Meat in hot Weather

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 12, 1865

Meat in hot Weather.

MEAT is stimulating. The nervous energy of New England people is already too much, rather than too little. We need opiates, rather than stimulates. But in our wide list of articles for the table, there is no need of selecting anything because they possess either of these peculiar qualities. Like Agar’s prayer with regard to poverty and riches, we require neither decided stimulants, nor that food which tends to stupidity and heaviness. Bread in various forms should be the leading article of food for all, in warm weather. With sweet butter and the delicious fruits which follow each other in quick succession all through the summer, there will be no danger of suffering for want of nutritious food. The hardest laboring man can be sustained upon these, and would be much more likely to preserve health, equanimity of temper, and long life, than if using meats and gravies two or three times a day.

In these times of high prices, when a roasting piece for a family of a dozen persons costs hard on to three dollars, it is a good time to cast about and look at the economy of the matter, as well as at it in a hygienic point of view. It is said that four pounds of beef lose, by boiling, one pound; one pound five ounces by roasting, and one pound three ounce by baking. Four pounds of mutton lose fourteen ounces by boiling; one pound six ounces by roasting, and one pound four ounces by baking! We suppose this is not an absolute loss, for a portion of it must be juices of the meat which fall into the dripping pan in roasting or baking. Here, then, is a loss of about one-fourth to start with, in cooking the meat—then comes the cost of butter, seasoning, vegetables, pickles and jellies, to give the meat a relish and make it passable! On the contrary, the flour that we use requires more than its own bulk in water in mixing, and thus increases the volume of the food. All this is favorable, because we need bulk as well as nutriment, in the food that we eat. It is well to think of these things, and especially for us who have lean purses, and study economy rather than the gratification of luxurious tastes. “A penny saved is two pence earned.”