Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/61

* VEGETABLES. aa VEGETARIANISM. chiefly of salts of various organic acids, and also pliosphates and chlorides. Vegetables contain ■various organic acids, ethers, and other similar bodies which are not estimated separately in proximate analysis like those quoted above, but are included in tlie group nitrogen-free extract. They are largely accountable for llavors, though various salts and sugars also have a similar in- fluence. In few cases have these flavors been studied chemically. (See Food.) When vege- tables are cooked the chief change in percentage composition is in the water content. They may become drier if baked or fried, or more moist if stewed or boiled. The various chemical bodies are niodilled by cooking. Tlius, albumens are coagulated, starches are to some extent broken down into simpler substances, and other changes take place which are not so well understood. Be- sides the loss in paring vegetables and otherwise preparing them, there may be a loss during cook- ing. For instance, when cabbage is boiled the water extracts nearly half of the total food material, which, being ordinarily thrown away, is lost. When potatoes are boiled the loss may be considerable, being greatest when they are ]iceled and soaked before boiling and least when they are boiled with the .skins on. The materials lost in boiling vegetables are albuminoid and non-albu- minoid nitrogen, mineral matter, and sugars. Lit- tle starch is lost, except that accidentally re- moved by abrasion. In the case of vegetables like carrots, which contain a fairly large amount of sugar, the amount extracted in boiling has been found nearly to equal 1 pound of sugar in a bushel of carrots. In the ordinary household such losses are not important, but where rigid economy is necessary they are worth considera- tion. Although fresh vegetables contain a high per- centage of water, they are nevertheless valuable articles of diet. Like other bulky foods, the}' are eaten in large quantities and thus may furnish a considerable proportion of the total nutrients in the daily diet. This is especially true of vege- tables, like potatoes, which contain fairlj' large amoinits of starch. Combined with some con- centrated foods, especially those which contain much protein (eggs, cheese, meat, etc.), vege- tables contribute to a well-balanced diet. From a large number of statistics collected in connection with the nutrition investigations eon- ducted by the United States Department of Agri- culture it appears that vegetables (other than dried legumes) furnish about 21 per cent, of the total food, 6 per cent, of the total protein, and 13 per cent, of the total carbohydrates in the diet of the average American family. The cost of vegetables varies with the season, rarity, distance from market, and other factors. High-pi'iccd vegeta)>les may increase the cost of living out of all proportion to the nutrients they furnish, though if the pirchaser is not compelled to economize this use may perhaps be justified on the ground that they render the diet more at- tractive. So far as can be jiidged by the in- vestigations on record, a great variety of vege- tables is not necessary to health, and the man of limited means may provide as wholesome a diet with the aid of the inexpensive vegetables as the man who can afford to purchase hothouse deli- cacies. Vegetables are very useful in giving variety to the diet, a value which often cannot be measured in dollars and cents. They fre- quently stimulate the appetite for other foods. The variety of fresh vegetables eaten, as well as the quantity, has been increased in recent years, owing to increased facilities for growing out of season, marketing, transportation, and storage. Canned vegetables, which are annually becom- ing more popular, are essentially cooked vege- tables in which fermentation is prevented by sterilization and the exclusion of air. Evapo- rated vegetables, which are also popular, especial- ly for outlitting camps and expeditions, arc prac- tically concentrated foods which need only water and cooking to render them edible. Many of them are used in the ordinary household for soups, etc. Besides being used as food, various vegetables are employed for flavoring and for garnishing. Some, like potatoes, are used for the manufacture of starch. See United States Department of Agriculture Office of Experiment Stations Bulletin 28 (re- vised), CoiiiposUion of American Food Materials (Washington, 1899) ; Bulletin 4.3, Losses in Boil- ing Vegetables (ib., 1897) ; Farmers' Bulletin 121. Beans. Peas, and Other Legumes as Food (Washington, 1900). VEGETABLE SPONGE. The netted fibrous interior of the mature fruit of several species of LulTa, more particularly of Luffa icgj'ptiaca and Luft'a acutangula. The fibrous mass contained in this fruit is of a sponge-like nature, and when macerated is much used in bathing and for scrub- bing. In appearance the plants resemble cucum- ber vines. They belong to the family Cucurbi- tacenc. The fruits from which the sponge is obtained are gourd-like and 1 to 2 feet long. In the tropics they grow much longer. The centre of the vegetable sponges is like that of the cu.- cumbcr. VEGETABLE TISSUE. The structural sub- stance of plants. It is compo.sed of cells which have a conunon origin and law of development and may consist of one or more of the tissue ele- ments such as parenchyma and its various sub- divisions and prosenchyma and its diverse forms. VEGETARIANISM. The practice or doc- trine of living upon foods obtained from the vegetable world, to the exclusion of animal food. In all ages there have been idealists who have advocated an exclusively vegetable diet, chiefly on ethical grounds — among whom may be men- tioned Pythagoras, Plato, Plutarch, Rousseau, Shelley, and Swedenborg, but they never had any extensive following. The modern vegetarian movement took its rise about the middle of the nineteenth century. The vegetarian idea w-as best received in England, where the principal cities arc represented by their "societies, and where there are many vegetarian restaurants. The arguments in favor of vegetarianism may be summarized as follows. On physiological grounds it is urged that the formation of tlie teeth and the intestines in man prove that he was not intended to be a, carnivorous, but a frvut and vegetable eating animal. The length of the intestine shows him to be midway between the herbivora and the carnivora, and neither fitted for digesting grasses, which require a long in- testine, nor fle.sh, which needs a short one, but nearer akin to the fruit-eating apes. It is main- tained that a vegetable diet is best for man