Bread should be well cooked, and the crusts thoroughly baked brown. It had best be baked in a closed pan. Bread should, of course, always be made from whole-wheat flour—never white flour. Salt is never necessary. Trall has given numerous recipes for wholesome bread-making—in some of them no other ingredients are used but flour, water, and air! And they are sweet, excellent breads too.
All pastries should be made quickly, and with very little kneading. Have the oven ready before this kneading is commenced. Roll the crust thin, and see that the bottom crust of a pie is browned before adding the fruit and the top crust.
Vegetables—nearly all of them—should be dropped into boiling, not cold, water, and should be cooked rapidly. The purpose of this is to coagulate and condense the outer rind or layer of the vegetable, and thus prevent the juices and valuable food properties from boiling out, into the water. The same is true of all meats, when these are fried or grilled.
If fruits are cooked at all, green fruits should be selected in preference to over-ripe fruits—which should be cooked but little. Unripe fruits should be started in cold water, and cooked slowly. All grains are best steamed.
Sugar added to fruits renders them sweet-tasting, but liable to fermentation. The ordinary sugar on the market is open to many objections. Numerous hygienists will not use it at all, and if fruits are found to be a trifle sour, or need sweetening, they use dates instead.
See that all currants, raisins and dried fruits are thoroughly clean before cooking them. In the summer months especially they are liable to contain insects, and these should be washed off before the fruits are placed on the fire to cook—otherwise they will be cooked with them!
If soda is put into bread, etc., use it sparingly. Salt need never be used. One can soon get accustomed to food without a particle of salt or other dressing; and, once the normal taste is acquired, salt, pepper, etc., will never again be desired or craved.
Meat as an Article of Diet.—I have advanced reasons, throughout this book, for thinking that meat is by no means a suitable article of food, but is, on the contrary, extremely pernicious in its effects upon the system. The reasons for this are given in full elsewhere. At the same time, I am disposed to think that a limited amount of meat is not so harmful, frequently, as a larger amount of other foods—fine flour, cake, pickles, sauces, etc. A large quantity of any of these, long continued, will tend to ruin the body more effectually than a limited quantity of meat, and hence are to be more strictly avoided. Nevertheless, I consider meat a highly stimulating and unwholesome article of diet, for the reasons given above, and should strongly advise other foods in its place, whenever possible.
If the reader feels that he must eat meat, however, let him be sure (or as sure as he can be) that the meat is fresh, and is not diseased. Two great dangers are avoided in this way. The animals which are to be eaten should be fed on the cleanest of food, and should have plenty of pure water to drink; they should never be kept in confined places, in a vitiated atmosphere, or in filthy surroundings. They need plenty of exercise. The animal should be killed in a sanitary manner, and kept clean and free from contamination after it is killed. The meat should be put on ice at once, and, needless to say, no chemicals or other drugs injected into the tissues.