The poorer the quality of the beef, the more it will waste in cooking; and its appearance before cooking is also very different from that of the first quality, which, though looking moist, leaves no stain upon the hand.

In poor beef, the watery part seems to separate from the rest, which lies in a pool of serous bloody fluid.
The gravy from such beef is pale and poor in flavor; while the fat, which in healthy beef is firm and of a delicate yellow, in the inferior quality is dark yellow and of rank smell and taste.

Beef is firmer in texture and more satisfying to the stomach than any other form of meat, and is usually considered more strengthening.
MUTTON is a trifle more digestible, however.

A healthy person would not notice this, the digestive power in health being more than is necessary for the ordinary meal; but the dyspeptic will soon find that mutton gives his stomach less work.

Its composition is very nearly the same as that of beef; and both when cooked, either by roasting or boiling, lose about a third of their substance, and come to us with twenty-seven parts of nitrogen, fifteen of fat, fifty-four of water, and three of salty matters.
Mountain sheep and cattle have the finest-flavored meat, and are also richest in nitrogenous matter.