Dr. Nichols' penny vegetarian cookery : the science and the art of selecting and preparing a pure, healthful, and sufficient diet illustrated by food diagrams and portraits of distinguished vegetarians / by T.L. Nichols.

  • Nichols, Thomas Low, 1815-1901.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Nichols' penny vegetarian cookery : the science and the art of selecting and preparing a pure, healthful, and sufficient diet illustrated by food diagrams and portraits of distinguished vegetarians / by T.L. Nichols. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    8/40 (page 8)
    No. 5. The Potato, though low in tissue-making material, contains considerable carbon, in the form of starch, and some excellent anti¬ scorbutic elements. Much of the water is thrown off in cooking, especially in baking. Nos. 6 and 7. Peas and beans—haricot and other dry beans are similar to dahl and lentils, and very rich in both tissue-forming and force-forming elements, needing to be eaten with fruits, potatoes, and vegetables. Vegetarian neophites are apt to eat too large a proportion of these very “ hearty ” foods, and so get too much nitrogenous material. No. 8 gives, with approximate accuracy, the proportions of Beef and Mutton, which, as sold by the butcher, if free from bone, and of ordi¬ nary fatness, contains about 65 per cent, of water—a very dear food— liable to be diseased, and giving, in many cases, a tendency to inflamma¬ tory and congestive diseases. These eight diagrams, each on card-board, about eighteen inches long and eight wide, with the compartments of flesh-making elements coloured dark red, the carbon appropriately black, and the water “ beautifully blue,” I have found very effective in illustrating my vegetarian lectures. The chemical elements of food are the same as those which compose the body, the blood, and the milk—carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, with certain mineral elements, as calcium and sodium, and also phosphorus and sulphur. Milk and eggs are chemically perfect foods—that is, they contain all the elements of animal bodies in the needed proportions, and grains, pulse, and fruits, are similarly constituted. Wheat and grapes, for example, are perfect foods. USE OP POOD. We need food, at first, to build up our bodies to their normal size, and always to supply the matter consumed in making heat and force, and which is constantly passing off in the breath, in perspiration, and in other evacuations. QUANTITY. How much food do we need ? Just enough to supply the needed force and heat, and to make up for the daily waste. Just so much, and not an ounce more. An ounce too much is a waste of matter, and also a waste of vital force in digesting it, in circulating it in the arteries and veins, and storing it up and carrying it about as superfluous obesity, which can always be cured by two economical medicines—abstinence and exercise. Every person can, by an easy experiment, ascertain the exact quantity of food he ought to eat. Doing his ordinary work, or taking a con¬ venient amount of exercise, a man should eat just enough to keep up his normal weight. Where there is no wasting disease, losing weight below a fair average shows deficiency of food. In one of my experi¬ ments, an account of which is given in an appendix to the latest editions of “ How to Live on Sixpence a-Day,” I found that, engaged mostly in literary work, I kept my usual weight of 12 stone, and my usual ability to work from 5 a.m. till 3 p.m., on an average of about 12 ounces of food (water-free or dry weight), and at a cost of about 3d. a day,