There is nothing improbable in a flesh-eater requiring more food than a
simple living vegetarian. His food contains more proteid, and
excrementitious matter or extractives; these stimulate the digestive
organs and overtax the excretory ones. Generally, he is fond of
condiments, salt, and elaborate cooking, often also of alcohol; if a man,
probably of tobacco. He lives, as it were, at high pressure.

There are on record certain experiments which appear to indicate the
necessity of a large proportion of proteid, especially when the diet has
been of vegetable origin. These experiments are inconclusive, because the
subject has been accustomed to an ordinary flesh diet, perhaps also to
alcoholic drinks. The change to a comparatively non-stimulating diet
cannot be made, and the digestive organs expected to adapt themselves in
a few days. Perhaps not even a month or a year would suffice, for some
people, and yet that same diet would suit others. In some experiments the
food has not been appetising, the subject has even taken it with
reluctance or even loathing; an excess of some food has been eaten which
no vegetarian or anybody else would think of using in a practical dietary.

Sometimes persons on changing from an ordinary flesh dietary, lose weight
and strength. Generally, it is found that they have done little more than
discontinue the flesh, without substituting suitable foods. Authorities
think it is from a deficiency of proteid, and recommend an addition of
such foods as pulse, wheatmeal, oatmeal, eggs, milk, cheese, and such as a
reference to the table of analyses, show a low nutrient ratio figure. This
may also be due to an insufficiency of food eaten, owing to the
comparatively insipid character of the food and want of appetite. In
making a change to a vegetarian diet, such foods had better be taken that
are rather rich in proteid, and that approximate somewhat in their flavour
and manner of cooking to that used previously. A further change to a