Preparation of Food

 

It is wrong to eat merely to gratify the appetite, but no indifference should be manifested regarding the quality of the food, or the manner of its preparation.In the preparing of bread, the following points may prove useful:-Fine-flour bread is lacking in nutritive elements to be found in bread made from the whole wheat. It is a frequent cause of constipation and other unhealthful conditions.The use of soda or baking-powder in bread making is harmful and unnecessary. Soda causes inflammation of the stomach, and often poisons the entire system.In the making of raised or yeast bread, milk should not be used in place of water. Milk bread does not keep sweet so long after baking as does that made with water, and it ferments more readily in the stomach.The loaves should be small, and so thoroughly baked that, so far as possible, the yeast germs shall be destroyed. When hot or new, raised bread of any kind is difficult of digestion. It should never appear on the table. Bread which is two or three days old is more healthful than new bread. This rule does not, however, apply to unleavened bread.Zwieback, or twiced-baked bread, is one of the most easily digested and most palatable of foods.Far too much sugar is ordinarily used in food. Cakes, sweets puddings, pastries, jellies, jams, are active causes of indigestion. Especially harmful are the custards and puddings in which milk, eggs, and sugar are chief ingredients. The free use of milk and sugar taken should be avoided.

 

Cheese may be regarded as wholly unfit for food. The objectionable features of hard or ripened cheeses are that the putrefactive process which cheese undergoes, result in the production of waste products (amines, ammonia and irritating fatty acids), which cause irritation to the nerves and the gastrointestinal tract; one of the toxic amines produced in cheese called tyramine, can cause migraine headaches and the rennet used in cheese making, comes from the stomach of calves, lambs or pigs.