An Important Question

Is flesh food necessary for the maintenance of health? This is today a much discussed question. Can health, strength and vigor be maintained without the use of meat? The weight of evidence falls on the side of a vegetarian diet and seems to show that under present day conditions civilized man may reach a more nearly ideal state both physically and intellectually if he wisely and carefully selects his foods direct from nature's table rather than second hand through the flesh of the animal. Unquestionably the American people eat far too much meat, and much good might be accomplished could the ideas of the people in regard to the need for and the desirability of this class or foods be decidedly modified and the amount of flesh food consumed be materially lessened.

An Extravagance

The high cost of living, the need for economy, the growing scarcity of meat have called the attention of many to the extravagance in the use of a food obtained from the animal flesh, when it might be derived much more economically and in a purer state from other sources.

Six Reasons

We will give briefly six reasons why flesh food is undesirable, also evidence to show that physical strength and efficiency need not be impaired by a diet in which meat is not included.

1. Excess of protein, resulting in auto-intoxication and suboxidation.

2. Uneliminated tissue wastes: uric acid, purins, xanthins, creatin, etc.

3. Poisons resulting from putrefactive processes taking place in the animal as soon as life is extinct, as ptomains, etc.

4. The disease of animals.

5. AEsthetic reasons. Suffering of animals, filth of slaughter houses, influence of meat eating upon character and disposition.

6. Economy.

In The Digestive Tract

1. Excess of proteins: 200 to 250 calories of protein in twenty-four hours is ordinarily sufficient. Except in children only enough is needed to replace tissue waste, that is to keep the body in nitrogenous equilibrium. (See footnote page 56.) More than this is a burden and a handicap. One pound of lean meat contains 700 or more calories; most of this is protein. (See page 38.) It has been estimated by competent observers that of the flesh food eaten, one-tenth to one-seventh putrifies or rots in the intestines. The poisons thus produced are absorbed and auto-intoxication, with its train of ills, as torpid liver, bilious attacks, sallow skin, despondency, neurasthenia, etc., results. (See Chapter III (A Serious Defect)).

In The Tissues

When, as the result of active digestive processes an excess of protein is absorbed, the human stove becomes over-supplied and clogged with fuel. This interferes with proper oxidation and produces a condition which we may call suboxidation. (See Chapter IV (Results More Remote).) This results in the formation of clinkers. The grates (the kidneys) become clogged, this interfering with complete elimination of the nitrogenous ash which backs up in the blood producing, as it accumulates in the joints and other tissues, rheumatism (so called), gout, lumbago, sciatica, etc. The arteries gradually lose their supple, elastic nature, and arterio sclerosis results with its accompanying rise of blood pressure and perhaps final apoplexy.

The overworked kidneys often become diseased. Prof. Quine, dean of the medical department of the University of Illinois, said: "Where one man dies of Bright's disease due to chronic alcoholism, fifty men die of Bright's disease due to an excess of protein food, especially meat".

As a result of the accompanying suboxidation of the carbohydrates and fats, the individual also becomes obese, often with fatty heart resulting in shortness of breath and swelling of the ankles; all of these conditions producing the stout, rheumatic, apoplectic type of individual we so often see.

Meat As A Fuel

The fires of the system must burn more vigorously in order to oxidize protein just as it would require a much hotter fire were we to use iron as fuel in our stoves instead of wood or coal. Dr. Hindhede, the great Danish dietetic authority, says: "Meat is a fierce burning fuel, but it seems to burn out the oven itself in the long run".

A Physiological Economy

"Body weight, health, strength, mental and physical vigor, and endurance, can be maintained with at least one-half the protein food ordinarily consumed. A kind of physiological economy which, however, if once entered upon intelligently entails no hardship, but brings with it an actual betterment in health." - Dr. Winfield Hall, Professor of Physiology, Northwestern University.

Surcharged With Wastes

2. Uneliminated tissue wastes: The tissue and body fluids of the animal, at the time of death, have in them the protein ash on its way to be eliminated. Cellular activity continues for some time after death, but elimination ceases, therefore the flesh and blood of the animal are surcharged with protein wastes, and the one who eats this food introduces into his system this ash which must be eliminated in addition to the ash formed in his own body. So we have another factor in the causation of the conditions mentioned under reason No. 1.

Poisonous Extractives

These protein wastes have much the same chemical composition as the caffeine of tea and coffee and the same stimulating effect, so that the individual leaving off flesh food misses this stimulation and thinks he must have meat to give him strength. But that these extractives are actually poison is shown by the fact that animals die more quickly from starvation when fed exclusively upon meat extract than when entirely deprived of food.

Egg Tea

We also give the following as quoted from Dr. A. L. Benedict in the Journal of the American Medical Association of September 10, 1910: "A meat broth prepared at a temperature above 160 degrees Fah., the coagulation point of albumen, contains salts, extractives which are mainly excrementitious, and a little gelatin, as well as some melted fat, although the last is often skimmed off to make the broth more pleasant and palatable. In so far as protein is concerned, a meat tea made by boiling, cannot be more nourishing than egg tea, that is to say, the water in which eggs are poached, or in plain words, it contains no protein nourishment at all, and is, barring certain qualitative and quantitative differences, of the same dietetic value as urine".