THE HOME.

White Ribbon, Volume 12, Issue 140, 15 January 1907, Page 10

THE HOME.

“Is Meat a Necessity for the Labourer ?” During the hot weather now being experienced in most parts of the colony, interest in the question of vegetarianism very naturally revives. The careful housewife and mother sighs over the difficulty «»f placing untainted meat on her table, and is in despair over the ruinous but inevitable waste itemised on her butcher’s account. She is not, however, prepared to banish flesh from the family menu. The student and the man following a sedentary occupation may, she thinks, he content with the “oldest bill of fare," but tbe growing lad and the man who lives out of floors and uses his muscle, have need of strong meat. And so the old order is adhered to, and meats and pickles and condiments continue

to menace the morals of many a good woman's son. In the hope of inducing some mother to consider and to study the question of food values, we reprint the gist of an address given hv Dr. |). 11. Kress, of Sydney, a short time ago: — It is generally acknowledged that meat is not a necessity for the sedentary man or student, hut can tlie hard physical worker get on without it ? In answering this question it is only necessary to call attention to the amount of nutriment found in the various foods, or, in other words, what food will produce tin* greatest amount of vital energy In the Shape of Muscular Force. This may lie easily determined from the latest scientific facts pertaining to this subject. The number of food units in one pound of licet is 511,730; of peas, 1,711,130 ; of rice, 1,944,-45; of corn, 1,914,843; of nuts, 2,233,(154. Xuts, it will lie seen, are the most nourishing and sustaining of all foods They afford the following advantage* over flesh : 1 They are free from the organic wastes and impurities contained in meat. 2. They may he kept almost indefinitely without undergoing decay nr without danger of ptomaine poisoning. 3. They are convenient, and with a * little skill and study may he made into many appetising dishes.

I. They are tree from trinchinn, tuberculosis, cancer and other diseases. 5 Their use does not necessitate suffering and bloodshed. I>. They not only present the albumen for which meat is prized, but they present it micombined with uric acid and other organic impurities, and in addition, a good supply of the pure*!, sweetest and most wholesome fats in the most natural, most appetising, and most digestible form. One Quarter of a Pound of Almonds or walnut* is equal in nutritive value to about one pound of the best beef. One pound of peas contain* more albumen than a pound of beef, and afford* three times tin* amount of nutrition The same is true of beans and lentils. < >m* pound of good bread is equal in nutritive value to two pounds of beef. One pound of peas, beans, or other legumes may bo purchased at threepence per pound, while an equal amount of nutrition in the form of

meat would cost about eighteen pence. Bread, pea*, beans, and lentils, properly prepared, should be the physical toilers stand-bv and the labourer's food. Meat-eater* have a constant, unsatisfied feeling <>r craving for what they suppose to he food. A drink of whisky or tea, or even a smoke, will allay this supposed hunger as well a* meat. This, no doubt, accounts for the fact that in meat-eating countries these narcotic stimulants are also freely used. 'Pile greatest meat-eating eoun-

tries, we find, as a rule, are the greatest Alcohol, Tea, and Tobaccoconsuming countries. The craving that exists for meat is due to the fact that meat is a stimulant the same as alcohol. The uric acid and allied wastes it contains fever the blood, eausiug the heart to heat more rapidly, and thus produce what is supposed to he strength, for this reason the same difficulty is experienced in giving up alcohol, tea or coffee. It has been fully demonstrated that man can subsist iijkiii the simpler and cheaper foods named and do better mental and physical work by so doing. Ih\ Ilaigh. of hngland ; Kugene .Miles, athlete and scholar; I'rofessor Mayor, of Cambridge I’niversitv, and a host of other eminent men in all professions, testify to the lad that a flesh less diet enables them to do with ease and without weariness what lie lore seemed difficult or imp< issilih*.