CHAPTER X.
THE CHEMISTRY OF ANIMAL FOOD.
Animal food has a wider range than is usually included under that head.
The vegetarian who announces that no animal food is allowed upon his table offers a meal in which one finds milk, eggs, butter, and cheese,--all forms of animal food, and all strongly nourishing.

A genuine vegetarian, if consistent, would be forced to reject all of these; and it has already been attempted in several large water-cures by enthusiasts who have laid aside their common-sense, and resigned with it some of the most essential forces for life and work.

Meat may often be entirely renounced, or eaten only at rare intervals, with great advantage to health and working power, but the dietary for the varied nourishment which seems demanded must include butter, cheese, eggs, and milk.
Meats will be regarded as essential by the majority, and naturally they come first in considering food; and beef is taken as the standard, being identical in composition with the structures of the human body.
BEEF, if properly fed, is in perfection at seven years old.

It should then be a light red on the cut surface, a darker red near the bone, and slightly marbled with fat.

Beef contains, in a hundred parts, nearly twenty of nitrogen, seventy-two of water, four of fat, and the remainder in salts of various descriptions.