p. 548 | Sowing for Physical and Spiritual Health

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 28, 1900

Sowing for Physical and Spiritual Health

By David Paulson; W. S. Sadler

David Paulson W. S. Sadler

Fats and Oils.

One of the most important constituents of the body is fat, or adipose tissue. Viewed from a chemical standpoint, fat consists of glycerin combined with three fatty acids in varying quantities, their names being palmitic, stearic, and oleic acid. Each of these melts at different degrees of temperature.

Fat is the most unstable tissue of the system, and therefore is the first to disappear in lingering diseases, particularly those having a tendency to produce emaciation, such as wasting fevers. During prolonged starvation the body seems at first to feed itself upon its own fat, and just previously to death from this cause the fat has almost entirely disappeared.

Fat is built up in the human body from each of the principal food elements,—proteids and starches,—as well as from fats. It is not acted upon at all by either the saliva or the gastric juice, so it passes out of the stomach in practically the same condition as when eaten. When it reaches the small intestine, it is immediately met by two digestive agents, the pancreatic juice and the bile, which have the ability to digest fat and prepare it for absorption.

Digestion of Fats.

The pancreatic juice is the most active digestive fluid in the body. It contains a digestive ferment, steapsin, which, when brought in contact with fat, at once separates the glycerin from the fatty acids. The acids unite with the alkaline bile, and thus form a kind of soap. This soap helps to emulsify a considerable portion of the remainder of the fat, so that it can readily be dissolved and absorbed.

Sources of Fat.

Careful estimation has shown that the human system thrives best when it has about one and one-half ounces of fat each day. Fat can be secured from either the animal or vegetable world. There is no essential difference in the chemical composition of the fat from either of these sources.

1. Animal Fat.—The process of fattening animals for the market by overfeeding, and frequently depriving them of necessary exercise, tends to produce obesity; and the quantity of fat that some animals can deposit in their tissues, in proportion to their normal weight, is very great. The almost universal prevalence of disease among animals affects to a greater or less extent every tissue of their bodies, including the fat; and those who depend upon the animal kingdom to supply them with their daily ration of fat are surely subjecting themselves to unnecessary liability to disease.

2. Cream, Butter, and Eggs.—Another common source of fat is found in dairy products and eggs. Milk contains four per cent of fat, cream has twenty-seven per cent, while the yolk of eggs contains thirty-two per cent. The tiny fat globules scattered throughout the milk, when it is allowed to stand, gradually rise to the top, and form cream. Each little globule is surrounded with a microscopic, nitrogenous envelope, which is broken down by the process of churning, so that the fat is all brought together in one mass, which we call butter.

3. Nuts.—The natural products of the earth nearly all contain more or less fat. Nuts, as a class, contain an abundance of fat, which is built up under natural conditions. Nuts do not, like animals, become obese, nor do they become emaciated; the oils are stored away naturally, normally, and in harmony with the great laws of growth. Some of the common nuts, such as peanuts, almonds, etc., contain nearly half their weight in fat, this being a larger percentage than can be produced in even an overfed animal.

4. Grains.—The grains contain fats in varying proportions. Oats, being one of the richest, contains nearly eight per cent; corn, five per cent; wheat, less than two per cent.

5. Fruits.—Nearly all the common fruits are deficient in fat, the olive and banana being exceptions. The strawberry, however, contains about one half of one per cent of fat.

6. Vegetables.—The majority of vegetables contain only a sufficient amount of fat to make possible a bare estimation.

7. Legumes (Peas, Beans, and Lentils).—The legumes average about the same amount of fat as do the grains.

Three Forms of Fat.

Fats, as ordinarily used for foods, are found either as emulsified fat, free fat, or fried fat.

In the emulsified state, fat is found in fine globules, as in milk or cream, or in nuts. In this condition it can be diluted to any extent, by the addition of water or other fluids, and yet it will remain in solution.

In free fat the tiny globules have become crushed, as it were, and they all unite in a solid body. There can be no doubt that fat in a condition of emulsion will do less harm in the stomach by way of interfering with the process of starch and proteid digestion than when taken in its free form; and in this emulsified condition it is more readily assimilated.

It has become a matter of common experience with thousands of persons that fried fats tend to produce heartburn and other digestive disturbances. This is because of the fact that when fat is subjected to such high temperatures, its chemical composition is so changed as to render it very difficult of digestion.

Use and Abuse of Fats.

Probably no food element, unless it be sugar, is eaten in such immoderate quantities as are fats. Thousands of persons forget that fats can not build up structure in the human system. Pawlow, an eminent Russian investigator, has recently noted the fact that large quantities of fat produce biliousness by interfering with the activity of the gastric juice.

The human system has the power to build up fats from both proteids and starches, as has been mathematically demonstrated by experiments similar to the following: A litter of pups was selected, several of them were killed, and

every particle of fat contained in their bodies was carefully analyzed and weighed. Several of the remaining pups were fed on nothing but proteids for a few weeks. Then they were likewise killed, and the amount of fat that they had stowed up was carefully weighed and measured. It was found that these pups had many times more fat than was found in the bodies of those killed without being fed on proteids.

Man possesses the same power; and undoubtedly if he had trained his digestive organs from earliest childhood to manufacture fats from grains, they would be able to do so without difficulty: but when persons have grown up, accustoming themselves to take large quantities of free animal fat, and then this supply is suddenly stopped, the system frequently rebels from undertaking a task that it has never before had to perform. Such changes, if they are made at all, must be made slowly, otherwise the system may become emaciated, and fall an easy prey to tubercular germs or other death-dealing microbes. Fortunately, such persons can secure the fats just as easily from nuts. There are some, however, who seem to have a peculiarity of digestion that renders them unable readily to utilize fats from the plant world. Such persons are no doubt justified in continuing to use animal products; but they should take pains to secure those products from as healthy a source as possible, and gradually train themselves away from their use, and accustom themselves to the use of fats from the vegetable world, which are in every way better, as well as free from the liability to produce the diseases common among animals.

Significance of Obesity.

Fat is the most variable tissue found in the body. In fact, it is often a convenient means that nature has of stowing away waste matter in persons who habitually overeat and neglect physical exercise. Who ever saw a man who was daily performing hard manual labor, such as digging ditches, overloaded with fat? We are gradually coming to have a “fat variety” of the human race,—the aldermen, the office holders; in short, those who secure their bread without sufficient daily toil to cause them to sweat.