FoodNet

A practical cook and text book for general use

1896

Page 95

Presented as published in 1896. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
To kill or not to kill for food, is a question for consid- eration and solution by the great mass of intelligent people who indulge in flesh that feeds and stimulates, arouses and quickens every insane desire and base passion known to mankind. 236 THE FAT OF THE LAND. CHAPTER XXI. WHERE THE MONEY GOES. To compute the actual cost of sustaining the present methods of improving the condition of the race would be useless while the causes that create the necessity are overlooked. Hence a few statistics gathered at random will serve as a reminder that we have become the most extravagant and wasteful of nations. The unnecessary articles we consume, far exceed the expense of legiti- mate food. Our trade and traffic with other nations has brought to our shores many of these extraneous goods. The problems of supply and waste, of needs and wants, are full of earnest work, and when treated from a physio- logical stand-point, nineteenth century poverty, crime and intemperance will not stand a shadow of a chance for existence at the close of the twentieth century. Meat. On the animal side, behind the scenes of slaughter, we find the following : " Eight or nine million hogs, between three and four million head of cattle, and fully two million sheep, find their way into the stock-markets of Chicago in the course of a year. * * * Seriously, if the stock markets of Chicago were by any possibility to bob out of existence to-morrow the effect on the feeding arrangements of the world would be no tritie." WHERE THE MONEY GOES. 237 Very true, but the advantages gained would be immense. This is but a sample of the great and costly sacrifice of living creatures in various parts of the civilized world. A pound of meat costs six times as much as a pound of the cereals, while a pound of the latter contains three times as much nutriment as a pound of meat. In other words the cost of the nutriment in meat is eighteen times as much as that in the cereals. In view of this fact it seems a great waste to supply the human family with a second hand article, for the animal is but a machine for converting grain into flesh. Milk. ** London requires 600,000 cows to supply it with the products of the dairy, 84,000 being needed for milk alone. Nearly 12,000 of these "milk machines" spend their lives in sheds and hardly ever see daylight so to speak." A paper read by George M. Whitaker before the State Board of Agriculture on the milk supply of the cities of Massachusetts says : " The milk business in a state like MassacMPtisetts is particularly interesting, because 75 per cent of its popu- lation live in cities and towns of more than 7000 pop- ulation. These people are estimated to pay for milk $12,500,000 per year. In Boston alone 240,000 quarts of milk are daily consumed. It is estimated that $85,000 per year is paid to Maine farmers for cfeam sent to Massachusetts." This is the supply of one state only. This inordinate consumption of the unnaturally produced lacteal fluid, is largely responsible for infant mortality and human tuberculosis, as well as many other diseases. This induced condition demands physicians and several other profes- sional industries, that flourish upon the diseases of the people. 238 THE FAT OF THE LAND. Living on our Diseases, The English Herald of Health contains the following item ;