Both animal and vegetable foods are wholesome in their proper place, and their proper place is on the table together.
Those nations which live solely, or even chiefly, upon one or two kinds of staple foods, such as rice, potatoes, corn-meal, or yams, do so solely because they are too poor to afford other kinds of food, or too lazy, or too uncivilized, to get them; and instead of being healthier and longer-lived than civilized races, they are much more subject to disease and live only about half as long.
THE THREE GREAT CLASSES OF FOOD-FUEL Food is Fuel.

Now what is the chief quality which makes one kind of food preferable to another?
As our body machine runs entirely upon the energy or "strength" which it gets out of its food, _a good food must have plenty of fuel value_; that is to say, it must be capable of burning and giving off heat and steaming-power.

Other things being equal, the more it has of this fuel value, the more desirable and valuable it will be as a food.
From this point of view, foods may be roughly classified, after the fashion of the materials needed to build a fire in a grate or stove, as Coal foods, Kindling foods, and Paper foods.

Although coal, kindling, and paper are of very different fuel values, they are all necessary to start the fire in the grate and to keep it burning properly.

Moreover, any one of them would keep a fire going alone, after a fashion, provided that you had a grate or furnace large enough to burn it in, and could shovel it in fast enough; and the same is true, to a certain degree, of the foods in the body.
How to Judge the Fuel Value of Foods.