Food and health

make a return to the land, which is valuable. Taken as food to be raised, do you not see that the beef is the most costly to the farmer ? Veal, the flesh of the calf, is less costly to the farmer than beef. Can you explain why ? The calf should not be eaten when less nn-i'^ Ti -rr-v^ 'jTj^ ^D::!^^-;: ^JREbtM : ■[ TOP ^ r-'C'T '.-co^- ?--cfjfA"** FLP.TE' i'^^^^" Cowtesy of E. C. Bridgman, Neto York. Fig. 93 . — Cuts of beef. than six weeks old. All this does not mean that we should not eat meat ; but we should understand that it is not a cheap food simply because we raise it ourselves, for we pay for it in food and labor, and often can get better food value for ourselves from other things for less labor. Look on page 170 again to see the values of eggs, milk, and beef ; and you can see a little more clearly still why milk and eggs are on the whole cheaper than any meat. What to be careful about in buying meat. Mrs. Allen was careful in explaining to MoUie and Marjorie that she bought from one butcher's cart rather than another, because this butcher was careful to buy good LOIN .:;; pjBCHOPS torp^. ^ LOINROASTCRDV/NFO/LST . CS0|6^ ''^ FLANK "'•■ '■'[ ''v.'&:^i^ L/i ^\ TROTTER^\^ Fig. 94. — Cuts of lamb and mutton. beef, in the first place. Then, too, he had a clean place for hanging his beef, chilled by ice. His shop was very clean, scrubbed out often, and he fought flies all the time. His cart, too, was cleaned daily, screened from flies, and the meat covered from the dust of the road. The other butcher allowed flies to crawl over the meat, and his cart and shop had an unclean appearance and smell. 2IO Miss James had talked about certain dangers from meat. If the animals themselves are unhealthy, there may be tiny living creatures in their flesh, known as parasites. The ter- -^G rible disease tri- ^ ^^^S^ "'^Kv china sometimes found in pork is one of these. Tapeworms come from beef. We can protect ourselves from these parasites by thorough cooking of the meat. The cooked meat should be pink rather than red and raw looking. Another trouble, known as ptomaine poisoning, may occur when meat has been kept too long and has not been kept cold enough. The ptomaine is a poison formed by the bacteria that have developed in the meat. Then, again, the bacteria themselves injure us, and are now thought to be the cause of most of the sickness which has been called ptomaine poisoning. There are laws that require inspection of all meat. The Woman's Club in Pleasant Valley made a very V. S. Departmtiia of AgricultVTe, Farmers* Bidletin 18S. Fig. 95. — Prime ribs of beef. a. Rolled roast, b. Folded roast, c. Standing roast. thorough study of this subject and worked with the local butchers until matters were very much improved. Selecting meat for cooking. The cuts of meat vary somewhat in different parts of the country. We know that meat is either tough or tender;, and that the difference is caused by the amount of exercise given to the different muscles of the animal's body. The flesh of the meat is muscle. You easily see that the muscles lying along the animal's spine and underneath the body are used much less than the muscles of the neck and the legs. The tough cuts, therefore, come from the neck and legs, the tender cuts from the middle of the back, and the toughness increases toward the neck and the hind legs. The muscles of the abdomen give a tender and coarse-grained meat. The tender meat is no more nourishing than the tough, but is easier and ppleasant to chew; and, as there is less tender meat than tough, the tender meat costs moree V. .^, BeparLm&ni ofAffrtctUinrn, Farmers' Builetitt ISS,