The Advantages of a Vegetable Garden. Notwithstanding their slight fuel value, there are few more valuable and wholesome elements in the diet than an abundant supply of fresh green vegetables. Everyone who is so situated that he can possibly arrange for it, should have a garden, if only the tiniest patch, and grow them for his own use, both on account of their greater wholesomeness and freshness when so grown, and because of the valuable exercise in the open air, and the enjoyment and interest afforded by their care.
CHAPTER VIII
COOKING
Why We Cook our Food. While some of all classes of food may be eaten raw, yet we have gradually come to submit most of our foods to the heat of a fire, in various ways; this process is known as cooking. While cooking usually wastes a little, and sometimes a good deal, of the fuel value of the food and, if carelessly or stupidly done, may make it less digestible, in the main it makes it both more digestible and safer, though much more expensive. This it does in three ways: by making it taste better; by softening it so as to make it more easily masticated; and by sterilizing it, or destroying any germs or animal parasites which may be in it.
Cooking Improves the Taste of Food. It may seem almost absurd to regard changing the taste of a food as of sufficient importance to justify the expense and trouble of a long process like cooking. Yet this was probably one of the main reasons why cooking came into use in the first place; and it is still one of the most important reasons for continuing it. No one would feel attracted by a plate of slabs of raw meat, with a handful of flour, a raw potato or two, and some green apples; but cook these and you immediately have an appetizing and attractive meal. Any food, to be a thoroughly good food, must "taste good"; otherwise, part of it will fail to be digested, and will sooner or later upset the stomach and clog the appetite.
Cooking Makes Food Easier to Chew and Digest. The second important use of cooking is that it makes food both easier to masticate and easier to digest. As we have seen, it bursts the little coverings of the starchy grains, and makes the tough fibres of grains and roots crisp and brittle, as is well illustrated in the soft, mealy texture of a baked potato, and in the crispness of parched wheat or corn. It coagulates, or curdles, the jelly-like pulp of meat, and the gummy white of the egg, and the sticky gluten of wheat flour, so that they can be ground into tiny pieces between the teeth.
THE KITCHEN SHOULD BE CARED FOR AS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ROOMS IN THE HOUSE