digestibility of beef and mutton
fat has long been recognized. The fat of nuts much more closely
resembles human fat than do fats of the sort mentioned. The importance
of this will be appreciated when attention is called to the fact that
fats entering the body do not undergo the transformation changes which
take place in other foodstuffs; for example, protein in the process of
digestion is broken into its ultimate molecular units. Starch is
transformed into sugar which serves as fuel to the body, but fats are so
slightly modified in the process of digestion and absorption that after
reaching the blood and the tissues they are reconstructed into the
original form in which they are eaten, that is, beef fat is deposited in
the tissues as beef fat without undergoing any chemical change whatever;
mutton fat is deposited as mutton fat; lard as pig fat, etc. When the
body makes its own fat from starch or sugar, the natural source of this
tissue element, the product formed is _sui generis_ and must be better
adapted to the body uses than the animal fat which was _sui generis_ to
a pig, a sheep or a goat. It is certainly a pleasant thought that one
who rounds out his figure with the luscious fatness of nuts may
felicitate himself upon the fact that his tissues are participating in
the sweetness of the nut rather than the relic of the sty and the
shambles.

It is also worthy of note that the fat of nuts exists in a finely
divided state, and that in the chewing of nuts a fine emulsion is
produced so that nut fats enter the stomach in a form best adapted for
prompt digestion.

Another question which will naturally arise is this: if nuts are to be
granted the place of a staple in our list of food supplies will it be
safe to accept them as a substitute for flesh foods?

Beef steak has become almost 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.

It is also worthy of note that the protein of nuts is superior in
quality to tha