Finally, I think we should carefully consider the question whether it is prudent or desirable to accept vegetarian limitations to man's resources in relation to food in face of the world's rapidly increasing populations. Flesh, as heretofore shown, is a most useful concentrated form of nutritious elements, easily portable in small compass, already cooked, and easily digestible under many conditions, in which vegetable foods cannot be readily obtained, or are too bulky for transport, or more difficult to cook than the former.

No universal rule applicable to all.

Great individual variety in relation to digestive power and wants.

Why limit man's resources?

Would any commander be justified in accepting the responsibility of chartering a large vessel freighted with passengers and crew for a three months' voyage, with a commissariat solely supplied with vegetarian produce? Even with the additions of those animal foods, milk, butter, cheese, and eggs, which are so much used and so unwarrantably included under the denomination of vegetarian diet, it would be a rash proceeding. Still more the attempt to sustain an army in the field with similar rations. And why should man be required to reject altogether the entire animal life of the sea, where Nature affords bounteous supplies of wholesome food on every habitable shore? The limitation of our food resources is in no sense desirable, but on the contrary is at this stage of the world's progress a flagrant anachronism. Man's enormously increased travelling facilities tend to render him naturally more cosmopolitan, more versatile in his tastes, appetites, and capabilities, and he can only gain advantage from a widened experience of new foods from both kingdoms, which modern enterprise must in time develop. The very idea of restricting our resources and supplies is a step backwards - a distinct reversion to the rude and distant savagery of the past, a sign of decadence rather than of advance.

Let us have all the world can be made to produce; it will yet yield new and useful, possibly even better foods than those of the past, to the scientific inquirer, be he animal - breeder, agriculturist, or gardener, and furnish additional proof that wisdom lies in accepting every form of wholesome food from whatever source, and without limiting the bounty of Nature in any.

Circumstances in which animal food is absolutely necessary.

Why reject the constant produce of the sea?

Why limit Sources of Food?

Note

Phosphorus, an important element necessary to the nutrition of the tissues and to growth, is found in all proteid - containing foods, such as meat, milk, eggs, wheat and oatmeal, and the legumes. Iron abounds in meat and in the yolk of eggs - there is very little in milk; oat and wheat - meal and the legumes also furnish it. Lime, a necessary element, especially in the diet of children, exists largely in milk and eggs, also in rice and bread.