What to eat - and why, including the famous Hindhede cookery recipes : a complete change to a healthy, simple, and cheap mode of living / by M. Hindhede ; English adaptation by C.A. Bang.

  • Hindhede, M. (Mikkel), 1862-1945.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: What to eat - and why, including the famous Hindhede cookery recipes : a complete change to a healthy, simple, and cheap mode of living / by M. Hindhede ; English adaptation by C.A. Bang. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    by adopting my system, it means for a family of'six a saving of fi8 to ^25 a year. This amount can be spent on providing for other necessaries, whilst the children will enjoy better health. Children brought up on my system assuredly attain a greater growth, both mental and physical. They acquire : A. Better health, thereby greater strength and energy. B. More stamina, which will keep up their strength during the growing age, and facilitate it. C. They will from their youth have learnt moderation in eating. Do you not, my readers, believe that children brought up in such a way are better fitted for the struggle of life ? II. WHAT DO WE REQUIRE AS NUTRITION? Modern physiology compares the human body to a steam-engine. To set an engine in motion two things are required : coals and air. Coals are thrown in through the furnace trap—air is drawn in by the draught set up by the chimney. As the oxygen of the air comes in contact with the carbon of the coal at a suitable temperature, what we call combustion takes place, i.e., carbon and oxygen combine to form carbonic acid, and at the same time heat is produced. It is this heat which sets the engine in motion, by means of steam. It is exactly the same with the human body. Coals are to the engine what food is to the body, and we inhale the oxygen of the air by respiration. When those two bodies meet in the blood, a process of combustion takes place, forming carbonic acid, which we breathe out, and heat which we use for a double purpose, viz., partly to keep us warm, partly to set the human machine in motion ; in other words, to keep the brain, nerves, and muscles in activity. Such a comparison is instructive and important for my demonstration, for, as with a locomotive, we have to find a fuel that is as productive and active as possible, so we must regulate man’s food and look at it from the same point of view. Thus, numerous experiments have been made which tend to prove that the value of man’s diet must be in proportion to the heat-producing power which develops itself in the combustion—and to measure the heat produced by the combustion, a special instrument called a “ calorimeter ” is used. Hcat is expressed in calories or heat units. A calorie is the quantity of heat required to raise 1 litre * of water i° C. In saying that the amount of food required by man daily must contain 3,000 calories, I mean that, provided not a single particle of that heat be lost, it would be sufficient to bring about 61 gallons of water from freezing to boiling point. We must also consider under what form it is best to absorb the food necessary to produce these 3,000 calories, in order to live wholesomely and cheaply, and in so doing not to take trom the food the flavour which we think we cannot do without. Our foodstuffs, though very varied, are not so different as they generally appear. They contain in general only three substances in varying quantities, viz., albumen or protein, fat, and carbohydrates. Albumen is found in its purest form in the white of a hen’s egg, which contains from 10 to u per cent, of albumen, the rest being water. Then this substance is found also nearly pure in lean meat, about One litre is about 1 quart.