Both, if considered in regard to health. With an eye to economy only, I
should recommend vegetable diet.
I think that poor people lay out more, in proportion, than the rich, for
the purchase of animal food. They often buy extravagantly, on the credit
system, purchasing on Saturday nights, when there is a rush at the
stalls, and less opportunities for good bargains than when there is more
time. Again, the lower classes fry their meats, losing much of their
flavor and substance, by its going up chimney; or by boiling, and throwing
away much of the nutriment with the water, which stewing in a covered dish
would obviate.
I have been into various markets, and observed the poor as they made their
purchases. I have seen them count into the butcher's hand their last penny
for a rib roast, a piece of pork to fry, a hind quarter of lamb to bake,
or beef to boil, when a piece to stew, with nourishing vegetables, would
cost far less, and return double the nutritive principle.
Beefsteak, which contains seventy-five per cent. of water, is poor economy
of both money and health. The flank and neck pieces are better. The more
fatty and nutritive fore quarters are better than the hind quarters. Ask
the Jews. Coarse vegetables, as carrots, cabbages, turnips, and potatoes,
contain more nourishment than beef, though far less than the cereals, as
wheat, barley, corn, and buckwheat. Beans, peas, rice, cracked wheat or
hominy, cooked with meat, make a most wholesome and nourishing diet for
laborers, for the sedentary, and for invalids. Meat should never be given
to toothless infants. Milk, or bread and milk, is all they require until
they have teeth.
A cheap, innutritious regimen is scarcely conducive to longevity, any more
than a stimulating and high living is contributive to that end. A great
quantity of hot roast meats is objectionable. Also hot fine flour bread.
Let those particularly interested in the matter see our article on bread,
etc., in chapter on Adulterations. Also, as respects coarse sugar against
the refined. See, also, Nutriment for Consumptives, in next chapter.