Buckeye cookery

E.G {oH CHEMISTRY OF FOOD. A MAN may eat his fill and yet be hungry. Itis not the quantity but the proper quality in food that satisfies. It is not only true that what is one man’s food is another’s poison; but it is also true that what is food at one season of the year, at one period of life, or in one climate, may be poison to the same individual at another season or age, or in another climate. The inhabitant of the tropic subsists and thrives on fruits on which the Ice- lander would starve; while the blubber and oil that makes up the diet of the inhabitant of the frozen zones would be fatal to those who live under the burning sun of the equator. Even the same person requires a fruit _ diet in the tropics, and one of fats in the north region. The child requireg food made up of different elements from that which best suits the adult; and the diet of a laborer in the open air must differ from that of the brain-- worker, who takes little exercise, and whose work makes heavy draughts on the nervous system. No one has mastered the art of cooking who does not know something of the chemical elements of foods, and the purpose they serve when taken into the system. It is particularly important that those who are compelled to practice rigid economy should know just what foods will best supply the real needs of the family, and how the most real nourishment may be had for their money. An adult takes into the system daily, through lungs and mouth, eight and a quarter pounds of dry food, water, and air necessary for respiration. The same amount is given off as waste through the pores, lungs, kidneys, and intestines. Life and activity consume this amount as fuel just as a lamp con- sumes oil. Every movement, every breath, every heart-beat, every thought burns up a certain amount of fuel-material, and if the supply is not forth- coming, the machinery stops and death ensues. The better the oil the more perfect the light; and the more perfectly the food is adapted to its wants, the more vigorous the body, and the more perfect the working of its intri- cate machinery of: muscle, nerve, and brain. Food is first masticated and then digested. In mastication itis not only moistened with saliva, but acted upon chemically in preparation for the more vigorous and thorough work of the stomach. It is a mistake to sup- pose that water or any of the various drinks taken at table are a substitute for saliva. They not only do not prepare food for the stomach, but force it into the stomach unprepared, and, besides, retard digestion by delaying the process until the water can be absorbed into the blood. For these rea- sons drinks should precede or follow a meal. Crusts of bread and hard and firm food is wholesome, principally because it must be thoroughly masti- cated before it can be swallowed. When the food reaches the stomach it rouses into action, the gastric juice pours from hundreds of little points, the food is diluted and the more solvy- ent parts dissolved, ‘to be taken up by the thousands of littie mouths which honeycomb the surface, and carried into the circulation to re}..\ir the waste of tissues. The oily porting of food, 2nd such as do not yield \«. +e action of the gastric juice, pass on and are subjected to the influence 3) ‘le bile and pancreatic fluid, until all tuat is of value is absorbed, while the waste is rejected and passes off. (Sie THE CHEMISTRY OF FOOD. 513.