Nutrients

“ Experiments with the cooking of carrots show that if a large amount of water is used, 30 per cent or more of the nutrients, particularly of the more soluble sugar and albumin, are extracted and lost in the drain waters. ”

“ Relation.—The value of a food depends largely upon the relation of one group of nutrients to another. Proper nutrition can only be obtained when a sufficient amount of flesh-forming as well as of heat-producing nutrients are present, when the “nutritive ratio” is properly balanced for the particular purpose in view, be it the growth of the child, the maintenance of the body, the restoration of matter consumed by labor of body or brain, or the supply of heat to make up for cold surroundings. ”

“ Scientists have devoted much careful study and experimentation to the determination of the quantities of each of the food elements required for the daily nourishment of individuals under the varying conditions of life, and it has come to be commonly accepted that of the nitrogenous material which should constitute one sixth of the nutrients taken, about three ounces is all that can be made use of in twenty-four hours, by a healthy adult of average weight, doing a moderate amount of work. ”

“ The edible material is by no means a simple substance, but consists of water, and some or all of the compounds variously designated as food stuffs, proximate principles, nutritive ingredients or nutrients, which are classified as protein, fats, carbohydrates and mineral matters. ”

“ When seeds germinate, small amounts of carbohydrates are converted into organic acids. In general the organic acids are not to be considered as nutrients, but as food adjuncts, increasing palatability and promoting digestion. ”

“ Each of the broad food groups has a special contribution to make toward an adequate diet.
Here are some of the reasons different food groups are emphasized in the guide and the names of some of the nutrients these foods provide.
Meat, poultry, fish, and eggs from the meat group and their alternates—dry beans, dry peas, and nuts—are valued for their protein. This is needed for the growth and repair of body tissues—muscle, organs, blood, skin, and hair. These foods also contribute iron and the B-vitamins—thiamine, riboflavin, and niacin. ”

“ A large portion of liquid is immediately absorbed by the blood-vessels of the stomach.
Adaptation of Foods to Particular Needs and Conditions. The demands of different individuals for nutrients in the daily food vary with age, occupation, and other conditions of life, including especially the peculiar characteristics of people. No two persons are exactly alike in their expenditure of muscular and nervous energy, so no two will need the same amount or kind of nutriment to repair the waste.
A man who digs in a field day after day expends a certain amount of muscular energy. ”

“ We need fuller knowledge regarding the part played by the different nitrogenous food-stuffs, the relative physiological value of animal and vegetable proteid, the relative value of fats and carbohydrates as nutrients aside from their different calorific power, and by no means least a fuller and more accurate knowledge of the true physiological needs of the body for proteid foods. ”

“ Eggs, milk, and sugar are the most readily convertible nutrients known to the science of food chemistry. In combination they represent the highest form of the nitrogenous (proteids and the carbohydrate) compounds, therefore to increase physical efficiency one should take as much of these as possible. ”

“ White of egg and lean meat are almost pure protein and water. Proteins are most abundant, as we should expect, in those plants which are richly supplied with nitrogen; peas and beans, and in grains and nuts. Fats, which are melted into oils at the temperature of the body, are represented by the fat in meats, bacon, pork, lard, butter, and vegetable oils.
Water.—Water is, as we have seen, a valuable part of food. It makes up a very high percentage of fresh fruits and vegetables; it is also present in milk and eggs, less abundant in meats and fish, and is lowest in dried foods and nuts. ”

“ Water must be considered as a part of our nutriment, because so much of it enters the composition of our solids as well as of our fluids; and because vegetables are now believed to draw almost the whole of their nourishment from this source. As in them the water is decomposed, as it is perspired by them in the sunshine, the oxygen gas increases the quantity and the purity of the atmosphere in their vicinity, and the hydrogen seems to be retained, and to form the nutritive juices, and consequent secretions of rosin, gum, wax, honey, oil, and other vegetable productions. ”

“ I do not mean by this that the vegetable we should use shall be grass itself, or that grass should be one of the vegetables. We must, for our requirement, select vegetables that contain as much nutriment in a given bulk as our present mixed diet, but in doing so we encounter the serious difficulty of finding that the readily soluble cell-wall or main bulk of animal food—the gelatine—is replaced in the vegetable by the cellulose, or woody fiber, which is not only more difficult of solution, but is not, nitrogenous—is only a compound of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. ”

“ As food is necessary to supply the waste and promote the growth of the body, it follows that that will be the best adapted to the system which contains the same chemical elements of which the body is composed; viz., oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen. These elements are found in greater or less quantity in all animal food, and in many vegetable products. Hence, that article of food which contains all these elements in a proper proportion will tend much more to the growth and strength of the body than those kinds which are deficient in one or more of them. ”

“ The greater part of the human food of plant origin represents in nature the nutrient material supplied by the parent plant for the early life of the seedling. All grains, nuts, fruits and roots, and tubers are merely modified forms of food material adapted to the rapid nourishment of the young plant.
The starch and the oil of seeds, the sugar of fruit, and the lesser quantities of nitrogen contained in all seeds, are in a more available form for cell-nourishment than would be the original mature portions of plant life. ”

