Food product

“ It is proper to remember that the white flour from which our bread is chiefly made, and which is deemed the staff of life, is a purely artificial product—a selection from that perfect food combination which exists in wheat. A competent food chemist has compared the regular milling processes to one by which the fat part of an ox should be saved for food, and the lean part—the albuminous or nitrogenous portion—discarded and given to the dogs. ”

“ Foods may be considered under different classifications. First, as to general appearance and use three classes may be made,—foods, beverages and condiments. As types of the first division of these foods may be mentioned cereals and their preparations, meat and its preparations (except meat extracts) , fish, fowl, and game. Beverages are those liquid food products which are more valued for their taste and flavor than actual nutritive value. As types of beverages may be mentioned wines, beers, distilled spirits and liquors of all characters, tea, coffee, cocoa, chocolate, etc. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The subject of nutrition was given a prominent place. The more elementary chemical substances constituting the principal natural food products were shown in glass bottles and, further, shown by charts to which the percentage number of each elementary substance was attached, with the daily amounts of each required by man. Against a wall, there were arranged the quantities of water, salts, proteids, fats and carbo-hydrates which man consumed in a year and in the form of natural foodstuffs. ”

“ Plant leaves give us lettuce and other salads, cabbage and the like. Peas and beans and nuts are seeds, and cauliflower is a part of the flower. The fruit as a whole is familiar in many forms. Manufactured vegetable food materials include flour, meals, breakfast cereals, starch, sugar, molasses and sirups. The animal kingdom gives us the flesh of animals, fish and shell fish, and substances derived from animals, like eggs, milk, and the milk products, cream, butter, and cheese. ”

“ It is a fair inference from these facts that creatures like ourselves, who are not provided with a crop or compound stomach, and manifestly secrete less saliva than horses or other grain-munching animals, require some preliminary assistance when we adopt graminivorous habits; and one part of the business of cookery is to supply such preliminary treatment to the oats, barley, wheat, maize, peas, beans, &c., which we cultivate and use for food. ”

“ The preparation of food is of two kinds—public and private. The public consists in the ordinary modes of converting minerals and gases into vegetables, and vegetables into animals with milk, cream, cheese, flesh meat, and marrow-bones. ”

“ When by these or other means we convert vegetable tissue into dextrin and sugar, as it is naturally converted in the ripening pear, and as it has been artificially converted in our laboratories, we shall extend our food supplies in an incalculable degree. Swedes, turnips, mangold-wurzels, &c., will become delicate diet for invalids; horse beans, far more nutritious than beef; delicate biscuits and fancy pastry, as well as ordinary bread, will be produced from sawdust and wood shavings, plus a little leguminous flour to supplement the nitrogenous requirement. ”

“ It is to be noted that, ordinarily, the foods which supply carbohydrates are flour, corn meal, cereal products, potatoes, beans, sugar, and milk; those which supply fat are milk, butter, lard, and meats; and those which supply protein in [Pg 263] liberal amounts are beans, cheese, meats, oatmeal, cereals, bread, and milk.
260. Average Composition of Foods.—The amounts of nutrients in foods are determined from the average composition of the foods. These figures for average composition are based upon analyses of a large number of samples of food materials. ”

“ We shall see that before the middle of the first millennium the principal articles of food are artificial productions identically like the natural foods formerly used such as milk, flour, meat, butter, fruits, vegetables etc. In addition to these many other foods were invented similar and equivalent to these natural productions. ”

“ When we enquire more minutely into the chemical constitution of the different alimentary materials, which promote the growth, support the strength, and renew the waste of our body, we find that animal substances are not suited to form the whole of 9our daily food ”

“ Foods rich in vitamine are represented by milk, fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, and whole grain products. Foods poor in these substances are represented by sterilized and preserved milks, dried fruits, dried vegetables, white flour, and polished rice. ”

“ Those food substances which are the most wholesome and healthful are the ones to be chosen, but proper choice cannot be made unless the buyer knows of what the particular food consists and what it is expected to do. To aid in the selection of food, therefore, it is extremely necessary to become familiar with the five substances, constituents, or principles of which foods are made up; namely, water, mineral matter, or ash, protein, fat, and carbohydrate. ”

“ By the substitution of a little cheese and an orange for the oatmeal, a meal containing about the same fuel value and proportion of protein could be arranged, and it would certainly appeal more to the appetite, and furnish better proportions of ash constituents.
In the construction of the menu for the day or meal, we must consider not only food values and time of day and combinations which shall be digestible, but flavor, color, texture, and temperature of our foods. The study of digestible combinations belongs to the science of nutrition. ”

“ Hence our food-supplies, whether natural or prepared, offer increased variety of flavor, if not of nutritive qualities, and foods which were formerly restricted to the few are now commonly found on the tables of the many.
"Scientific research in every civilized nation has also diligently busied itself in the elucidation of the subject, and our knowledge has been increased in reference to the chemical composition, preparation, and physiological effects of food. ”

“ Variety in the use of grains is as necessary as in the use of other food material, and the numerous grain preparations now to be found in market render it quite possible to make this class of foods a staple article of diet, if so desired, without their becoming at all monotonous. ”

