The net result
was to put into the hands of the chemist the ability to draw his
materials at will from any land and from the vegetable and animal
kingdoms and to combine them as he will to make new fat foods for every
use; hard for summer, soft for winter; solid for the northerners and
liquid for the southerners; white, yellow or any other color, and
flavored to suit the taste. The Hindu can eat no fat from the sacred
cow; the Mohammedan and the Jew can eat no fat from the abhorred pig;
the vegetarian will touch neither; other people will take both. No
matter, all can be accommodated.
All the fats and oils, though they consist of scores of different
compounds, have practically the same food value when freed from the
extraneous matter that gives them their characteristic flavors. They are
all practically tasteless and colorless. The various vegetable and
animal oils and fats have about the same digestibility, 98 per cent.,[3]
and are all ordinarily completely utilized in the body, supplying it
with two and a quarter times as much energy as any other food.
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