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Per Cent Starch (To to to Potatoes per cent)

67 to 70 50 to 61 52 42 to 43 9 Potatoes (75 per cent water) 13 to 15.

The large variation in wheat flour is due to processes of grinding. Varieties of wheat only vary about five per cent, but the old process of making fine white flour, used only the middle or starchy parts of the kernel, rejecting the gluten (nitrogenous and muscle-feeding). The whitest and highest-priced flour was, therefore, least nourishing, containing the largest per cent of starch. Modern invention has, however, reversed this, and the best "new process" flour contains the largest proportion of gluten. The old argument in favor of Graham, that it contained a larger proportion of nitrogen, and better supplied the body with muscle-making material, no longer holds good. Analysis shows that the best "new process" flour and Graham are almost identical in these elements. The only advantage left for Graham is the action of the coarser particles of bran (the outer shell and indigestible) on the coatings of the stomach, which is often salutary, but sometimes injurious to the delicate membranes. When flour and bread made from it contains one part nitrogen to four of carbon, it is nearly perfect food, and will sustain life.

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, lard, and fat of beef. Other oils, used sometimes in cooking, are nearly identical with these. They contain about eighty per cent of carbon, butter having 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, requiring one hour, while butter is converted into chyme in three and one-half, mutton-fat in four and 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 is easily secured from vegetable foods. Besides, it is a well established fact that excessive use of fats in cooking cause an excessive secretion of bile, and this, in 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 stomachs." Dyspeptics need to reject not only foods in which fats are 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 comparatively 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 furnishes 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 eggs, 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, mealy 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 contained in greater or less quantity in all vegetable substances, and largely (five to six and one-half per cent) in milk. Sugar contains forty per cent carbon, 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.

There are two kinds of sugars in commerce, -cane and grape. The former is made from cane, maple sap, beets, corn-stalks, etc.; the other from plants which have an acid juice. Cane sugar contains twelve parts carbon to eleven of water; grape sugar twelve of carbon to fourteen of water. Sugars are changed by fermentation into carbonic acid and alcohol, but grape sugar is. most liable to such fermentation, -cane sugar first becoming grape sugar by chemical combination with water. Pure cane sugar remains perfectly dry and unchanged in the air, while grape sugar attracts moisture, and becomes mealy and damp. Cane sugar dissolves more readily in water than grape, and hence tastes sweeter. Two pounds of cane sugar sweeten as much as five of grape. These facts give a hint to housekeepers of great value. Grape sugar, which is worth only two-fifths as much as cane, is used largely to adulterate the latter. The fine, floury "powdered" sugar is largely grape sugar, and is not only of much less value, but deteriorates more rapidly than pure cane sugar. Brown sugar, after standing for some time, absorbs water from the air, and becomes grape sugar. It is, therefore, the best economy to buy the best white granulated sugar.

There is another element of food which does not feed muscle, vegetable jelly, called pectine. This and pectine acid particularly abounds in fruits and berries. By the processes of ripening, the vegetable acids which are enclosed in little cells, burst out, are diffused through the mass of fruit, and manufacture pectine or jelly. Heat produces the same effect as ripening, and cooking is, in fact, only a rapid process cess of ripening. This jelly, when combined with sugar, goes to make up a variety of delicate articles, such as jellies and marmalades. They are nourishing, principally, on account of the sugar they contain, but are easily digested, cooling, and delicious. It should be mentioned that nearly all fruits are rich in sugar, -a ripe peach containing as much as an equal quantity of cane juice. There are some other substances which appear in less quantity in foods which seem none the less essential to health and life. One of these is phosphorus, which is an element of brain and nerves, and is wasted by mental activity and nervous excitement. The brain-worker demands a diet rich in phosphorus, and in such a form as to be easily assimilated. The food that best sustains a laborer in the open air is not the best for those who live among the excitements and exhausting demands on the brain, that are the rule in city life. For the latter, eggs, most kinds of fish, oysters, lobsters, crabs, game, cheese, and, among vegetables the potato; and these foods are just what are craved by city people.

Another element is sulphur, which is required in the growth of bone and cartilage, the hair and nails. Of this there is so much in the yolk of an egg that silver is blackened by contact with it. Curd of milk and cheese are also rich in sulphur.

