material and is better fed than the family where more money is
expended."--From _Human Foods_, Snyder.

The Source of the Different Foods. All of our food comes from either
the plant world or the animal world. Broadly speaking, plants furnish
the carbohydrates, that is, starch and sugar; animals furnish the fats
and proteids. But although vegetable foods yield carbohydrates mainly,
some of them, like beans and peas, contain large quantities of protein
and can be substituted for meat without disadvantage to the body.
Other plant products, such as nuts, have fat as their most abundant
food constituent. The peanut, for example, contains 43% of fat, 30% of
proteids, and only 17% of carbohydrates; the Brazil nut has 65% of
fat, 17% of proteids, and only 9% of carbohydrates. Nuts make a good
meat substitute, and since they contain a fair amount of carbohydrates
besides the fats and proteins, they supply all of the essential food
constituents and form a well-balanced food.




CHAPTER VI

WATER


65. Destructive Action of Water. The action of water in stream and
sea, in springs and wells, is evident to all; but the activity of
ground water--that is, rain water which sinks into the soil and
remains there--is little known in general. The real activity of ground
water is due to its great solvent power; every time we put sugar into