary to build up the several parts of animal bodies, and to supply the waste attendant upon the performance of the [Pg 231] necessary functions of animal life. Let us consider what these substances are, and in what quantities they must be supplied to the human body. ”

“ Cotton, linen, china, paper, sugar, tea, coffee, cereals, flour.
4. The household products that are exported.
Nature Study.—1. The parts of plants used as food.
2. The natural sources of our common foods, such as cornstarch, flour, breakfast cereals, tea, coffee, cocoa, sugar, salt, cheese, butter.
3. The sources of common household substances, such as coal-oil, gasolene, paraffin, turpentine, washing soda, whiting, bathbrick, soap. ”

“ Among the number of substances used in domestic economy which are now very generally found sophisticated, may be distinguished—tea, coffee, bread, beer, wine, spiritous liquors, salad oil, pepper, vinegar, mustard, cream, and other articles of subsistence. ”

“ The steadiness and clear shining of the flame of a lamp depend upon quality, as well as amount of the oil supplied, and, too, the texture of the wick; and so all human life and work are equally made or marred by the food which sustains life, as well as the nature of the constitution receiving that food.
Before the nature and quality of food can be considered, we must know the constituents of the body to be fed, and something of the process through which digestion and nutrition are accomplished. ”

“ At first this method would be simple and natural, and derived from a very limited observation, but in the progress of society, the wants and occupations of mankind would lead them to invent means, by which the more perishable alimentary substances of one season, might be reserved for the consumption of another, or the superfluous productions of distant countries might be transported to others where they are more needed. ”

“ It is upon this principle that luxury renders the great quantities of food we take in necessary; and those species of food which satisfy most by their stimulus are by no means such as are the most nutritious. It is also upon this principle, that in cases of accidental hardship from want of food, or in barren and inclement countries where food is scarce, the body is supported, in some measure, by what contains little or no nutritious matter, such as pure water, or the bark of trees powdered and kneaded into a sort of bread, as we are told of the inhabitants of Lapland. ”

“ It has been already remarked that there are three great purposes to which the food consumed is appropriated; the increase of weight of the animal—the object the feeder has in view and desires to promote—the supplying the waste of the tissues, and the process of respiration, both of which are sources of loss of food, and which it must necessarily be his aim to diminish as much as possible. ”

“ It is clear, therefore, that as the money represented one portion of the consumable commodities which were ready to pay for the labour employed in giving a new value to the coals, it might represent another portion—the meat, for instance, without the drink; or it might represent all the consumable commodities, meat, drink, lodging, clothes, fuel, which that particular labourer might want; and even represent the accumulation which he might extract out of his self-denial as to the amount of meat, drink, lodging, clothes, and fuel which he might require as a consumer ”

“ A more complicated instance is found in the dominant quality of our industrial activity. It may be dogmatically declared that the roots of its evils are found in the separation of production from consumption—that is, actual consummation, fulfilment. A normal case of their relationship is found in the taking of food. Food is consumed and vigor is produced. The [pg 271] difference between the two is one of directions or dimensions distinguished by intellect. In reality there is simply conversion of energy from one form to another wherein it is more available—of greater significance. ”

“ When fruits and vegetables are plentiful, the supply is often greater than the demand for immediate consumption. Then, unless the surplus food is preserved in some way for later use, there will be a serious loss of food material. The third is to produce quality. If the home-canned product can be made superior to that commercially preserved, then, even at an equal or a slightly higher cost, it will pay to preserve food in the home.
5. Of the methods of preserving perishable foods, only two, namely, canning and drying, are considered in this Section. ”

“ Shows how food is digested and gives the constituent elements of all food products, their cost, food values, time of digestion, etc., Comparative value of beef, mutton, pork, eggs, fish, fowl, oysters, the grains, breads, peas, beans, milk, butter, cheese, sugar, beer, fruits, nuts, etc., which make flesh, bone, nerve; which gives most for least money. ”

“ Human nutrition is a long process. There’s many a ship ’twixt the cup and the lip, to paraphrase an old proverb. Food is produced by the human race collectively,—not by individuals for their own consumption, but by interrelated groups of individuals, all over the world, for the world’s consumption. ”

“ For it is a reasonable and sufficient reply, that the whole history of civilisation, as it has been a history of the slow but, upon the whole, continuous advance of the human race in the arts of Refinement, so, also, has it proved that demand creates supply—that it is the absence of the former alone which permits the various substances, no less than the various forces, yet latent in Nature to remain uninvestigated and unused. ”

“ Conserves consist of fresh vegetable matters beat into a uniform mass with refined sugar, and they are intended to preserve the virtues and properties of recent flowers, leaves, roots, peels, or fruits, unaltered, and as near as possible to what they were when fresh gathered, and to give them an agreeable taste. ”

“ The shortest period within which additions can be made to the supply of food and raw material of the vegetable kind is in general a year, and, if the commodity be of animal origin, the minimum is considerably larger. ”

“ This is a fair metaphor, because we have all been forced to learn the precise nature of our limitations with regard to the consumption of food. Is it unreasonable to hope that in time we may become as conscious of our limitations in the consumption of other materials no less important? ”

“ In short, to answer your question, Mr. Van Emmon, as to how we are all fed—we do not grow our food at all; we go straight to the practically unlimited supply of raw materials under our feet, and manufacture our food, outright! ”

“ Merchants hawked their wares with raucous cries, charcoal braziers smoked under assorted foodstuffs, and the air was redolent with the odors of food, people, and the accumulated living of many centuries. ”

“ I was told by persons who understand the language, that there is much poetry in its every-day use, and the water carrier, as I have just explained, is poetical in his appeals, and so are the street peddlers of all grades. The venders of vegetables, of candy, of bread, and other edibles do not, as a general thing, name the articles they have for sale, but they address appeals to the hungry, allude to the tortures of hunger, and the pleasure of satisfying it. ”