Iron is always present in healthy blood, and its absence-paleness-is an indication of illness. Most articles of food contain iron; in the juice of flesh, in eggs, and in milk it is abundant. Lime and salt are also ingredients in all food, the former making bone, and the latter playing an important part in the creation of the digestive juices. Lime is found in all grains, particularly in wheat and in milk, in form of subphosphates. Bread and milk are for this reason an excellent diet for growing children, as they supply not only heat and muscle, but lime that goes to supply the growth of bone. Salt also exists in many articles of food. Men and races grow in proportion to their skill in combining heat and muscle-producing foods. The hardy Scotch use oatmeal largely, which is rich in nitrogen. The Irish, who endure a large amount of hard labor on cheap fare, eat potatoes, oatmeal, cabbage, and milk, while the lime and phosphates are said to be derived from the "hard" water impregnated with lime. The English add bacon (heat-producing) to beans, rich in nitrogen, and to rice, which abounds in starch (carbon), add milk and eggs, which feed muscle. The Italian eats macaroni, which is principally starch, with cheese, rich in nitrogen. The use of chemistry in cooking is to teach how to supplement one kind of food by another which contains the essential elements which the first lacks. For instance, venison contains fifteen per cent nitrogen to fifty-two carbon, or as one to three and a half, while the ratio should be one to four or five. To make it perfect and satisfying food, we have only to supplement it with something rich in carbon, as wheat bread, oatmeal, potatoes, or rice. A farmer's dinner of salt pork and boiled cabbage is nearly perfect for an out-of-door laborer in cold weather. The cabbage is rich in nitrogen and the pork in carbon. It is a proper dinner dish, because it requires four and a half hours to digest, while a supper may be made on venison, which is digested in an hour. Beef has fifteen per cent of nitrogen, but is not so easily digested as venison, and is fit only for a breakfast or dinner dish. Wheat bread does not contain nitrogen enough for a workingman's diet, and butter eaten with it does not supply the lack. Some kind of lean meat is needed to make perfect food. The more active the life out of doors the nearer can health be sustained on a diet of lean meat only. Beans contain, next to meats, the most nitrogen, and are excellent food for laborers. The cabbage ranks next, and afterward come oats, wheat, and barley. The potato contains seventy-five per cent. water. An analysis of the dry matter shows one-tenth of it to be ni nitrogen, so that its nutritive value is nearly equal to wheat, while its great productiveness recommends it particularly to densely populated countries. A dozen large potatoes are equal to a pound of flour. The onion is very rich in nitrogen, -one onion being equal to three potatoes of equal size in nutritive value.

Milk contains all the important elements of food; yet adults need solid food. Add to milk eggs, rich in nitrogen, rice and sugar, rich in carbon, and you have a nutritious dish; easily digested.

Butter-milk is a wholesome drink, particularly in summer, as the nutritive power of the milk is but little reduced by the removal of the butter, while the sourness, due to the formation of lactic acid, aids digestion. Eggs contain a great deal of carbon, and are, for that reason, good food for cold weather. They are too concentrated for exclusive diet, and should be eaten with coarse food, or that which is composed largely of starch.

In making cakes, the oil of the yolks of eggs used makes the perfect blending of lard or butter impossible, and hence unwholesome. For this reason sponge cake, which contains no butter, is less objectionable. Breads differ but little in these elements. Corn meal contains more oil and less nitrogen than others, and oatmeal is richest in nitrogen. The easy blending of the elements, and the tough gluten of wheat, make it the most available grain for bread. Wheat bread alone will support life longer than any other food except animal flesh. The proportion of nitrogen to carbon is one to five, which is nearly correct for a sedentary person. For active, out-door life more nitrogen is needed, and is best supplied by lean meats.

The nutritive qualities of animals differ but little. Wild meats digest more easily than tame, though the time required varies with the age and condition of the animal. Flesh is a stimulating diet because it is force-giving and muscle-feeding. The animal has gathered from various sources and concentrated in its flesh the constituents which best meet the wants of our bodies in the most available form.

Applying the knowledge of the wants of the body, and of the elements of food to a bill of fare, and a wholesome breakfast demands strength-giving and muscle-making food. Nothing is more quickly available than beefsteak, and it is most digestible broiled. It is a diet for real workers. Eggs are nutritive, but less stimulating. These provide for the muscles. For heat, starchy food is demanded, but bulk is not desirable for breakfast after a long fast. Bread and cakes of wheat flour are best for the purpose, and fruits, raw or cooked, furnish the mild vegetable acid, which aids digestion. If coffee is taken at all, breakfast is the time, so that the stimulating effect may pass away before the hour of rest comes. An infusion of genuine coffee, not a decoction, is not injurious in the morning to most persons, and is beneficial to those exposed to changes of temperature.

Nothing appeases the appetite sooner than the juice of flesh. The barley gives a color and flavor. Following soup is roast beef, which feeds the muscles, and after it come the puddings, which abound in carbon, to give the fuel necessary to keep up the animal heat. Last comes fruit to aid digestion, with its agreeable acids. In summer less carbon should appear on the bills of fare, and blanc manges, creams, fruit puddings and pies, berries, and ripe fruits should make up the desserts. In making a feast, the wise hostess would consider well what has been the employment of the guests. A party of fox-hunters, or wood-choppers, or surveyors, would require an abundance of meats, but a collection of artists and scholars would relish better a variety of delicacies and novelties. A sleighing party will devour carbon, but those who have sweltered under a July sun long for cooling fruits and the leanest of meats. The time when a feast is given should decide whether food, easy or difficult of digestion. should appear on a bill of fare, though such consideration for the health of guests is hardly to be expected of the average hostess.