Influence Of Cooking

Those foods which possess the greatest energy value are raw milk, eggs, young tender vegetables, salads, and nuts, followed by bread, cooked cereals, fruits, vegetables, milk and eggs, butter and curd cheese. Among the least valuable producers of energy are meat, fish, poultry, game, mushrooms, cocoa, coffee, tea, and alcohol (Bircher).

Cooked food possesses a smaller nutritive value than raw food. In most cases, where vegetables are boiled, and especially peeled potatoes, there is a direct loss of food material which passes into the water in which they are cooked. Oatmeal porridge, as cooked in Scotland, must be chewed and masticated. In most English houses, however, it is assumed that if it is cooked to a jelly it is more digestible. The result is, that it is swallowed without mastication, and therefore not mixed with the saliva which nature provides for the purpose of assisting digestion, and in consequence overcooking causes the trouble which it is intended to avoid. It is quite true that cooking breaks down the starch cells of cereal foods, which are in consequence brought into immediate contact with the saliva and other digestive juices, and that the starch in cooked oatmeal is more quickly converted into sugar than that in raw oatmeal, but where there is no mastication this advantage is lost. "The greater the change in the transformation of food between its origin in animals and vegetables and its presence on the table the greater the loss of its value." For this reason foods which can be consumed in their natural condition are the best sources of nutrition, and these include most of the fruits, nuts, and salads.

Man has a great range of foods from which to select, and as his vitality is almost entirely derived from the food he consumes, he is wise to rely upon its utility rather than upon his appetite, although there are occasions when desire for a given food is a provision of nature. Nor should he eat in accordance with his weight, for meals should be governed by the expenditure of energy, although it is obvious that, as food is a source of heat, less is required in a warm climate than in a cold one, and in summer than in winter. The resting man requires less than the active man. Thus there is less loss when sleeping than when lying awake, when standing than walking, and when writing at the desk than when working with the muscular system.

Cooking exerts great influence upon food. Thus the mineral salts present in vegetables are almost entirely lost in the process of boiling, unless the water employed is utilised. Cooking, however, changes their condition, and doubt has been expressed as to the power of the system to assimilate these nourishing materials, which are so much superior in the raw plant, its root or its fruit. In no case is the energy value of cooked food - and an apple is an excellent example - so great as that of the raw material. It is customary to use salt with great freedom, but it has been shown that an excessive quantity checks the action of the digestive juices, and diminishes the nutritious value of food. Cooked meat appeals to the palate, but it must be obvious to a careful observer that the great meat-eater is physically inferior to the labouring man who eats no meat at all - fat bacon excepted. Bircher has shown that the dynamic and dietetic action of meat results in a loss of 32 per cent. of energy, and that the more man consumes the smaller are his powers of endurance and capacity for work. He adds: "With abundance of meat the uric substances, and therefore the work of the kidneys, are unnecessarily increased, the whole system is flooded with albuminous products, and constant danger threatens the well-being of the body and the organs burdened with the work of secretion, and diminished power of resistance to bacteria."

There are few vegetables used as food which can be eaten raw, and they are practically confined to onions, lettuce, endive, celery, cress, mustard, radishes, cucumbers, and tomatoes. To some persons the bare idea of eating either, to say nothing of all, is regarded as an invitation to indigestion. This fact, however, is sufficient to reveal to us how erroneous impressions may be. Eaten in moderation, and well masticated, these raw foods are not only digestible, but they possess great nutritive and physical value, much of which would be destroyed by cooking, and one or more - lettuce first of all - should always be upon the lunch and dinner table.

Examples Of Author's Diet

The diet to which I am accustomed consists largely of raw fruit, and as I can exhibit no better proof of its value, and of the sufficiency of a very small proportion of animal food, I give some examples in detail. All fruits fall into line, and I know of no variety which it is desirable to exclude. In summer, when our native fruits are abundant and varied, there is plenty of choice, but in autumn one is restricted to plums, damsons, pears, apples, grapes, and oranges until winter arrives. Plums and sometimes pears then disappear, and finally grapes, leaving the field occupied until summer comes again by apples, oranges, bananas, and preserved fruits in smaller proportions.

Breakfast And Supper

Breakfast And Supper (or dinner, if the term is preferred) consists, with little variation from October to June, of apples grated with the skin, mixed with a piled tablespoonful of oatmeal, P. R. Breakfast Food, or Grape Nuts, or half the quantity of prepared oats, soaked for twelve hours, a dessertspoonful of condensed milk, and two or three piled teaspoonfuls of ground nuts. The whole makes a large plate of porridge. This with wholemeal bread and butter, a cup of coffee (free from caffeine) made with milk, constitutes the meal. As appetite dictates, however, it is supplemented with fruits of other kinds, a few nuts, and sometimes an egg, or a small piece of fat bacon for breakfast in winter. The porridge may be varied extensively; one apple and one squashed banana, a banana and an orange, or some prunes, are excellent substitutes for apples alone. The oatmeal, too, may be varied with rice, barley, semolina, macaroni, or maize-flour. In summer, plums, apricots, or whortleberries are all delightful changes - the last-named being the most beneficial of all. There is no hard-and-fast line in the case of those who have mastered the principle, and who have learned that fruit is as distinctly a foodstuff as meat, or any other material of an animal character. If white bread, white toast, or an egg, or fried bacon are preferred as an occasional change, there is no reason why a rational man should refuse it, if he is young and robust; but where a principle is broken too often it ceases to be a principle at all, and the old practice returns. Of that practice which prescribes meat three times a day, commencing breakfast with eggs or kidney and bacon, fish or a mutton chop, followed by fish and joint at luncheon, and several courses at dinner, I have no more to say than that, on the authority of the greatest observers, it is not only destructive of health, but of life, and is paralleled only by the excessive consumption of alcohol.