Eggs
Eggs contain everything needed to make bone and flesh, but they are too
concentrated to be taken as the sole element of diet, for the system requires
waste. The digestibility of the egg is increased by beating it up with
water, milk, or other liquid. In a chart brought out by the United States
Department of Agriculture is shown the food value of eggs and cheese,
and the energy-producing value of eggs measured by the number of calories
to a pound. A man requires about three thousand seven hundred calories
of energy a day; a woman three thousand two hundred.
RAW EGGS
There is nothing better as a stimulant when one is exhausted than a raw
egg.
Taken the same as a raw oyster, with a bit of salt, pepper, lemon juice,
or vinegar, they are not unpalatable and are easily assimilated.
Raw eggs beaten up with milk make a perfect food for weak children.
The mixture should be sweetened, and may be given in small quantities
at short intervals.
When breakfast or any meal time is lincred. instead of swallowing a quick
lunch half inasc-cated, take a raw egg, a graham cracker, and a small
piece of sweet chocolate. By addice an orange or a banana to this you
have a combination that will sustain one for hours.
For one whole summer, at the noon tear If had no time for properly eating
even a lunch. I went to a drug store near my office and had two eggs thoroughly
shaken up in about two ounces of chocolate syrup, two ounces of milk,
and the glass filled with plain soda. This I found would sustain me thoroughly,
in fact, much better than a full meal hurriedly eaten. Many persons will
find two eggs too hearty and really more than they require, and one egg
amply sufficient. At a cost of ten cents, the ordinary drug-store price,
one will thus have enough nourishment in point of food value to carry
one along nicely and supplant the midday meal.
The office clerk and others, who for various reasons cannot visit the
drug store or soda fountain, can take the raw egg, and afterward eat a
piece of Baker’s Chocolate about two inches square. This will take the
place of the above, and if an orange or banana can be had, so much the
better.
WHOLE EGGS
For the purpose of proper analysis, Professor Langworthy, who has charge
of the nutrition investigations of the United States Department of Agriculture,
has taken eggs as a whole and also the egg divided as “yolk” and “white.”
This is to show the food value of the whole egg, and the separate nourishment
in the white and the yolk. The whole egg furnishes six hundred and ninety-five
calories of energy per pound. It is seventy-three and seven-tenths per
cent, water, fourteen and eight-tenths per cent, protein, ten and five-tenths
per cent, fat, and one per cent ash. An egg should not be boiled more
than two minutes. The longer it is boiled, the harder it becomes to digest,
although some physicians claim that an egg boiled for twenty minutes is
easier to digest than when boiled ten or fifteen minutes.
THE EGG, WHITE AND YOLK
Eggs particularly recommend themselves to the housekeeper because of
their high nourishing value, and the many ways in which they can be prepared
for the table. Eggs are not so economical as milk, judged from the nourishment
standpoint, but except when their price is very high. they are less expensive
than meat. The fnd value of the yolk measures one thousand six hundred
and fifty calories per pound, and the while affords only two hundred and
forty-five calories per pound of nourishment.