Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

IPROVISIONS 185Coffee, " cereal coffee," tea, condiments, and commonbeef extracts contain practically no nutriment, their functionbeing to stimulate the nerves and digestive organs, toadd agreeable flavor, or, in the case of salt, to furnisha necessary mineral ingredient.Digestibility.— In applying the above table wemust bear in mind the adage that " we live notupon what we eat but upon what we digest." Somefoods rich in protein, especially beans, peas, andoat meal, are not easily assimilated, unless cookedfor a longer time than campers generally can spare.A considerable part of their protein is liable toputrefy in the alimentary canal, and so be worsethan wasted. An excess of meat or fish will do thesame thing. Other foods of very high theoreticalvalue are constipating if used in large amounts, ascheese, nuts, chocolate.The protein of animal food is more digestible thanthat of vegetable food by about 13 per cent, (average),and the protein of wheat is more easily assimilatedthan that of corn or oats. I quote thefollowing from an article on army rations by Dr.Woods Hutchinson:" Every imaginable grain, nut, root, pith or pulp thatcontains starch has been tried out as a substitute for it[wheat] because these are either cheaper in proportionto their starch content than wheat or can be grown inclimates and latitudes where wheat will not flourish.Corn has been tried in the subtropics, rice in the tropics,oats, rye and barley in the north temperate zone, potatoes,sago from the palm, and tapioca from the manioc root." Only the net result can be given here, which is that nocivilized nation that can raise the money or provide thetransportation to get wheat will allow its army to live onany other yet discovered or invented grain or starch.Rice, corn meal, potatoes, sago and tapioca are, of course,ruled out at once, because they contain only starch andnothing to match in the slightest degree the twelve orfourteen per cent, of gluten, or vegetable meat, that giveswheat itssupreme value."After our first food analyses a desperate attempt wasmade to substitute corn for wheat, because it containedfrom five to seven per cent, of protein — called zein — aperfectly good protein in *h^ books and in the l^iboratories/