ime is instructed to eat a number of other
specially prepared articles furnished at a stiff price and certified as
being raw by the "medical company" furnishing the "treatment." Since it
is quickly discovered by those who are entrapped by charlatans of this
kind that the only raw foods that they can take with comfort and without
disgust are milk and eggs, they naturally practically live on these
alone, and as these foods are extremely digestible and nutritious,
improvement in the patient's condition not uncommonly results.

Nevertheless, it is unquestionably true that the vast majority of foods
are greatly improved in digestibility, and are rendered much more
palatable by thorough cooking. After being properly cooked there develop
in foods certain flavors and odors that are highly appetizing, and
unquestionably aid in the subsequent digestion of the same. With but few
exceptions, foods are so altered by heat that their proper mastication
becomes much easier, and cooking, therefore, materially aids in reducing
them to a state in which they are much more readily acted upon by the
digestive juices. It should never be forgotten, also, that cooking is of
the utmost importance from the standpoint of killing bacteria and animal
parasites that may be present in food. If we were to adopt universally
the habit of eating everything raw, the general mortality would certainly
be considerably increased.

_Cooking of Starchy Foods._--Nothing in the whole art and science of
preparing food for the human being is of so much importance as the proper
cooking of starches. As a result of the heat employed, certain chemical
changes are induced in the starch-granules, as a consequence of which
they are rendered digestible. It is of fundamental importance that at
all times and under all circumstances the cooking of this class of foods
should be as thorough as is possible, for when this is not done digestive
disturbances are sure to follow, and much of the food is actually wasted.
There are but few cardinal principles in the ordinary hygiene of life
that are so commonly neglected as this, since it is the habit of a large
proportion of the American people to consume three times a day masses of
tenacious starch which has not been acted upon by heat sufficiently to
render it digestible.

Of all the different methods of cooking starches, by far the most common,
and, therefore, the most important, is the process called baking. While
it is not possi