“ The proper adjustment of the relative quantities of the great groups of nutritive elements in the food is a matter the importance of which cannot be over-rated, for it is in fact the foundation of successful and economical feeding; and this will be readily understood if we consider what would be the result of giving to an animal a supply of food containing a large quantity of nitrogenous and a deficiency of fat-forming compounds. ”

“ Fruit is a vital food, it supplies the body with something over and above the mere elements that the chemist succeeds in isolating by analysis. The vegetable kingdom possesses the power of directly utilising minerals, and it is only in this "live" form that they are fit for the consumption of man. In the consumption of sodium chloride (common table salt) , baking powders, and the whole army of mineral drugs [Pg 5] and essences, we violate that decree of Nature which ordains that the animal kingdom shall feed upon the vegetable and the vegetable upon the mineral. ”

“ Chemical analysis of various articles of diet shows that not only are the elements of human nutrition all present in the plant kingdom, but in more abundant quantity in many of the articles in common use, and combined in more suitable proportions, than is the case with any animal flesh.
In muscle making properties barley, southern corn, oats, wheat, beans, lentils, peas etc., outrank beef; in heat and fat producing, nuts, sweet cherries, dates, figs, prunes, barley, buckwheat, corn, oats, rice, rye, wheat, beans, lentils, peas, sweet potatoes etc., far outrank the meats ”

“ It is certainly true that in both plants and animals such foods pass directly, together with foods containing nitrogen, to repair waste in tissues, thus giving the needed proportion of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen to unite with the nitrogen in forming the protoplasm of the body.
Three portions of foods, each of which furnishes about the same amount of nourishment.
Inorganic Foods.—Water forms a large part of almost every food substance. It forms about five sixths of a normal daily diet. The human body, by weight, is about two thirds water. About 90 per cent of the blood is water. ”

“ There are seven classes of the essential elemental food substances,—proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamines, salts, cellulose, and water. The ideal diet is one in which these seven elements are regularly supplied to the body in the amounts required to meet its daily needs. A person living close to nature, receiving his food first-handed, direct from nature's health food factory, and eating it with only the cooking and seasoning necessary, and with a reasonable variety, would probably find his diet sufficient, and the elements in about the proper proportions ”

“ The cultivation of our crops has ultimately no other object than the production of a maximum of those substances which are adapted for assimilation and respiration, in the smallest possible space. Grain and other nutritious vegetables yield us, not only in starch, sugar, and gum, the carbon which protects our organs from the action of oxygen, and produces in the organism the heat which is essential to life, but also in the form of vegetable fibrine, albumen, and caseine, our blood, from which the other parts of our body are developed. ”

“ Nutrition is performed by the intimate penetration of this matter in all parts of the animal or vegetable body. Expansion or growth is only a kind of more extended nutrition, which is made and performed as long as the parts have sufficient ductility to swell and extend; and reproduction is made by the same matter when it superabounds in the body of the animal or vegetable; each part of the body sends back, to the appropriate reservoirs, the organic particles which exceed what are sufficient for their nourishment. ”

“ Among the foods rich in protein are the legumes, the cereals, and nuts. Those low in protein are fresh fruits, green vegetables, and roots. Fat is chiefly found in nuts, olives, and certain pulses, particularly the peanut; and carbohydrates in cereals, pulses, and many roots. Fruit and green vegetables consist mostly of water and organic mineral compounds, and in the case of the most juicy varieties may be regarded more as drink than food. We have, then, six distinct classes of food—the pulses, cereals, nuts, fruits, green vegetables, and roots. ”

“ 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. ”

“ That is to say, the digestible and available non-nitrogenous constituents of the food determine its nutritive value, provided always the moderate required supply of nitrogenous materials is present, and the comparative manurial value is determined by the nitrogenous constituents. A variety in the ration would undoubtedly be desirable for nutritive purposes, as the best results can not be obtained with any single article of diet. ”

“ Hence if the mineral matter valuable for building is used, the body is also supplied with regulating materials.
D. Food for Promoting Growth.—A discussion of vitamines,—the materials essential for growth of the body and the maintenance of health,—was given in a previous lesson. It is most necessary that foods rich in vitamines be included in diet.
E. Food for Bulk.—The use of foods containing cellulose, which adds bulk to diet, is needed by most persons. Many foods rich in mineral matter also contain much cellulose. Vegetables, fruits, and whole grains furnish both of these materials. ”

“ In passing, it is interesting to observe the following: the fact that in a mixed fruitarian diet the proportion of the nutrient compounds is such as to satisfy natural requirements is another proof of the suitability of the vegetable regimen to the human organism. It is a provision of Nature that those foods man's digestive organs are constructed to assimilate with facility, and man's organs of taste, smell, and perception best prefer, are those foods containing chemical compounds in proportions best suited to nourish his body. ”

“ Nutrition.—As nutrition consists in the renewal of the molecules which constitute an animal body, and as that is accomplished by means of the food, we have only to consider the principal processes which the latter undergoes, in order to obtain an indication of the different heads under which this department of the subject may most naturally be treated. The first of the most important changes to which the food is subjected internally, is its conversion into chyle, previous to which it is incapable of affording any nutriment ”

“ 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. ”