Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1885 — High Authority on Beef Tea. [ARTICLE]

High Authority on Beef Tea.

As nursing and. care of the sick enter, more or less, into the lives of most women, it may be interesting to those who read this column to know what one of tne highest dietetic authorities in England says on this subject of beef tea. Beef tea, once so relied upon by physicians in severe illnesses, has been for several years des ending in the scale of nutritive liquids, while milk has been gaining a more and more important position. The celebrated Dr. Roberts, of London, in a paper recently read before the British Medical Society, at Cardiff, deals a staggering blow to beef tea as usually prepared. “Next to milk,” he says, “in frequency of use in high esteem come beef tea and other meat decoctions. Long experience has satisfied us in this country of the usefulness of these preparations in feeding the sick. Beef tea and its cogeners, however, take rank as restoratives and stimulants rather than as nutrients. They contain no albuminous matter in solution, and the small quantity of gelatine contained in them cannot be of much account. There is a widespread misapprehension among the public in regard to the nutritive value of beef tea. The notion prevails that the nourishing qualities of the meat pass into the decoction, and that the dry, hard remnant of meat-fiber which remains undissolved is exhausted of its nutritive qualities; and this latter is often given to the cat or dog* or even, as I have known, thrown away as useless rubbish into the midden.” It is so common with us to see this remnant of meat thrown aside as useless, that we consider that Dr. Roberts gives us a valuable lesson m household economy when he tells us that this meat contains a large amount of nutriment, and that when pounded in a mortar or beaten to a paste with a spoon, and duly flavored with salt and other condiments, it constitutes not only a highly nourishing and agreeable, but also an exceedingly digestible, form of food. A French cook would undoubtedly prepare a savory mince or a dish of tempting croquettes from what we are in the habit of throwing away as useless. Having proved to us that beef tea is not all that our “fancy painted it, ” Dr. Roberts proceeds to inform us how we may best extract the nutritive properties of beef and other meats. This is to be done by using “cold-made meat infusions,” cold made, because when heated above 114 degrees F. coagulation of the albumen occurs, which destroys the liquid character of the infusion, and converts it into a jelly.

Dr. Roberts recommends the use of an infusion made as follows: Cover the minced meat with half its weight of water, and allow it to stand for two hours, after which press it through a cloth. By this means a highly nutritive infusion is obtained, containing an amount of protein, or nutritious material, equivalent to that found in cow’s milk.

“The objection to these infusions,” Dr. Roberts adds, “is their raw flavor, which to many is highly disagreeable. The best way of covering the raw taste is to add some ordinary beef tea, or a little of Liebig’s extract of meat. Some prefer the flavor communicated by a slice of lemon.”

East Tennessee bids fair to become the greatest tobacco growing section in the union. Good judges declare that the soil of that region is suited to the production of as fine a grade of this weed as any grown in the world.

An Arizona man has stopped taking an agricultural paper. He wrote to the editor asking how to get rid of gnats. The answer came in the next issue, “Kill them.”