Vegetarians, generally, place the humane as the highest reason for their
practice, though the determining cause of the change from a flesh diet has
been in most cases bad health.

A vegetarian may be defined as one who abstains from all animals as food.
The term animal is used in its proper scientific sense (comprising
insects, molluscs, crustaceans, fish, etc.). Animal products are not
excluded, though they are not considered really necessary. They are
looked upon as a great convenience, whilst free from nearly all the
objections appertaining to flesh food.

A.W.D.




The Chemistry of Food and Nutrition

By A.W. DUNCAN, F.C.S.


We may define a food to be any substance which will repair the functional
waste of the body, increase its growth, or maintain the heat, muscular,
and nervous energy. In its most comprehensive sense, the oxygen of the air
is a food; as although it is admitted by the lungs, it passes into the
blood, and there re-acts upon the other food which has passed through the
stomach. It is usual, however, to restrict the term food to such nutriment
as enters the body by the intestinal canal. Water is often spoken of as
being distinct from food, but for this there is no sufficient reason.