Nut-Milks - Almond, Brazil, Pecan, etc

May be made by using one tablespoonful of any of the nut-butters, or an equal amount of nuts, grated with a nutmeg grater; first making a paste with boiling water, adding a pinch of salt and more water to make half or one pint of nut-milk. Almonds require blanching.

The combinations which may be made of nuts in their various forms, either alone or with vegetables, fruits, and cereals, in the form of salads and other nut make-ups are sufficient to form a volume on Nut Cookery. For such books the reader is referred to the bookseller.

Nuts' Composition

Vegetable Dietetics

A GLANCE at the annexed table shows a considerable similarity existing between green vegetables and fruits; vegetables containing a very large amount of water, often 90 per cent. or more, a small quantity of important inorganic salts, and lastly a varying amount, 1 to 4 per cent., of nitrogenous substances.

Vegetables also contain a variety of non-nitrogenous substances, including cellulose, chlorophyll (the green coloring matter), small quantities of sugar, gum, pectine, fat, and vegetable acids. Many also contain essential oils or other flavoring matters, imparting to them certain tastes and flavors, which may be agreeable or otherwise.

There exists in the minds of the public, as well as in the minds of many of the medical profession, an idea that the indigestible residue, left by all green vegetables, affords a useful and wholesome stimulus to intestinal contraction, and promotes regular action of the bowels. This is an exploded idea. Experiments have demonstrated that food, properly masticated, is in itself quite a sufficient and natural stimulus without the aid of mechanical irritation through the use of coarse and insoluble material - equivalent to so much rubbish.

The value of vegetables is very much over-rated. They possess but little nutritive matter, and frequently contain considerable highly indigestible cellulose or woody fibre, making them very indigestible to many individuals.

The only vegetables which possess any value for nutritive purposes are the Irish and sweet potato, peas, beans, lentils, and corn. These are vegetables of undoubted value : there are many others which are wholly unfit for human consumption. To this latter class belong the cruciferous, or cabbage tribe, which is remarkable for the number of edible plants it con-

Vegetables' Composition

The calorific value of green vegetables, as of fruits, must be a variable quantity, depending upon the time of collection. In some instances the values are approximate.

tains: white and red cabbage, greens, savoys, broccoli, etc. They contain a large proportion of sulphur, and tend to occasion flatulence. The food value of cabbage, lettuce, spinach celery, greens, etc., is very small, notwithstanding that a number of them are reputed to possess wonderful properties, of one sort or another.

The digestibility of vegetables will depend largely upon the manner of their preparation - raw, steamed, or long boiled. If vegetables be cooked with water in the usual way, the inorganic salts are dissolved and thrown away, thus depriving them of their most valuable elements. Many of them are best used in the form of salads.

Asparagus is a popular and delicate vegetable, containing uric acid, or its xanthin equivalent, to the extent of 1 to 2 grains per pound. A quantity not likely to be of any considerable moment.

Beetroot is a most valuable vegetable, boiled or baked preferably.

Cabbage in the raw state is much more easily digested than when cooked.

Carrots when young form a useful and wholesome food, and are, at Vichy, regularly served at breakfast to the invalids, who are taking a course of the waters.

Celery is esteemed for its agreeable aromatic flavor, and is eaten both raw and cooked: in the latter form it is wholesome and digestible.

Corn, green corn, in the milk stage, is more easily digested than is ripened corn. If corn be put through a strainer or colander, and deprived of its outer coat, it is made more acceptable and digestible. Green corn carefully roasted is also a popular and desirable form.

Cucumbers, eaten raw, are liable to cause gastric disturbances in persons of feeble digestion.

Lettuce, endive, watercress, mustard and cress are salad vegetables, and are generally eaten raw.

They are cooling, wholesome. The digestibility of lettuce is uncertain, usually it requires sound and vigorous digestive organs. Lettuce is best used in the form of a salad with an equal quantity of lemon juice and olive oil and salt to taste.

Parsnips are more or less like carrots.

Turnips belong to the cabbage tribe. They have a tendency to cause flatulence.

Potatoes are remarkable for the large percentage of starch they contain - 20 per cent. This starch has the advantage of being very digestible. Potatoes are best boiled in their skins, and steaming is one of the best methods of cooking them. Baked potatoes is one of the most commendable forms of preparing. In whatever manner they be prepared they should always be " mealy " or " floury," and never close and watery, otherwise an easily digestible food is made a very indigestible one. Fried potatoes are very indigestible, owing to their being cooked in fat. Potatoes sliced and slightly toasted are very digestible. Potatoes should never be eaten alone but with some other form of food. The sweet potato, containing 16% starch, and sugar 10%, becomes mealy when boiled, and is a wholesome and useful food, but too sweet to eat alone as a vegetable.

