THE COAL FOODS (_Continued_) ANIMAL FATS The Digestibility of Fats.

We have now come to the last group of the real Coal foods, namely, the fats.

Fats are the "hottest" and most concentrated fuel that we possess, and might be described as the "anthracites," or "hard coals" of our Coal foods.

They are, also, as might be expected from their "strength" or concentration, among the slowest to digest of all our foods, so that, as a rule, we can eat them only in very moderate amounts, seldom exceeding one-tenth to one-sixth of our total food-fuel.

It is not, however, quite correct to say that fats are hard to digest, because, although from their solid, oily character, they take a longer time to become digested and absorbed by the body than most other foods, yet they are as perfectly and as completely digested, with the healthy person, as any other kind of food.
Indeed, it is this slowness of digestion which gives them their well-known staying-power as a food.
Their Place in our Diet.