Page:Foods and their adulteration; origin, manufacture, and composition of food products; description of common adulterations, food standards, and national food laws and regulations (IA foodstheiradulte02wile).pdf/311

 String beans:

Water,                                            87.23 percent Ash,                                                .76    " Protein,                                            2.20    " Crude fiber,                                       1.92    " Carbohydrates,                                      7.52    " Fat,                                                .37    "

The above data are for green Lima beans with the pod removed and for string beans including the pod. The latter, it is seen, are composed largely of water, containing less than 13 percent of dry matter. Of the dry matter almost 20 percent is protein. The soluble carbohydrates, including the starch and sugar, are the most important of the ingredients of the dry substance in so far as actual weight is concerned. In the Lima bean the protein is more than three times as great as in the string bean, and the starch and sugar almost three times as much. As a nutrient, therefore, the Lima beans are far more valuable than the string beans. These data may be taken as representative of all varieties of green beans, hulled and unhulled, the Lima beans being types of hulled beans and the string variety being the type of beans including the pod.

Composition of the Dry Bean.—

Water,                                           15.86 percent. Ash,                                              3.53    " Protein,                                          20.57    " Fiber,                                            3.86    " Sugar, starch, etc.,                              55.49    " Fat,                                               .69    "

The analyses show that the dry bean is much richer in protein than the cereals.

Beets.—All the varieties of edible beets belong to the common species Beta vulgaris L. French, betterave; German, Salat-Rübe; Dutch, Betwortel; Italian, barbabietola; Spanish, remolacha.

The most important of these beets, economically, is the variety which has been cultivated for the purpose of producing sugar. By long years of selection and improvement the sugar content of the natural beet, which is not more than from four to six percent, has been brought up to an average of about 14 percent, often reaching much larger quantities. The sugar beet itself, in its earlier stages, makes an excellent vegetable for the table, being particularly sweet and palatable. Its tannin content, however, is very high, and before cooking, especially, it has quite a bitter taste, at times. This disappears in the young beets when they are cooked. The sugar beet has a perfectly white flesh, inasmuch as the attempt was made in the early period of cultivation to develop a beet without color in order to produce a white sugar with as little trouble as possible. On the other hand the garden beet is usually highly colored, the red beet being especially prized. The number of varieties of beets in cultivation is very great. Among the most important may be