The standard book of recipes and housewife's guide, comprising as complete cook book

Can we judge by anything in our structure which we are best fitted for ? Flesheating beasts, as lions, cats, dogs, have only sharp, cutting, and tearing teeth. Grasseaters have nippers in front, and all the back teeth broad-crowned, nearly flat. We resemble the bear, hog, and rat, in having teeth for cutting in front, tearing at the sides, and broad, grinders back in our jaws. The length of the human alimentary canal (that is, stomach and intestines) is about six times that of our bodies ; intermediate between that of the purely carnivorous and of the entirely herbivorus animals. It would seem then that, like the bear, hog, and rat, we are made fit for either animal or vegetable food. We are omnivorous. On the whole, this is the conclusion to which physicians and sanitarians have generally come — that, with healthy people, living in the open country, not working very hard, and having an abundance of good vegetable food, meat is not necessary. They can live long lives without it. But, in closebuilt cities, where the air is not pure, where work is hard, and " vexation of spirit " abounds, a mixed diet is best. Bread. Time out of mind " the staff of life," was made of brayed grain by our ancient forefathers before they left Western Asia. Bread contains nitrogenous and non- nitrogenous food principles ; gluten and starch, as well as salts. It is adapted both for tissue-building and for energy-producing use in the body. Wheat bread is as strong in nitrogen as any, and is richer than other kinds in phosphates, which are Supposed to be in part nerve-feeders. The whitest of flour does not make the most nourishing bread. The richest part of the grain is just beneath the chaff, making slightly yellowish flour. Improved ways of grinding wheat now retain nearly all of this strength of the flour, some of which was formerly wasted. Rye meal makes, by itself, a nourishing but less spongy bread than wheat. It is very largely eaten by people in Northern Europe. The best way to use it in making bread is to mix it with an equal or less quantity of wheat flour. Bread must be properly raised to be good. This is done by a fermentation, w^hich takes place in the starch (it first becoming changed to sugar) of the dough, under the action of yeast. Sugar, when it ferments, is converted into alcohol and carbonic-acid gas. The alcohol is very small in amount. The carbonic acid gas is kept in by the sticky, pasty gluten, ofwhich good flour has about twelve per cent. Thus the dough is stretched or expanded into a spongy mass. Baking dries it somewhat, and makes it more or less crisp, or at least takes away the adhesiveness of the dough. Faults of bread, which make it less wholesome, as well as less agreeable, are heaviness, sourness, bitterness, mouldiness, and an excess oi saline material. Heavy, ill-raised, and under-baked bread is very unwholesome. Sour bread is so also. It is made by over-raising, or by using spoiled flour. Bitterness comes either from bad yeast or too much of the yeast being used ; mouldiness, from the flour or bread being kept too long.