The purposes of food are to promote growth, to supply force and heat, and to furnish material to repair the waste which is continuously taking place within the body. Each breath, each thought, every motion, wears out some portion of the delicate and fantastic house in which we live. Various crucial processes eliminate these worn and useless particles; and to keep the body in well being, their loss need to be made excellent by continually renewed supplies of material correctly adapted to replenish the worn and impaired tissues. This renovating material must be supplied through the medium of food and drink, along with the finest food is that by which the desired end might be most readily and perfectly attained. The great diversity in character of the many tissues of the body, makes it required that food need to contain many different elements, in order that each and every part might be properly nourished and replenished.

The Food Elements.The several elements discovered in food are the following: Starch, sugar, fats, albumen, mineral substances, indigestible substances.

The digestible food elements are usually grouped, based on their chemical composition, into 3 classes; vis., carbonaceous, nitrogenous, and inorganic. The carbonaceous class includes starch, sugar, and fats; the nitrogenous, all albuminous elements; as well as the inorganic comprises the mineral elements.

Starch is only discovered in vegetable foods; all grains, most vegetables, and some fruits, contain starch in abundance . Numerous kinds of sugar are made in nature's laboratory; cane, grape, fruit, and milk sugar. The first is obtained from the sugar-cane, the sap of maple trees, and from the beet root. Grape and fruit sugars are discovered in most fruits and in honey. Milk sugar is one of the constituents of milk. Glucose, an artificial sugar resembling grape sugar, is now largely manufactured by subjecting the starch of corn or potatoes to a chemical process; however it lacks the sweetness of natural sugars, and is by no means a proper substitute for them. Albumen is discovered in its purest, uncombined state within the white of an egg, which is virtually wholly composed of albumen. It exists, combined with other food elements, in numerous other foods, both animal and vegetable. It's discovered abundant in oatmeal, and to some extent in the other grains, and within the juices of vegetables. All natural foods contain elements which in several respects resemble albumen, and are so closely allied to it that for convenience they're typically classified under the general name of ""albumen."" The chief of these is gluten, which is found in wheat, rye, and barley. Casein, found in peas, beans, and milk, and also the fibrin of flesh, are elements of this class.

Fats are found in both animal and vegetable foods. Of animal fats, butter and suet are widespread examples. In vegetable form, fat is abundant in nuts, peas, beans, in several of the grains, and in some fruits, as the olive. As furnished by nature in nuts, legumes, grains, fruits, and milk, this element is always discovered in a state of fine subdivision, which condition is the 1 finest adapted to its digestion. As most commonly utilised, in the type of totally free fats, as butter, lard, etc., it isn't only tough of digestion itself, but frequently interferes with the digestion of the other food elements which are mixed with it. It was doubtless in no way intended that fats need to be so modified from their natural condition and separated from other food elements as to be utilized as a separate article of food. The same may be said of the other carbonaceous elements, sugar and starch, neither of which, when utilized alone, is capable of sustaining life, though when combined in a correct and natural manner with other food elements, they perform a most essential component within the nutrition of the body. Most foods include a percentage of the mineral elements. Grains and milk furnish these elements in abundance . The cellulose, or woody tissue, of vegetables, and also the bran of wheat, are examples of indigestible elements, which though they can not be converted into blood in tissue, serve an essential purpose by giving bulk to the food.

With the exception of gluten, none of the food elements, when utilised alone, are capable of supporting life. A true food substance contains some of all of the food elements, the quantity of every varying in diverse foods.

Uses of The Food Elements.Concerning the purpose which these diverse elements serve, it has been demonstrated by the experiments of eminent physiologists that the carbonaceous elements, which in general comprise the higher bulk of the food, serve three purposes inside the body;

1. They furnish material for the production of heat;

two. They are a source of force when taken in connection with other food elements;

3. They replenish the fatty tissues of the body. Of the carbonaceous elements, starch, sugar, and fats, fats create the greatest amount of heat in proportion to quantity; that's, a lot more heat is developed from a pound of fat than from an equal weight of sugar or starch; but this apparent benefit is far more than counterbalanced by the fact that fats are a lot a lot more challenging of digestion than are the other carbonaceous elements, and if relied upon to furnish adequate material for bodily heat, would be productive of significantly mischief in overtaxing and producing disease of the digestive organs. The truth that nature has produced a much more ample provision of starch and sugars than of fats in man's natural diet plan, would appear to indicate that they had been intended to be the chief source of carbonaceous food; nevertheless, fats, when taken in such proportion as nature supplies them, are required and critical food elements.

The nitrogenous food elements specially nourish the brain, nerves, muscles, and all the far more extremely vitalized and active tissues of the body, and also serve as a stimulus to tissue change. Hence it could be said that a food deficient in these elements is really a particularly poor food.

The inorganic elements, chief of which are the phosphates, in the carbonates of potash, soda, and lime, aid in furnishing the requisite developing material for bones and nerves.

Proper Combinations of Foods.Even though it's critical that our food really should include some of all the various food elements, experiments upon both animals and human beings show it can be required that these elements, particularly the nitrogenous and carbonaceous, be used in certain definite proportions, as the system is only able to proper a particular amount of each and every; and all excess, specially of nitrogenous elements, is not only useless, but even injurious, because to rid the program of the surplus imposes an additional task upon the digestive and excretory organs. The relative proportion of these elements essential to constitute a food which perfectly meets the requirements of the system, is six of carbonaceous to one of nitrogenous. Scientists have devoted significantly careful study and experimentation to the determination of the quantities of every of the food elements needed for the daily nourishment of people under the varying conditions of life, and it has come to be commonly accepted that of the nitrogenous material which ought to constitute one sixth of the nutrients taken, about 3 ounces is all that may be produced use of in twenty-four hours, by a wholesome adult of average weight, doing a moderate amount of work. Many articles of food are, nonetheless, deficient in 1 or the other of these elements, and have to be supplemented by other articles containing the deficient element in superabundance, because to employ a dietary in which any one of the nutritive elements is lacking, though in bulk it may be all the digestive organs can manage, is really starvation, and will in time occasion serious outcomes.

It's thus apparent that much care should be exercised inside the selection and mixture of food supplies. Such information is of very first significance in the education of cooks and housekeepers, given that to them falls the selection of the food for the daily needs of the household; and they ought to not merely realize what foods are very best suited to supply these needs, but how you can combine them in accordance with physiological laws.

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