in which he was
entered while living on a reduced protein or Chittenden diet. Upon such
a diet, or less than that, the people of Germany are now living to-day.
The principle involves eating meat very sparingly, taking half a piece
where one would have formerly been taken, and using it only for its
flavor. The wing of a chicken has little meat on it and yet if eaten
together with vegetables it gives the meal a different quality than it
would have had without it, and to this extent its use is warranted. The
muscles are active when hard labor is done, but the muscles do not need
meat for the performance of their work. A fasting man may have
considerable power. The popular idea of the necessity of meat for a
laboring man may be epitomized in the statement: a strong man can eat
more meat than a weak one, hence meat makes a man strong. The
proposition is evidently absurd.

Not only is the taking of meat without beneficial relation to the
capacity for muscular work, but, in fact, an exclusive meat diet results
in the sensation that work is being accomplished with difficulty. When
meat is metabolized it stimulates the body to a higher heat production,
as great an increase as 55 per cent. having been observed in a resting
man. No other food-stuff will accomplish so great an increase. It is
especially worthy of note that this increase in the heat production, due
to the _specific dynamic action_ of protein, as it is called, cannot be
utilized in the execution of mechanical work. When the organism of a
laborer at work in a hot environment is called upon to eliminate extra
heat, due to the work he is performing, he must also eliminate the quota
of heat which is derived from any large ingestion of meat. Hence, the
American farmer in the hot weather can eat little meat.

So far as is known, taking meat even in large excess is not harmful, but
it represents luxury and waste. According to an oral statement by A. E.
Taylor, the results of many thousand urinary analyses in Germany during
the second year of the war showed about 7 grams of nitrogen excreted,
which would correspond to a dietary containing about 45 grams of
protein. As a matter of fact, this is the equivalent of the reduced
protein dietary of Chittenden, and it is reported that no ill effects
can be attributed to it. The flavor of meat is such that it lends itself
to the easy preparation of a palatable meal, but this flavor could
undoubtedly be as well obtained if the prese