EAT FOR HEALTH AND STRENGTH — From the COOKS.COM Culinary Archive.

Eat for Health and Strength

If You Are Above Your Normal Weight

 Fats, sugars and starches (carbohydrate food group) furnish fuel to the body, which being consumed, makes heat and energy.  When more than necessary of these foods are taken into the body, a reserve of fuel is stored away as fat.  When the reserve of fatty tissue becomes greater than is befitting or comfortable, we say, "That person is overweight", meaning that the body is cumbersome because of too much fatty tissue.

 There are two healthful and natural ways to keep the storage of fatty tissue in proper proportion to the body's needs.  One method is to use up the stored fuel as energy expended in physical exercise or manual labor.  The second method is to regulate the amount of foods rich in fats, starches and sugar that are taken in to the body.

 The stout person who loves sweets should choose fresh fruits, raisins, dates, and figs instead of sugar candy.

 Green vegetables, or carrots, turnips and beets, etc. should be eaten with meat instead of potatoes, which contain a large proportion of starch.  It is not necessary to starve on a too scant diet, but it is needful to choose wisely and to use common sense.

 Lean meat in moderation must replace fat meat in the diet.

 "Moderation in all things." was the rule of the ancient Greeks, and the fame of their perfect physical development has endured to our own day as the standard of physical beauty.

If You Are Below Your Normal Weight

 The people who are too thin, are suffering from what scientists call "poor metabolism." which simply means that the body is not assimilating the food that is eaten, and that no reserve fuel is being stored for emergency strength.

 Perhaps they are not choosing their food wisely, or old man worry may be interfering with the proper flow of digestive juices.

 These people should seek the fat forming foods -- milk, cream, butter, eggs, bacon and other fat meats, plenty of good and palatable desserts containing sugar, and practically all the good things that the person who weights too much must avoid.  On the other hand, the thin person must never over-eat!  It is better to eat moderately of the right foods and to get the full benefit of the meal, than it is to over-tax the digestive machinery and to remain thin and dyspeptic.  Drink a glass of milk with a slice of bread and butter between meals, if necessary, but keep to the great rule of health, "moderation in all things!"

Good Cooking Is a Science

 The cooking of food has much to do with its nutritive value.  Many foods which, owing to their mechanical condition, or other cause, are quite unfit for nourishment when raw and very nutritious when cooked.  It is also a matter of common experience that a well-cooked food is wholesome and appetizing, while the same material badly cooked is unpalatable.  There are three chief purposes of cooking.  The first is to change the mechanical condition so that the digestive juices can act upon the food more freely.  Heating often changes the structure of food materials very materially, so that they are more easily chewed and more easily and thoroughly digested.  The second is to make it more appetizing by improving the appearance, or flavor, or both.  Food which is attractive to the taste quickens the flow of saliva and other digestive juices, and this digestion is aided.  The third is to kill by heat any disease germs, parasites, or other dangerous organisms it may contain.  This is often a very important matter, and applies to both animal and vegetable foods.

Flavor and Digestion

 When all the food elements have been balanced and all the nutritive needs of the family have been considered, there remains the delicate business of wielding the pepper shaker and the pinch of salt to flavor the meal.  "Hunger is the best sauce," runs the proverb, but very often, especially with people who live indoors and do little manual labor, the appetite has to be coaxed.  The aroma of spices or the pleasant odor of new baked cake or bread often will stimulate a lagging appetite, for the nose and the palate are close neighbors in the human house and both have much to do with the proper flow of digestive juices.  Season temperately, least the delicate edge of palate pleasure be dilled by too much flavor.

But plan for surprises that taste "good."

 French cooks are masters of the art, and they study continually to find new ways to season their simplest dishes.  Herbs and spices are always on hand to add just that alluring dash of flavor that makes French cooking famous.  It is this skill in seasoning food that changes the cook's task from drudgery to art.

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