BEEF EXTRACT

if of good quality, is made of fresh, prime, lean beef by boiling in vacuum-kettles, then filtering and (finally) evaporating to paste consistence in vacuum-pans. It consists principally of ‘‘extractives,’’ or meat flavor, together with some mineral salts. The fat is removed before cooking, as it would in time render the extract rancid, and nearly all the valuable albumin is also lost—it coagulates during the stewing of the meat and is strained off together with the fibrine, ete. If well prepared, the extract is yellowish-brown and of pleasing, meaty odor and flavor. It should be entirely soluble in cold water. If it is not, it probably contains gelatin which is too much lower in value to be profitably bought at extract prices. Inferior grades are made from the liquor in which meat has been parboiled prior to canning, from meat and bone remnants, and from corned beef liquor. Beef extract was formerly rated as a condensed food product of high nutritive valne. That position has been abandoned and it is now acknowledged that it is entirely inadequate to support human life, but it has retained great importance in both the medical and commercial worlds as the basis of an agreeable and thoroughly wholexome beverage which excites gastrie secretion, thus both rousing the appetite and: aiding digestion. Physicians find it a valuable adjunct in the care of invalids and convalescents, for its meaty flavor lends zest to the nece arily restricted diet of the sick room. It is especially useful for mixing with milk—persons who cannot a imilate plain milk can nearly always digest it when flavored with a little beef extract. Its other uses include its employment in Jarge quantities to give a relish to condensed foods, such as those made from pease-meal carried by army commi aries, and its similar familiar employment in the kitchen to enhance the flavor of soups and sauces. It is worth remembering that extract of meat contains those flavoring properties to which is principally due the higher market value of choice cuts. The above comments—both in approval and derogation—apply almost equally to heef extracts reinforced by the addition of some of the nutritive constituents of the meat. Such preparations have a theoretical food value, but the available nutriment is slight in quantities of normally po ible or desirable consumption. Even beef tea most carefully made at a low temperature for immediate use in home or hospital contains only a small percentage of protein—unle it be ‘‘ whole hbeef-tea’’ which contains all the meat, the entire residue after cooking for the ‘‘tea’’ being reduced to a powder and added to it. Beef tea should always be served hot, as otherwise one Joses much of its stimulating property. wo Though most people enjoy—or at all events do not objeet to—the strong flavor of the best extracts, their taste and odor are sometimes found offensive by those po e ing especially delicate palates. When this objection is found by a patient. it can he obviated to a considerable extent by putting a little butter, a piece of toast, and plenty of salt in the hot beverage. Fluid extract of beef is the same product as the paste extract except that evaporation is stopped at an earlier stage.