Preface

This small book is not intended in any way to be a general cook-book. It is published with the hope of assisting those who have adopted, or who are working toward adopting, a meatless diet. The recipes are, with a few exceptions, not original, but have been taken from several different cook-books, magazines, and newspaper articles; tested and in many cases slightly changed.

Most of the recipes have all, and many, more than a meat value. Those which can be properly substituted for meat are as follows: -- some of the soups, all of the nut recipes, the lentil recipes, the bean recipes, many of the vegetable recipes, and all the egg recipes. So surely no one can make the usual remark -- "How can you find enough variety without meat?" The only difficulty one finds is, in choosing from the long list offered by nuts, grains, legumes, cheese and eggs.

The following is a very short outline of the different kinds, or classes of foods -- and this at least, should be understood by every woman, before she can plan intelligently the day's menu.

Foods are divided into five classes: -- proteids, carbohydrates, hydrocarbons, mineral salts, and water. The chief function of proteids is to build and repair tissues, and they alone can accomplish this. Proteids differ from the other classes of foods in that they contain nitrogen, without which life cannot be sustained. The principal articles of food from which the non-flesh eater can obtain proteids are eggs, milk, cheese, nuts, cereals, peas, beans and lentils.

Carbohydrates, or starches and sugars, furnish heat and energy. Starches can be found in cereals, potatoes, sago, tapioca, rice and macaroni, and sugars in foods such as cane sugar, maple sugar, honey, beets, sweet potatoes.

The hydrocarbons, or fats and oils, also furnish heat and energy, and also fat.

Anyone who contemplates giving up meat should study and understand these classes of foods and know in what articles of food proteids can be found. Thus, in any meal where one would ordinarily have meat or fish, there should be a dish in which either eggs, cheese, nuts, peas, beans or lentils is found. To illustrate, if a meal should be prepared the main course of which were to consist of potatoes, beets, and squash there would be no proteid, or proper meat substitute, and anyone would be justified in complaining of a "gone feeling," or of a "craving for meat" an hour or so afterwards.

Apart from the humanitarian standpoint, and apart from the hygienic standpoint, which cannot be reasonably contested, it is well known that meatless dishes with the same, and often higher food value than meat do not contain the injurious waste products found in all meats.

The economic aspect is one which must also be taken into consideration in these days of high prices, and there can be no question but that a properly chosen meatless diet, while having an equal nutritive value, is decidedly less expensive.

One common objection to eliminating meat from the diet is that it lowers the amount of protein in the food. Formerly an ordinary person was supposed to require 120 grams of protein in order to maintain good health and to sustain ordinary activity. Recent investigation however, has proved that the amount of protein taken into the body can be reduced to 40 grams with no injurious results and now eminent authorities universally agree that among civilized peoples the protein intake has been too excessive.

An objection to using nuts in the diet is often heard, viz: -- that certain people can never eat nuts, finding they often disagree with them. It is safe to say that these people have eaten them raw and either during or after a hearty meal. Now, as can readily be seen by anyone who cares to study into food values, nuts are sufficiently nutritious to take the place of meat; therefore when they are eaten with meat and probably not thoroughly masticated, it is not strange that they cause discomfort and indigestion.

The following is quoted from "Starving America," by Alfred McCann:

"For every pound of beef consumed by man, ten pounds of corn are necessary to produce that pound of beef. A pound of beef will support one man for a given length of time, but the quantity of corn necessary to make the pound of beef would support more than ten men for the same length of time.

"When we eat the flesh of the animal we eat the end-products of the animal's life processes, urea, uric acid, etc., when we eat the grains and legumes, the nitrogen supply is just as great, even greater, and without the urea."

NOTE -- The reader might infer that this book was written in the interests of certain manufactured products which are used in several recipes. This is not so, for they enter into so many recipes only for the reason that the writer considers them a very desirable adjunct to meatless dishes.

A Non-Carnivorous Mother and Child

From the painting by Edwin Douglas