There are many substances which are taken with the food and which influence considerably the processes of nutrition, but which are not foods.

These substances are called food accessories, and may be classified as follows:

1. Beverages

Beverages are drinks which represent extracts, aqueous solutions, or aqueous dilutions of various organic, usually vegetable, products. The most common example of beverages are: Tea, coffee, cocoa, chocolate, lemonade, and allied drinks. They serve to relieve thirst, and they may in addition serve as nutrients, as diuretics, as diaphoretics, or as stimulants.

Tea

Tea is a decoction made from the leaves of a shrub that grows in southern and eastern Asia and the neighboring islands. While there are many varieties of tea on the market, they do not differ essentially one from the other from a dietetic standpoint. The active principle of the tea is thein, which is identical chemically with caffein extracted from coffee. Tea is usually prepared by pouring boiling water over the dried leaves, allowing it to stand a few minutes. The decoction thus quickly made has either a light yellowish or greenish-yellow color, or a darker brownish-yellow color. The lighter color is found in the China and Japan teas, while the darker color is usually found in the teas from India and Ceylon. In the preparation of tea the leaves should never be actively boiled, as that process rapidly extracts tannin from the leaves. The addition of tannin to a drink used habitually eventually disturbs digestion, and it is likely also to lead to constipation. Furthermore, the tea made as suggested above possesses a far more delicate aroma than tea made by boiling, as the boiling drives off the aroma. Tea is a stimulant; the stronger the drink is made the more marked its stimulating effect. Some people respond more quickly and fully to the stimulation of tea than do others.

Coffee

This beverage is prepared from the seeds of the coffee berry. The coffee tree grows in many tropical and subtropical climates, and is said to have been used thousands of years ago by the inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula. The real Mocha coffee is produced in the oases in the region of the city of Mocha. Java and Rio coffee comes from the island of Java and the city of Rio de Janeiro. A high grade of coffee is produced in the highlands of Mexico. It possesses a flavor so nearly like the Mocha that it is widely used as a substitute for Mocha in blends. While various varieties of coffee, produced as they are under varying climatic conditions, possess distinctive flavors, they do not from a dietetic standpoint present any essential difference. The active principle of coffee is caffein, which is an alkaloid that acts as a strong stimulus to the central nervous system. Through this stimulating action not only are psychical activities noticeably increased for a time, but many of the physical activities are also increased. For example, the heart action is considerably increased in rate as well as in strength. As a result of this, blood-pressure is noticeably and markedly increased. This in turn leads to an increase of kidney action. So strong coffee as well as strong tea are likely to be followed by a noticeable increase in kidney activity, they are diuretic.

Cocoa And Chocolate

These beverages are prepared from the cocoa bean. The cocoa from the meaty shell of the bean and the chocolate from the rich kernel of the bean. The chocolate differs from the cocoa particularly in the fat which it contains. The oil of chocolate is oleum theobromin, and does not belong to the food fats, being much simpler in constitution and not capable of deposit as a food reserve in animal tissues. The active principle of cocoa and chocolate is theobromin, which is closely allied to caffein, though simpler in construction, and has a mild stimulating effect on the nervous system. Besides its use as a beverage, chocolate is widely used as a confection. Its use in this form is greatly increasing and extending, while cocoa is in a measure displacing the chocolate as a beverage.

Lemonade

Lemonade is cited and may be taken as an example of a long list of fruit drinks, or beverages flavored with fruit juices. These beverages are very pleasing summer drinks because they are fairly effective in slaking thirst. Some of them, particularly drinks made from the citrus fruits, as lemonade, orangeade, and many varieties of these two, possess besides their thirst-slaking qualities a distinct diuretic and diaphoretic action, and may be given freely in order to produce such action.

Many food drinks are carbonized - that is, they are bottled for use in sealed bottles, and incident to the bottling process there is forced into each bottle a quantity of carbon-dioxid gas under pressure. As soon as the stopper is loosened the gas begins immediately to escape. Such effervescent drinks seem to possess some advantage as slakers of thirst; but for this purpose no beverage ever devised by man can excel plain water.

Root beer is a drink flavored with various barks and roots, and when gotten at a soda fountain, or in bottles put up at a bottling factory and carbonated, possesses no deleterious ingredients, and is a pleasing soft drink. "When this drink is prepared in the home, and in accordance with the recipe given on the package, it contains between one and three per cent of ethyl alcohol, whose presence is due to the action of the yeast which is used in the preparation of the beer. As to the advisability of introducing into the home for family consumption a beer containing one per cent to three per cent of alcohol an overwhelming majority of people will agree that the free use of such a drink would be ill advised.