NUTRITIOUS QUALITIES OF VARIOUS FOODS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 7278, 22 September 1884, Page 4

NUTRITIOUS QUALITIES OF VARIOUS FOODS.

Tho world little imagines how largely it is indebted to tho laborious researches of scientific medical men for many of tho most important truths relative of human health, happiness and life. As population increases and the value of food is enchanced, the knowledge which chemistry has elicited is becoming more and more valuable in a practical point of view. Some kinds of food are more nutritious than others, and if it should be found that articles whch are cheapest have the most nutriment and give the highest ability to labor, then knowledge becomes money to the poor. Tables vary, but some of the general results are as follows : One pound of rice prepared for the table gives 85 per cent, of nutriment, and consequently a relatively proportional ability to labor compared with other articles of food.

A pound of beef, costing 15 cents, gives only 2G percent, of nutriment. Yet countless numbers of the poor in New York strain a point daily to purchase beef at 15 cents a pound, when they could get a pound of rice for one third of the amount; the rice, too, having three times as much nutriment as beef, making a practical difference of 800 per cent., aside from the fact that boiled rioe is three times easier of digestion than roast beef, the rioe being digested in about one hour ; roast beef requiring three hours and a half. There is meaning, then, in the reputed fact that two-fifths of the human family live on rice. We compile the following table for preservation as being practically and permanently useful. All the economists require is to compare the price of a pound of food with the amount of nutriment which it affords :

Kind of Mode of Percentage of food. preparation. nutriment. Oil raw ... 95 Peas ... ». boiled ., 93 Barley >. boiled ., 92 Corn bread baked . 91 Wheat bread . .. baked . 90 Rice boiled . 88 Beans boiled . 87 Rye bread baked . 79 Oatmeal porridge.. 74 Mutton broiled . 30 Plum raw 29 Grapes .. . Beef ... raw 27 raw 26' Poultry roast 2G Pork ... roast ,, 24 Veal ... fried 24 Vensiou broiled ., 12 Codfish ... boiled . 21 Eggs ... whipped 13 Apples .. raw 10 Milk ... 7 Turnips... boiled . 4 Melons ... raw 3 Cucumbers raw 2 —Journa J of Health.