Part 15

POTATOES-- Sweet Three ounces 6 .2 80.0 .23 White Quarter of a pound 4 .4 118.0 .41 Spinach One pound 1 1.5 412.0 1.49 Squash Half a pound 2 .5 211.0 .47 Tomatoes One pound 1 .6 408.0 .65 Turnips Half a pound 2 .5 245.0 .51

HANDY TABLE

One pound = 16 ounces One pound = 453.57 grams One ounce = 28.35 grams

The weight of such foods as meat, fruit, etc., is so nearly equal to that of water that the weight may be calculated from the size, if that is known.

One cubic inch = 16.5 grams One cubic inch = about a half ounce One cubic foot = 62 pounds One gallon = 8 pounds One pint = 476.4 grams

Milk is slightly heavier than water, while oils or fats are lighter.

One quart of milk = 980 grams One quart of olive-oil = 876 grams One average egg = 50 grams One average olive = 6 grams One Vieno = 100 calories One decigram nitrogen = 3/5 of a gram of protein

LESSON XV

CURATIVE AND REMEDIAL MENUS CONCLUDED

LESSON XV

CURATIVE AND REMEDIAL MENUS

INTRODUCTION

Scientific eating consists in selecting the food the body requires according to age, occupation, and climate. These requirements can be supplied with a very few articles. The necessary changes in diet can always be made by varying the proportions. It is possible to select, for each of the four seasons of the year, three or four articles that will contain all the elements of nourishment the body needs, therefore true food science leads one inevitably toward the mono-diet plan; that is, making a meal of only one kind of food. Owing to our inherent desire to sit at the "groaning table" we may yet be a long distance from the mono-diet plan, but the science of human nutrition points with unerring certainty toward simplicity. It should be remembered, however, that one may eat, under nearly all conditions except extreme superacidity all he desires of one or two things--one preferred.

In the light of modern medicine, no food has any specific curative property. Foods become curative only as they remove abnormal conditions, and they will remove abnormal conditions just to the extent that they can be perfectly digested and assimilated, and to the extent that waste matter is thoroughly eliminated from the body. In this way all possible resistance is removed, and Nature will build up the dis-eased and broken-down tissue in obedience to the law of animal evolution. This constructive process we call "curing."

While the menus for each season of the year may seem to vary but little, especially when compared with the conventional omnivorous diet, yet experience has proved that the fewer the articles composing the meal, the better will be the results.

COOKING

SOME IMPORTANT FACTS REVEALED BY MODERN SCIENCE

The object of cooking is to tear down the cell-structure of foods, and to make them more digestible. After the cell-structure is demolished, every degree of heat to which foods are subjected injures the foods instead of improving them.

GRAINS

Grains should be cooked whole. They should be cleansed, well covered with water, and boiled until the grains burst open as in making old-fashioned corn hominy. This will often take from three to four hours' constant boiling.

Cereals prepared in this way are more delicious, more nourishing, and far more healthful than any of the prepared or patented "breakfast foods," while the cost is perhaps about one-eighth or one-tenth of that of the popular patented products.

VEGETABLES

The old or popular method of cooking vegetables is to cover them generously with water and to boil them much longer than is necessary, then to drain off the water, season, and serve. By this process the mineral salts, in many cases the most valuable part of the food, are dissolved, passed into the water, and lost. In this way many excellent articles of food are greatly impoverished and reduced perhaps 50 per cent in nutritive value.

The time vegetables are cooked should be measured by their solidity. As an example, spinach can be thoroughly cooked in about fifteen minutes. In this way some of its elements are volatilized, giving it a delicious flavor and taste, while if cooked in an abundance of water, from half to three-quarters of an hour, which is the customary way, its best nutritive elements are lost by draining away the water, and it is rendered almost tasteless.

COOKING EN CASSEROLE

All succulent and watery vegetables such as cabbage and spinach, beans, carrots, onions, parsnips, peas, squash, turnips, etc., should be cooked in a casserole dish.

Prepare vegetables in the usual manner as for boiling. A few tablespoonfuls of water may be added to such articles as green beans and peas, beets, carrots, cauliflower, onions, parsnips, etc. Cover, and place in an ordinary baking oven until the vegetable is thoroughly cooked or softened. In this way vegetables in reality are cooked in their own juices, rendered much softer, more digestible, more delicious, and all their mineral salts and other nutritive elements are preserved, making them also more nutritious.

RICE AND MACARONI