The choice of food / by Henry Simpson.

  • Simpson, Henry.
Date:
[between 1870 and 1879?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The choice of food / by Henry Simpson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    fatty matter least likely to disagree with the stomach. If rancid or bad it is very apt to disagree. And in these days of—I was going to say clever—roguery it is terribly adulterated. Very often an excessive quantity of salt, as much as 20z. to the pound, is added, and sometimes a large quantity of water is worked up with it. But besides water and salt, cheap animal fats, as mutton tat and horse grease, are mixed with it. Palm-oil or palm-tree butter, which is used for candle making and for greasing railway carriage wheels, is said to be added to it It is also said that some of the cheaper kinds of what is sold as butter or butterine are made up altogether from the fat of animals. It is desirable, therefore, to go to an honest butterman. Lard is obtained from the loose fat of the pig, and, when pure, is a very valuable article of food, which admits of a great variety of uses in the preparation of pastry, &a But in these days lard is often adulterated Other cheap fats are mixed with it, starch also, and milk of lime to improve the colour, and to enable a large quantity of water, as much even as 25 per cent, to be mixed with it. Lard is also used to adulterate butter. Having now spoken of a few of the varieties of animal food used by man, I must mention the principal articles we obtain from the vegetable kingdom. First there are the FARINACEOUS SEEDS. Of these, wheat is the most important to us here, but it is one which, from a succession of bad harvests, has to be brought, in larger quantities than ever, from parts of the world more favoured as to climate than this country. Every one knows what a grain of wheat is like. It has a hard outermost skin, v/hich is indigestible, and which forms the greatest part of the bran separated from it in grinding. The inner coat, however, is softer, and is that part of the grain which is richest in nitrogenous matter, fat, and salts. If we could not get these matters from any other source, it would be a serious loss to have them all removed from the flour. Generally speaking, however, they are obtained from other sources, and so we may eat white bread if we prefer it What is called seconds flour is the best for domestic use. Flour consists of starch (which, is one of the carbo-hydrates), of gluten (which is a nitrogenous sub- stance), with small quantities of gum, albumen, and certain salts. . Wheaten flour is used for the preparation of biscuits, of cakes of all kinds, and of macaroni, which is a very valuable variety of food^ made chiefly in Italy.