Buckeye cookery

The substance which is of next importance in supplying carbon to the body is oil (which is chiefly carbon). The oils used for food are butter, jard, and fat of beef. Other oils, used sometimes in cooking, are nearly iden- tical with these. They contain about eighty per cent of carbon, butter hay- ing the least. In grains, oil varies, being nine per cent in corn meal, six in oatmeal, three and a half in rye, and one to two in wheat. Oils and ‘starch serve the same purpose in the digestive process; both are useful to supply carbon; neither nourish muscle. “Starch is easy of digestion, requir- ing one hour, ‘while butter is converted into chyme in three and one- -half, mutton-fat in four arid a half, and beef-fat in five and a half hours. This ‘furnishes the best of reasons why fats should be sparingly used, especially ‘in warm and moderate weather, when a sufficient supply of carbon i is easily secured from vegetable foods. Besides, it is a well established fact that ex- ‘eessive use of fats in cooking cause an excessive secretion of bile, and this, THE CHEMISTRY OF FOOD. (B15 an turn, causes a sensation like hunger and an increase of saliva. This is mistaken for real hunger. More food is taken, and indigestion and, later, dyspepsia result. An eminent authority says: ‘‘I believe it will be found the offending ingredient in nine-tenths of the dishes that disturb weak stom- achs.”’ Dyspeptics need to reject not only foods in which fats ave mixed, _ but those in which they are a natural element, such as the yolk of eggs, liver, milk, rich cheese, etc. Yolks contain twenty-eight per cent of oil, and milk over three per cent. One condition only calls for the use of fats in daily diet: Long-continued exposure to excessive cold. One pound of fat furnishes as much carbon as two and four-tenths pounds of starch, or _ seven and seven-tenths pounds lean meat. When the moisture of the breath is converted to ice and freezes on the beard, the air has no watery vapor and is nearly pure, containing a large per cent of oxygen. To meet this in the lungs requires abundant carbon, and oils furnish this most readily. The best bread for cold weather is that containing most oil. Corn bread ranks first, oatmeal next, rye third, and wheat last. Of course compara- tively few are exposed to the rigors of winter in civilized life, and brief exposure to cold is off-set by an increase of clothing, and ordinary diet fur- nishes a plentiful supply of carbon. For woodmen, soldiers, sailors, pilots, ‘travelers, railroad men, and others exposed to long cold storms, especially when they can not exercise freely, should eat liberally of fat beef, yolks of eges, and butter. Butter is the least objectionable of fats. Fat from salt pork and smoked bacon is less injurious than that from fresh pork. Beef fat is also much more wholesome than lard. Above all, let the cook remember that oils are physic, and next to poison, if not blended with substances which contain large quantities of starch, such as rice, meaiy potatoes, and bread made of fine wheat flour. An ounce of lard and a pound of flour thoroughly blended in a loaf of bread is digestible, but the same amount added to corn meal (already rich in oil) would be fit food only for a Greenlander. The proper proportion of oil in food in ordinary circumstances is illustrated in milk, which contains three and one-half parts oil in one hundred. The next important element which supplies carbon is sugar, which is cons tained in greater or less quantity in all vegetable substances, and largely (five to six and one-half pe” cent) in milk. Sugar contains forty per cent earbon, the rest water. It seems to be first converted into fat, and then used in respiration. In moderate quantities it has no injurious effects. A part of sugar as ordinarily eaten passes into lactic acid, and aids digestion, but if too much is produced digestion is retarded.