Food : a brief account of its sources, constituents and uses / A. H. Church.

  • Church, A. H. (Arthur Herbert), 1834-1915.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Food : a brief account of its sources, constituents and uses / A. H. Church. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    23/280 (page 9)
    COMPOUNDS IN FOOD. human body is kept in action. In short, we must study food not only as a constructive and reparative material, but as fuel—as the source of heat and force. The materials of the human body, that is, the compounds of elements of which it is constructed, are, in most instances, either identical with, or similar to those compounds which are contained in food. Naturally we should expect this to be the case with animal food, but it is also true to a great degree in the case of vegetable products. And here it must be recollected that, with rare exceptions, compounds, and compounds only, not the separate elements, are capable of nourishing the body. Oxygen, indeed, is used in the free or uncombined state as an element, but the office performed by oxygen, as we have before explained, is quite different from that of the materials usually called food. It will be convenient to introduce here a classified list of the several compounds which occur in the vegetable and animal products used as food. A classification which takes into account both the chemical composition of these compounds and the purposes which they serve in the body will be adopted. § 3.—Chemical and Physiological Classification of Food. Class I.—Nutrients. Division 1.—Incombustible Compounds. Group i. Water—The carrier of nutritive materials and waste products: forms an essential part of all tissues; is present in large proportion where change is most active. Group ii. Salts or Mineral Matter—such as common salt and phosphate of lime, which serve to effect changes and build up certain tissues. Division 2.—Combustible Compounds. Group iii. Carbon Compounds, such as starch, dextrin, sugar, and fit, which serve to keep up the heat and movements of the body by