[Sidenote: Animal fats not a necessity]
The use of animal fats as food is a very ancient custom, especially
among the northern tribes. This custom was once justified owing to
the necessity for the consumption of a liberal amount of fats in
cold countries, but in this country where our marvelous system of
international transportation places at the door of every northern home
the delicious fats from the olive orchards of Italy, France, and Spain,
the refined oil from the cottonseed, and more than a dozen varieties of
nuts, including the humble peanut, there is but little necessity for the
use of animal fats except in the form of butter and cream.
[Sidenote: Chemical change in frying fats]
Perhaps the most injurious way in which animal fats are used is in
the process of frying, which is much practised in southern countries
in the preparation of other food. The chemical change which takes
place in fats, when treated in this manner, renders them exceedingly
indigestible, and almost wholly unfit for food.
That per cent of animal fats contained in the ordinary meat diet is
quite as wholesome as any other element of nutrition secured from animal
sources. However, with the splendid supply of vegetable fats civilized
people have to draw upon, the use of animal fats cannot be recommended
in any form except that of cream and butter, and when we consider the
expense of these by comparison with many pure vegetable fats, our sense
of ordinary economy would bid us discard them.
[Sidenote: Chemical difference between animal and vegetable fats]
The chief distinction between animal and vegetable fats is in the
proportion of olein compared with stearin and palmitin. The proportion
of the two latter fats is much greater in fats of domestic animals than
it is in the human body; this is especially so of tallow. For this
reason vegetable fats, which are of a more liquid nature, are more
desirable than those of animal origin, especially where we wish to add
fatty tissue to the body.