"The tables show that one family spends over twice as much in the
purchase of foods as the other family, and yet the one whose food
costs the less actually secures the larger amount of nutritive
material and is better fed than the family where more money is
expended."--From _Human Foods_, Snyder.
The Source of the Different Foods. All of our food comes from either
the plant world or the animal world. Broadly speaking, plants furnish
the carbohydrates, that is, starch and sugar; animals furnish the fats
and proteids. But although vegetable foods yield carbohydrates mainly,
some of them, like beans and peas, contain large quantities of protein
and can be substituted for meat without disadvantage to the body.
Other plant products, such as nuts, have fat as their most abundant
food constituent. The peanut, for example, contains 43% of fat, 30% of
proteids, and only 17% of carbohydrates; the Brazil nut has 65% of
fat, 17% of proteids, and only 9% of carbohydrates. Nuts make a good
meat substitute, and since they contain a fair amount of carbohydrates
besides the fats and proteins, they supply all of the essential food
constituents and form a well-balanced food.
|