Mistakes in Buying

Food:
The body demands a daily ration of the three classes of food stuffs, but it is for us to determine from what meats, vegetables, fruits, cereals, etc., this supply shall be obtained.

Generally speaking, meats are the most expensive foods we can purchase, and hence should be bought seldom and in small quantities. Their place can be taken by beans, peas, potatoes, etc., and at less than a quarter of the cost. The average American family eats meat three times a day, while the average family of the more conservative and older countries rarely eats meat more than once a day. The Source of the Different Foods.
All of our food comes from either the plant world or the animal world. Broadly speaking, plants furnish the carbohydrates, that is, starch and sugar; animals furnish the fats and proteids. But although vegetable foods yield carbohydrates mainly, some of them, like beans and peas, contain large quantities of protein and can be substituted for meat without disadvantage to the body. Other plant products, such as nuts, have fat as their most abundant food constituent. The peanut, for example, contains 43% of fat, 30% of proteids, and only 17% of carbohydrates; the Brazil nut has 65% of fat, 17% of proteids, and only 9% of carbohydrates. Nuts make a good meat substitute, and since they contain a fair amount of carbohydrates besides the fats and proteins, they supply all of the essential food constituents and form a well-balanced food.