The body, as the reader is no doubt aware, is composed of various elements, the exact proportion of which cannot be determined save by a chemical analysis. The bones are composed of lime and other mineral matter; the muscles and brain are composed of nitrogenous elements, while the fat, which is distributed everywhere throughout the body, is composed of elements carbonaceous in nature. Thus the necessity for supplying the exact elements in proper proportion to nourish the body can readily be realized. Here is where the importance of a normal appetite - natural taste - is most thoroughly emphasized. That food which is enjoyed the most keenly by taste is the most needed and, naturally, the most healthful. The sense of taste is located at the extreme end of the tongue and in the back part of the mouth. It is produced by the absorption of the food elements that are being masticated. The faster absorption takes place, provided the food is wholesome and nourishing, the more acute is the enjoyment of taste. Absorption is influenced entirely by the condition of the body.

When any element or elements are particularly needed by the body, the blood is naturally deficient in those elements; and those parts of the body - the tip of the tongue and back part of the mouth - which produce taste - are naturally able to absorb those particular elements needed more quickly than other elements, and the result is we always, if in possession of a normal appetite, enjoy eating those foods most keenly which are the most needed. It will be readily noted, therefore, that if your table is supplied with the proper variety of food, containing the various elements necessary for feeding the body, taste will indicate which food element is most needed, by selecting that which tastes most delicious. Taste cannot be relied on to do this, however, if the foods are so highly seasoned as to entirely destroy their original flavor. By studying the various chemical analyses of foods which follow you can secure a fair idea of the value of different foods, and thus be able to select those mostly needed in your own case, keeping in mind continually the dictates of taste in your selection, for, however, poor it may be, it is usually far better than any other authority that could possibly be consulted.

I am aware that there are some foods that taste very good, but which nearly always produce baneful effects. They are exceptions to all rules, and where foods seem to disagree to such an extent they should of course be avoided. The manifestation of taste for such a food, however, is indubitable evidence that the food contains elements needed to nourish the body at that time, and other foods containing similar elements should be furnished.

Take the ravenous appetite for candy among some children, for instance. This appetite furnishes ample evidence that the body is not properly nourished in the force-producing and heating foods and if such children were furnished at the table with a plentiful supply of foods such as rice, oats (not oatmeal), and honey, served in palatable form, there would be but little desire for candy.

"Experiments upon both animals and human beings show that it is of great importance that the proportion of elements should be such as will best meet the demands of the system, especially in the case of the albuminous and carbonaceous elements (gluten, albumen, fats, starch, and sugar). Many and extended experiments and observations have shown that the proper proportion is about one part of nitrogenous or albuminous elements to seven parts of carbonaceous elements. From this it will at once appear that most articles of food are deficient in one or the other of these classes of elements, requiring that they be supplemented by other substances eaten with them.

"By means of numerous experiments, at the expense of numberless dogs, rabbits, pigeons, cats, and other animals, it has been clearly demonstrated that while the various elements mentioned are food elements, they are not in themselves food, either when taken alone or when artificially mixed. Dogs fed on albumen, fibrine, or gelatine - the constitutents of muscle - died in about a month. The same result followed when they were fed on the constituents of muscle artificially mixed. A goose fed on the white of egg died in twenty-six days. A duck fed on butter starved to death in three weeks, with the butter exuding from every part of its body, its feathers being saturated with fat. Dogs fed on oil, gum, and sugar, died in four to five weeks. A goose fed on gum died in sixteen days; one fed on sugar, in twenty-one days; two that had only starch lived twenty-four and twenty-seven days. Dogs fed on fine flour bread lived but fifty days." - J. H. Kellogg, M.D.

The analyses of the various food-products, which I have used, were taken from the bulletins of the U. S. Department of Agriculture.