The Pulses. - The ripe seeds of many of the Leguminosae, such as beans, peas, and lentils, surpass all other farinaceous seeds in the large amount of nitrogenous substances they contain. This occurs chiefly in the form of vegetable casein or legumin; but they also contain, in addition, a little albumen and other proteids, together with much starch. By their richness in albuminates they greatly excel the cereals in actual nutritive constituents. Lentils, for example, contain about double the amount of nitrogenous substances that ordinary wheat does. These leguminous seeds are therefore the best suited by their composition to replace animal food.

Peas and beans contain much sulphur and phosphorus, in combination with legumin. In combination with rice they form the staple food of many Indian races. Eaten with animal fat (bacon and beans) they constitute a highly nourishing food, especially useful under conditions of heavy manual labor.

Beans, peas, and lentils contain a very large percentage of nitrogenous or muscle-making elements, in a far greater degree and purer form than lean meat, to which they are superior in every way. Peas contain in their hulls, 2 to 3% of uric acid; beans contain also in their hulls, 4 to 5% of uric acid. The use of these vegetables in the hull-less form removes this compound. They are the most valuable of the proteid foods. Lentils have of late years become a very popular food, and are now largely imported from Egypt.

The lentil is the most nutritious of all the pulses, and contains the largest proportion of nitrogenous substances. It has the further advantage of being remarkably rich in iron - its ash containing as much as 2% of the oxide - and also in phosphate of lime; it has a further advantage, especially over peas, in the absence of sulphur, thus avoiding the objectionable tendency of flatulence which occurs with the use of peas and beans, unless these, are used in the hull-less form, which obviates the difficulty.

Raw onions are wholesome and slightly laxative. While onions have a high nutritive value, many individuals cannot use them, repeating eructations making their use unpleasant.

The tomato is really a fruit, consisting of about 95% of water, and 5% of acids, of which citric, malic, and oxalic acids area part, the latter in such a small quantity as to be negligible. Gouty subjects are sometimes advised to refrain from eating tomatoes on this account. There is no occasion for the advice. Properly prepared tomatoes are refreshing and appetising. There is an idea abroad that tomatoes are responsible for cancers. This is too silly for serious consideration. Tomatoes never cause cancer. Excessive use of meat is also given as a cause of cancer. Probably this is one of the true causes of cancer, yet not the only one. Undoubtedly the excessive use of food-stuffs in general, or the excessive use of any one particular food-stuff, extended over a period of years, is the cause of cancer, just as it may be productive of diseases other than cancer.

flush rooms have the property of causing toxic symptoms, in certain persons, in the form of severe gastro - intestinal disturbance. Mushrooms contain uric acid or its xanthin compound. If used in moderation this is probably not a serious factor, but caution must always be used in knowing that true mushrooms are used. This uncertainty makes it a question as to the advisability of using them at all.

Undoubtedly many individuals, especially those suffering with weak and dilated stomachs, do not tolerate vegetables at all well. All coarse vegetables are certainly indigestible. Individuals differ as to the manner in which they are affected by vegetables. In many instances vegetables, owing to their soft and sapid nature, are bolted or insufficiently masticated, which in itself produces disturbance. Thorough mastication of them is an essential, otherwise digestive disturbances are certain to follow their use. The structure of coarse vegetables is such that they do not go well with fruits, and this is a common combination of diet for many individuals. In such instances practically all vegetables, excepting potatoes and peas, should be excluded from the dietary; in other cases it may be the exclusion of such as lettuce, corn, cabbage, etc., will be required.

My experience is that many of the ideas advanced about vegetables are diametrically opposed to the actual facts as we find in practice. There are comparatively few of them which can be recommended from a health stand-point. In many instances they alone are a source of serious digestive disturbance.

Vegetables and fruits are not a good food combination. This may arise from a combination of circumstances, chief of which is that the digestive action of the two classes of food is so different in character. Either of these foods used separately might agree with an individual, and yet disagree when taken together. Fruits are much more quickly digested than are vegetables, and it is partly to the slower digestion of vegetables, that the difficulty arises, the whole food contents of the stomach having to wait, as it were, until the vegetables are digested, before the stomach can pass the food along. This delay is likely to cause fermentation of the other foods, and hence disturbance of all the other food products undergoing digestion.

Undoubtedly the majority of vegetables might be wholly eliminated from the bill of fare of human beings without serious loss as food products. Their only value in many instances is that they afford variety in our food; they may well be replaced with fruits.