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934 METABOLISM.
is about four-fifths that of a laboring man, and we may consider the
following as a daily diet with moderate work
:
Proteins. Fat. Carbohydrates. Calories.
For women 94 grams 45 grams 400 grams 2240
The proportion of fat to carbohydrates is here as 1:8-9. Such a
proportion often occurs in the food of the poorer classes who chiefly live
upon the cheap and voluminous vegetable food, while this ratio in the
food of wealthier persons is 1 :3-4. It would be desirable if in the above
rations the fat were increased at the expense of the carbohydrates, but
unfortunately on account of the high price of fat such a modification
cannot always be made.
In examining the above figures for the daily rations it must not
be forgotten that those for the various foodstuffs are gross results.
They consequently represent the quantity of those which must be taken
in, and not those which are really absorbed. The figures for the calories
are, on the contrary, net results.
The various foods are, as is well known, not equally digested and
absorbed, and in general the vegetable foods are less completely consumed
than animal foods. This is especially true of the proteins. When,
therefore, Voit, as above stated, calculates the daily quantity of pro-
teins needed by a laborer as 118 grams, he starts with the supposition
that the diet is a mixed animal and vegetable one, and also that of the
above 118 grams about 105 grams are absorbed. The results obtained
by Pfluger and his pupils Bohland and Bleibtreu x
on the extent of
the metabolism of proteins in man with an optional and sufficient diet
correspond well with the above figures, when the unequal weight of body
of the various persons experimented upon is sufficiently considered.
As a rule, the more exclusively a vegetable food is employed, the
smaller is the quantity of proteins in it. The strictly vegetable diet
of certain people, as that of the Japanese and of the so-called vegeta-
rians, is therefore a proof that, if the quantity of food be sufficient, a
person may exist on considerably smaller quantities of proteins than
Voit suggests. It follows from the investigations of Hirschfeld, Kuma-
gawa and Klemperer, Siven, and others (see pages 903, 915) that an
almost complete or indeed a complete nitrogenous equilibrium may be
attained by the sufficient administration of non-nitrogeneous nutritive
bodies with relatively very small quantities of proteins.
If we bear in mind that the food of people of different countries
varies greatly, and that the individual also takes essentially different
nourishment according to the external conditions of living and the influence
of climate, it is not remarkable that a person accustomed to a mixed
1
Bohland, Pfluger’s Arch., 36; Bleibtreu, ibid., 38.
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