The household cook book

Flour, Rice, Barley and Oats are preferable to arrowroot, sago, tapioca, etc., for nourishment, if suitably prepared. Browned flour we mention elsewhere. Rice is valuable for invalids, as it taxes the digestive powers very little. It can be roasted like coffee; then cook it in the usual way, and serve it with cream. Barley for invalids should be thoroughly cooked. Use oatmeal cautiously until the digestive powers become strong. Cornmeal because of its fat is valuable for thin, chilly invalids, but cook it thoroughly. Macaroni is nutritious and easily digested. Fine Flour Bread is indigestible because it does not readily separate into particles in the stomach, so as to be readily attacked by the digestive fluids. A little fine Indian meal added to fine flour bread will obviate this difficulty and cause it to separate quickly. Cornmeal is also loosening in its effects upon the digestive organs, therefore in a relaxed condition of the bowels cornmeal should be avoided. Maliine, taken with fine flour bread or biscuit, will assist digestion. Thorough mastication must be insisted on, for that is the first process of the thorough digestion of all starch foods in which fine flour is used. Tea, Coffee and Cocoa.— Tea is often misused for invalids. A little tea or coffee restores them quite as much as a great deal. As a rule, do not give either after five o'clock in the afternoon. Sleeplessness in the early night is generally from excitement, and is increased by tea or coffee; in the early morning it comes from exhaustion, and is relieved by tea. In general, the dry and coated tongue prefers tea to coffee. Coffee is a better restorative than tea. Cocoa is often recommended instead of tea or coffee, but it has a very different effect. It is a food rather than a beverage, owing to its fatty character, and for invalids it has no restorative or stimulating effect, and its fat is often oppressive to a weak stomach. Vegetables. — If an invalid is allowed to eat vegetables, be careful to choose only such as are young and tender, perfectly fresh, and sufficiently cooked; never send them up half done. All of the cabbage tribe are unsuitable, as they are likely to produce flatulence, and all the pulses are difficult of digestion. A mealy old potato is more digestible than a new one. The best way to use it is to boil, remove the inside, mash thoroughly, and use a little salt and cream to season it. The juice of fruits can be used early in convalescence for preparing drinks for an invalid, but do not use the pulp. When fruits can be used again a baked apple can first be safely eaten. The appetite may be unimpaired or even greatly increased in many chronic diseases, like dyspepsia, etc., and in these cases there will be danger of yielding to the claims of appetite and overstepping the bounds of prudence, so that an undue amount or an unsuitable food may be eaten, for which reason it is of great importance for such persons to X3ay attention to some suitable rules for the diet.