Chapter V: Care of Food--Meats

[Sidenote: Value of meat as a food]

Meat is one of the most important articles of our diet. It furnishes essential materials for building cells, and it furnishes fat for making heat and power in the body.

[Sidenote: Characteristics of good meat]

Since meat is so important an article of food, we should be very careful to see that it is handled in a way to keep it always perfectly clean. We should make sure that it comes from animals absolutely free from any kind of disease, and that no germs have been allowed to develop poisons in it.

[Sidenote: How meat may be kept clean]

While people know that they ought to pay attention to these things, as a matter of fact they do not do it. They take very little interest in the way the meat that they are to eat is handled, and very few ever go to the slaughterhouse or into the back room of the butcher shop to see whether things are kept clean or not. Some people say, "Oh, we do not like to go there because it is such a horrid place." If these places were kept clean, as they should be, they would not be "horrid." And if the people who buy the meat would occasionally visit them, these places would be kept clean.

If the slaughterhouse and the butcher shop where your meats are handled are not kept clean, the meat is sure to have germs growing in it, and these germs will cause poisons called _ptomaines_ to form in the meat. There may not be enough of them to make you sick, but there will be enough to injure some of the cells of your body, and to deprive you of much of the nourishment that you would otherwise get from the meat.

All boys and girls should belong to a "Clean Meat League" and should try to persuade their parents not to buy meat from any butcher who does not keep his slaughterhouse and butcher shop clean.

[Sidenote: Dangers from diseased meat]

Sometimes butchers are anxious to make money fast and take little thought for the number of people they may make ill. They can buy sick cows very much cheaper than well ones. The meat from a sick cow looks just like the meat from a healthy cow, and the dishonest butcher sells both at the same price. The meat from the diseased cow is not suitable for food. It may cause you to have the same disease that the cow had, or it may only be changed to such an extent that it will not give you the nourishment that you should get from good meat. The butcher who sells you meat from a sick cow is of course dishonest.

[Sidenote: How to prevent the sale of diseased meats]

Ask your father to visit the slaughterhouse where your meat is killed. The only thing you need to do is to persuade him to go and see whether the cattle are sick or not. If the cattle look sick, you will not have to ask him not to buy the meat. No person should ever eat meat that comes from a diseased animal, no matter what the nature of the sickness may be. People who will take the trouble to visit the slaughterhouses occasionally, to investigate these things for themselves, will not have such meat offered them.

[Sidenote: Importance of giving animals clean food]

Animals that are fed on filthy food are not fit for human consumption. Butchers often feed the offal (the insides) of animals to the hogs. This makes the hogs fatten quickly, but it also makes them diseased. When you go to the slaughterhouse with your father, ask him to go around to the back door, and if you see hogs eating this filth, do not buy any more meat from that butcher.

=Questions.= 1. What use does the body make of meat? 2. What
conditions are essential for good meat? 3. How can meat be kept
clean? 4. Why is meat from a diseased animal unfit for food? 5.
How can you help in preventing the sale of meat from diseased
animals? 6. Why should animals not be fed with offal?

=Remember.= 1. Meat that is not handled in a clean manner
is sure to contain germs that cause a poison to form in the
meat. 2. Never buy meat from a butcher who does not keep his
slaughterhouse and butcher shop clean. 3. Meat from a diseased
animal is not fit for food. 4. Meat from animals fed on filthy
food should not be eaten. 5. Form a "Clean Meat League" and visit
the slaughterhouse where your meat is killed.