nt of their high fat content they are the most
highly concentrated of all natural foods. A pound of nuts contains on an
average more than 3,000 calories or food units, double the amount
supplied by grains, four times as much as average meats and ten times as
much as average fruits or vegetables.

For example, according to Jaffi's table, ten of our common nuts contain
on an average 20.7 per cent. of protein, 53 per cent. of fat and 18 per
cent. of carbohydrate, as shown in the following table:

Protein Fat Carbohydrate
Almonds 21.4 54.4 13.8
Peanuts 29.8 46.5 17.1
Filberts 16.5 64.0 11.7
Hickory 15.4 67.4 11.4
Pine nut 33.9 48.2 6.5
Walnut 18.2 60.7 13.7
Pecan 12.0 70.7 18.5
Butternut 27.9 61.2 5.7
Beechnut 21.8 49.9 13.8
Chestnut 10.7 7.8 70.1
------ ------ ------
Average 20.76 53.08 18.23

Meat (round steaks) gives 19.8 per cent. of protein and 15.6 per cent.
of fat, with no carbohydrate. A pound of average nuts contains the
equivalent of a pound of beefsteak, and in addition, nearly half a pound
of butter and a third of a loaf of bread. A nut is, in fact, a sort of
vegetable meat. Its composition is much the same as that of fat meat,
only it is in much more concentrated form.

There can be no doubt that the nut is a highly concentrated food. The
next question naturally is, can the body utilize the energy stored in
nuts as readily as that supplied by meat products, for example.

The notion that nuts are difficult of digestion has really no foundation
in fact. The idea is probably the natural outgrowth of the custom of
eating nuts at the close of a meal when an abundance, more likely a
super-abundance, of highly nutritious foods has already been eaten, and
the equally injurious custom of eating nuts between meals. Neglect of
thorough mastication must also be mentioned as a possible cause of
indigestion following the use of nuts. Nuts are generally eaten dry and
have a firm hard flesh which requires thorough use of the organs of
mastication to prepare them for the action of the several digestive
juices. Experiments made in Germany showed that nuts are not digested at
all, but pass through the alimentary canal like foreign bodies unless
reduced to a smooth paste before swallowing. Particles of nuts the s