The Food Elements

The Food Elements:

The various elements found in food are the
following: Starch, sugar, fats, albumen, mineral substances,
indigestible substances.

The digestible food elements are often grouped, according to their
chemical composition, into three classes; vis., carbonaceous,
nitrogenous, and inorganic. The carbonaceous class includes starch,
sugar, and fats; the nitrogenous, all albuminous elements; and the
inorganic comprises the mineral elements.

Starch is only found in vegetable foods; all grains, most vegetables,
and some fruits, contain starch in abundance. Several kinds of sugar
are made in nature’s laboratory; cane, grape, fruit, and milk
sugar. The first is obtained from the sugar-cane, the sap of maple
trees, and from the beet root. Grape and fruit sugars are found in most
fruits and in honey. Milk sugar is one of the constituents of milk.
Glucose, an artificial sugar resembling grape sugar, is now largely
manufactured by subjecting the starch of corn or potatoes to a chemical
process; but it lacks the sweetness of natural sugars, and is by no
means a proper substitute for them. Albumen is found in its purest,
uncombined state in the white of an egg, which is almost wholly composed
of albumen. It exists, combined with other food elements, in many other
foods, both animal and vegetable. It is found abundant in oatmeal, and
to some extent in the other grains, and in the juices of vegetables. All
natural foods contain elements which in many respects resemble
albumen, and are so closely allied to it that for convenience they are
usually classified under the general name of “albumen.” The chief of
these is gluten, which is found in wheat, rye, and barley. Casein,
found in peas, beans, and milk, and the fibrin of flesh, are elements
of this class.

Fats are found in both animal and vegetable foods. Of animal fats,
butter and suet are common examples. In vegetable form, fat is abundant
in nuts, peas, beans, in various of the grains, and in a few fruits, as
the olive. As furnished by nature in nuts, legumes, grains, fruits, and
milk, this element is always found in a state of fine subdivision, which
condition is the one best adapted to its digestion. As most commonly
used, in the form of free fats, as butter, lard, etc., it is not only
difficult of digestion itself, but often interferes with the digestion
of the other food elements which are mixed with it. It was doubtless
never intended that fats should be so modified from their natural
condition and separated from other food elements as to be used as a
separate article of food. The same may be said of the other carbonaceous
elements, sugar and starch, neither of which, when used alone, is
capable of sustaining life, although when combined in a proper and
natural manner with other food elements, they perform a most important
part in the nutrition of the body. Most foods contain a percentage of
the mineral elements. Grains and milk furnish these elements in
abundance. The cellulose, or woody tissue, of vegetables, and the bran
of wheat, are examples of indigestible elements, which although they
cannot be converted into blood in tissue, serve an important purpose by
giving bulk to the food.

With the exception of gluten, none of the food elements, when used
alone, are capable of supporting life. A true food substance contains
some of all the food elements, the amount of each varying in different
foods.

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