Lean Meat

Lean Meat is one of the most easily digested of the foods which are consumed by man, but its value is much exaggerated. Fat meat is more economical than lean meat. With the increase in the proportion of fat there is a corresponding decrease in the proportion of water. In a pound of the lean of beef the water and waste weighs from 12 oz. to 12 1/2 oz., and in a pound of fat beef the actual food material weighs only 8 oz. to 9 oz., according to the degree of fatness. In fat meat, however, the fat forms nearly two-thirds of the whole of the nutritive matter. Thus, a pound of very fat meat without bone, costing 15d. a pound, will provide about 6 oz. of lean and nearly 9 oz. of fat, which is as high-priced as butter, but of no greater value as food than dripping or margarine costing 6d. a pound. That portion of the fat which drips from the joint in the process of roasting becomes dripping and is valued accordingly.

Where a joint of meat contains bone, gristle and tendon, which the consumer rejects, the waste from these sources may reach 20 per cent., or one-fifth of its weight. If, however, a joint bought at a shilling a pound, costing 6s., contains 15 per cent. of waste, it is reduced in round numbers to 5 lb., so that the actual cost before cooking is nearly 1s. 2 1/2d. a pound. This, combined with the fact that the lean or muscular portion contains nearly three parts of its weight of water; that it is an imperfect food, and that the fat costs double its value in money, constitutes meat the most expensive of all those popular foods which are placed on our tables. When this truth is fully understood; when it is realised that meat is neither essential to health nor to strength, but much less nutritious than the cereals and the pulses and their various preparations, and that meat accounts for many of the ailments of those who are growing in years and is a bar to longevity, we shall reduce our consumption, and as a natural consequence live with greater economy and live better and longer.

While I very occasionally eat meat in some form either fish, flesh, or fowl - when dining from home, I am conscious that since I abandoned all as a part of my regular diet the joy of life has been renewed, health and strength and mental power have been improved in a marvellous way, with the result that, in spite of increasing age, feats of mental and physical exercise impossible in earlier days have been, and are being, accomplished. What has happened to me has happened to many. This has been done upon approximately one-half the quantity of protein - the muscle-producing constituent of food - that a man is supposed to require in accordance with the erroneous teaching of the past.

On an ordinary mixed diet, including meat once a day only, average men consume this full allowance of protein, with the result that in four or five out of six it produces uric acid to such an extent that rheumatism, gout, kidney trouble, or another of the many diseases which are caused by this poison, is established, and the patient either dies or lives a protracted and painful existence.

We have seen that the cheapest meat is the fattest, so long as it is a rational joint, for while the lean containing the protein is marbled with fat, and is thus richer than the muscular portion alone, it makes up by its improved quality for its reduced quantity, the fat being practically an addition. While it is impossible to eat fat with impunity, as nature would quickly rebel, it should be recognised that it is equally impossible to eat lean with impunity, without permanent harm. This, however, with most men is a regular practice, because in this case nature is slower to express her opinion. Lean meat is a stimulant, hence the system is to some extent gratified by its consumption, and to the misfortune of man he knows nothing about it until trouble arrives.

If meat eaten once daily may, as it so frequently does, cause damage to health, what can we say to those to whom meat in its various forms is the Alpha and Omega of existence. The morning commences in homes in which I have stayed with meat in variety - bacon, kidneys, sausages, chops, brawn, eggs and cold chicken and ham. With luncheon comes fish and flesh; while at dinner soup with a meat foundation is succeeded by fish, entree, joint and game, or poultry. How is it possible that a man, whose organisation is constructed to deal with 100 grm. of protein at the outside when he is no longer a physical worker, or when his muscular system no longer requires, or is able to deal with, more than 60 grm., can consume 250 to 300 grm. without serious bodily harm? He does not, however, for in most cases such a man dies a premature death, and having broken nature's laws he perhaps takes with him knowledge of great value to the race, and is lamented as a victim to one of those forms of disease which God is said to visit on man, but winch man brings upon himself.

That portion of meat which acts as a stimulant is the extract which is the chief source of its flavour. Thus, there is a marked difference in the appetising value of roast as compared with boiled meat, which has lost a portion of its extract in the process of cooking. Meat extract, however, possesses practically no nourishing value. Young meat provides a smaller quantity of extract than mature meat. Thus, if the rich fat of roast lamb were removed from the joint the lean would prove insipid and much less inviting. Boiling, however, also removes a portion of the fat and the mineral matter in the flesh, while the loss of weight in a boiled joint may reach one-fifth of the total. Cooked meat, therefore, weighs less than raw meat - a fact which the buyer of cooked ham or beef is able to realise from the enhanced cost. If, however, boiling is followed by a loss of fat, that loss is increased by roasting.

Although cooked mutton and beef are well digested and absorbed, raw minced meat is digested more easily, and meat which is underdone is digested more easily than that which is well done. While, however, fresh pork is regarded as difficult of digestion, cured bacon is perhaps the most easily digested of all meats, including the fat.

The most innutritious and undesirable of all flesh foods are the offals - liver, heart and kidneys - while calves'-head, sweetbreads and brains, much to the surprise of those who believe in their great utility for delicate persons, are quite the reverse. Calves'-head is one of the poorest of animal foods, providing only one-twelfth of its weight of nutritious material. The larger, or pancreas sweetbread, a much richer food, is one of the most prolific sources of uric acid, although on account of its high digestibility it is a favourite dish among those suffering from the diseases which it assists in producing. Brains, although easily digested, are so imperfectly absorbed that they provide approximately only one-tenth of their weight of nourishment. With the exception of the heart, the chief organs of the body contain but a small proportion of fat, their flesh being indigestible and unsuitable as a nourishing food for all but the hardy and strong.