“ The varieties of nut-butters are many, and the various combinations of nuts and vegetables making potted savouries, add to a long list of highly nutritious and palatable nut-foods. There are the pulses dried and entire, or ground into flour, such as pea-, bean-, and lentil-flour. There are the cereals, barley, corn, oats, rice, rye, wheat, etc., from which the number of preparations made such as breakfast foods, bread, biscuits, cakes, pastries, etc., is legion. (One firm advertises twenty-three varieties of prepared breakfast foods made from cereals.) ”

“ Raw and Cooked Foods Compared.—Raw and cooked foods differ in chemical composition mainly in the content of water. The amount of nutrients on a dry matter basis is practically the same, but the structural composition is affected by cooking, and hence it is that a food prepared for the table often differs appreciably from the raw material. Cooked meat, for example, has not the same percentage and structural composition as raw meat, although the difference in nutritive value between a given weight of each is not large. ”

“ But it has been demonstrated, that the general use of certain articles, for instance, tea and coffee, betel-nut, tobacco, and wine, depends upon the presence in those substances of elements which are often identical, and which are necessary to the maintenance of the animal economy, more or less, according to the presence or absence of other elements in the food, the different occupation, mode of living, and so on. ”

“ Therefore, overall nutrient content of a specific fruit or vegetable, whether fresh or preserved, may be about the same.
Top quality, garden fresh foods, served in season, provide the greatest satisfaction when served fresh as table-ready food. Individual preferences for market fresh, frozen canned, or dried food will differ. Since nutrient content is nearly the same, the choice is up to the consumer. Even more important is the choice of vegetables and fruits for a good diet. ”

“ Do not milk, butter, cheese, and eggs contain the same kind of matter as animal food does?" Strictly speaking, inasmuch as any article of food contains elements of nutrition, these elements are identical; but the form of the matter in which they are contained may be very different in producing or not the heating and stimulating effects which are opposed to the healthy condition of the body. Chemistry shews, moreover, that the elements of nutrition originate in vegetables. ”

“ It is my desire to present in this book food combinations as perfect as can be produced from food material with our present methods of milling and preliminary treatment. Many people have become so delicate in structure that they cannot use coarse breads and cereals; therefore, a variety of different cereal foods have been included. Vegetable foods, such as are rich in minerals, have been added to the breakfast foods in place of sugar and beverages. ”

“ Whatever may be the material, therefore, from which bread is made, when the artificial preparation is of that simple character which leaves the proportions of 25nutritious and innutritious properties, as nature combined them, and effects little change in the nutritious principles, and retains the natural requisition for the function of the teeth, and thus secures the proper chewing of the food and the mixing of it with the fluids of the mouth, and swallowing of it slowly, the artificial process militates very little, if at all, against any of the physiological or vital interests of the body. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Vegetables, fruits, cereals, bread, nuts and meats furnish the essentials. Sugar and fat have only part of them. Coffee and tea have no food values except for the milk and sugar added. They tend to check certain normal secretion in the body and should not be used during growth. ”

“ Feeds and Feeding.—There are two groups of materials that are essential in food rations for all ages of poultry. The organic feeds include grains and grain by-products, hays, grasses and vegetables. The inorganic feeds include salt to increase palatability and digestibility of the ration; lime, to aid in building bone and body tissue as well as to furnish the shell material; bone ash, especially for growing chicks, and water in liberal amounts supplied by a fountain as well as from succulent green foods. ”

“ He can even subsist on every variety of these substances, under every mode of preparation, dried, preserved in salt, hardened in smoke, pickled in vegetable acids, &c.
The Author of Nature has so constructed our organs of digestion, that we can accommodate ourselves to every species of aliment; no kind of food injures us; we are capable of being habituated to every species, and of converting into nutriment almost every production of nature. ”

“ A wholesome and yet economical diet may be built upon a plan wherein we find for an average working man fourteen ounces of cereal food and one pint of milk, from two to four ounces of meat or a good meat substitute, two ounces of fat, three ounces of sugar or other sweeteners, at least one kind of fruit, and one kind of vegetable besides potatoes (more if one has a garden) . ”

“ Food has been said to be that which taken into the body builds tissue or yields energy, or both. The food as a whole must contain all the chemical elements needed by the body, these elements being supplied in substances known as foodstuffs, viz., protein, fat, carbohydrates, mineral matter or ash, water. To be a food, a substance must contain one or all of the foodstuffs.
It must be noted here that our food materials as bought,12 contain inedible matter, as in the shells of eggs, the bone of meat, the skins and pods of vegetables. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Pure air and sufficient food properly combined and proportioned are essential. Choose more of the lighter forms of protein and starchy foods, as fish, eggs, almonds, green peas, bacon, a moderate amount of lamb and beef, rice, sago, wheat, and vegetable gelatines. Foods rich in minerals are celery, apples, tomatoes, greens, oranges, and practically all the fresh fruits and vegetables, especially the small berries. Melons and starchy vegetables in large quantities are suitable for muscular workers. ”