Part 6

Since then pecan prices have had a decided tendency to increase because the demand is growing more rapidly than the supply; and the chances of the pecan being used for oil are more remote than ever. Yet one of the great reasons for the increase in demand is increasing public knowledge of the pecan and its wonderful food value. For the pecan is proved richer in fat than any other nut, with the right proportion of easily assimilated protein, and free from any irritating membrane such as makes some nuts difficult of digestion by those who have weak stomachs.

Nut Meat is Superior to Animal Flesh

Nut meat is Nature’s food product for supplying fats and proteins, superior in every way to animal flesh. Dr. Kellogg, of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, said:

“Nuts are rich in fat and protein. On account of their high fat content they are the most highly concentrated of all natural foods. A pound of nuts contains on an average more than 3,000 calories or food units, double the amount supplied by grains, four times as much as average meats and ten times as much as average fruits or vegetables.”

For example, according to Jaffi’s table, ten different kinds of our common nuts contain on an average 20.7% of protein, 53% of fat, and 18% of carbohydrate. Among all nuts the pecan has the largest percentage of fat and the best balanced proportion of protein, analysis showing 12% protein, 70% fat, and 18% carbohydrate.

Meat (round steaks) gives 19.8% of protein and 15.6% of fat, with no carbohydrate. =A pound of average nuts contains the equivalent of a pound of beefsteak and, in addition, nearly a pound of butter and a third of a loaf of bread.= The nut is, in fact, a sort of vegetable meat. Its composition is much the same as that of fat meat, only it is in much more concentrated form.

Knowing that the nut is a highly concentrated food, the question naturally arises, can the body utilize the energy stored in nuts as readily as that supplied by meat products?

The notion that nuts are difficult of digestion has really no foundation in fact. The idea is probably the natural outgrowth of the custom of eating nuts at the close of a meal when an abundance, more likely a superabundance of highly nutritious foods has already been eaten, and the equally injurious custom of eating nuts between meals. Neglect of thorough mastication must also be mentioned as a possible cause of indigestion following the use of nuts.

“=The fat of nuts exists in a finely divided state, and in chewing of nuts a fine emulsion is produced so that nuts enter the stomach in a form best adapted for prompt digestion=,” says Dr. Kellogg.

Pecans Furnish The Balanced Ration

“The pecan is a nut of immense economic value. The pecan furnishes practically a balanced ration. It is a highly concentrated and highly nutritious food. Compared with round steak, it contains one-twelfth as much water, two-thirds as much protein, from four to six times as much fat and has between three and four times as great fuel value.

Pecans contain most of the elements essential to the building of the frame and body tissues. The food value of pecans is rapidly becoming generally recognized, and it will not be long before the pecan will be extensively used not only as a substitute for certain classes of food, such as meats, but also a substitute for food of all classes.”—U. S. Congressional Record, Jan. 12, 1917.

Nuts—A Staple, Necessary Food

“There are abundant indications,” says the Journal of the American Medical Association for September 21, 1918, “that nuts, which have long found a valued place in the dietary of the diabetic without detriment to his health, will grow in popularity as foods for the well.”

“The exigencies of war time have emphasized anew those properties of nuts as foods which remove them from the category of luxuries and place them on the list of substantial components of the day’s ration,” it adds in its editorial comments on the experiments of Professor Cajori, of Yale University. “It should be remembered,” it states, “that bulk for bulk they (nuts) belong among the most nutritive foods ordinarily available.”

Opposing the prejudice that nuts are difficult of digestion, it adds, “=Cajori’s studies lead him to the conclusion that if nuts are eaten properly and used in the diet as are eggs, meats and other foods rich in protein, they have a physiological value on a par with that of staple articles=.” Only in the case of the chestnut—because of its large starch content—was cooking desirable.

Commenting upon this article, Good Health Magazine for January, 1918, says: “=For nearly half a century we have advocated the use of nuts as a staple element of the dietary of man=.”

As Good Health points out, these conclusions of Professor Cajori are in harmony with the suggestions of the United States Food Administration that nuts “should be counted as part of the necessary food and not eaten as an extra.” “We are led to believe,” adds Good Health, “that the occasional indigestion following injudicious eating of cheese and nuts is probably often due to forgetting that they are very substantial foods, and eating them at the end of an already substantial meal.”

The experiments of Dr. Hoobler, of Detroit, Michigan, in the Woman’s Hospital and Infant’s Home, showed that for nursing mothers a diet consisting largely, 50%, of nuts, was far superior to any other dietary, and in every particular giving nearly 15% greater flow of milk, with 30% greater food value, and that the mothers took the diet readily and enjoyed it. (Journal of the American Medical Association, Aug. 12, 1917.)

THE SECOND QUARTER of the east front of our big, bearing orchard. To realize the immense size of this orchard, add to this picture the trees on page one, and remember that these together show only one-half of one side of this orchard. ]

Nuts Versus Beefsteak

“Beefsteak has become a fetish with many people; but the experiments of Chittenden and others have demonstrated that the amount of protein needed by the body daily is so small that it is scarcely possible to arrange a bill of fare to include flesh foods without making the protein intake excessive. This is because the ordinary foodstuffs other than meat contain a sufficient amount of protein to meet the needs of the body. Nuts present their protein in combination with so large a proportion of easily digestible fat that there is comparatively little danger of getting an excess,” states Dr. Kellogg.

“In face of vanishing supply of animal flesh it is most comforting to know that meats of all sorts may be safely replaced by nuts not only without loss, but with a decided gain,” he adds.

Among the other advantages of nuts and animal flesh which Dr. Kellogg cites are the freedom from waste products such as uric acid, urea, carmine, etc., which cause so many human ills.

Nuts are clean, sweet and aseptic, free from putrefactive bacteria; while ordinary flesh foods contain three to thirty million putrefactive bacteria per ounce.

Nuts are free from trichinæ, tape worm and parasites, and from the possibility of carrying specific disease which is always present with animal flesh. “=Nuts=,” says Dr. Kellogg, “=are in good health when gathered and remain so till eaten=.”

Nuts—The Safer Source of Protein

“Beefsteak has a certain food value,” says Good Health for January, 1919, “though far less than is generally attributed to it, =but in addition it embodies toxic elements, waste products from the animal’s body, contained in the venous blood, always poisonous, which gives the beefsteak its red color=.”