Food and health

The quickest batter to mix and bake is the griddlecake, or pancake. Almost every one likes them, when they are a fine brown, served with sugar, or maple sugar or sirup, or molasses. But how wholesome a food are they .? This was another question that Miss Travers answered at the school exhibit, when they were discussing quick breads. The answer was something like this : We must remember that, although two cooked foods may have the same materials in them, one is easily digested and the other is not. And why ? What do we mean by " digestible '' ? "To digest '' means " to dissolve,"" to make liquid. All solid food must become liquid, before it can be absorbed and carried about the body by the blood. The water that we drink helps to do this, but nature has provided us with substances, beginning with the saliva in the mouth, that help in the work of dissolving. You know that when you begin to chew food the saliva begins to flow, and, when the food reaches the stomach, the stomach begins to churn the food, and the gastric juice flows from the walls of the stomach to help this digestive process.^ What difference is there between the digestibility of the griddlecake, and of a light, dry muffin or biscuit ? The flour in the griddlecake is not well cooked, for the time is too short. The cake is so soft that we do not chew it ; and so the starch in the flour has missed the first step of digestion. This pasty mass in the stomach is a bad thing, especially with the large amount of sugar that we usually take on griddlecakes. But we like griddlecakes and we cannot go without them! can we not, when it is a choice between being strong and well, happy and helpful, on the one hand, and half well and dull with indigestion, on the other? There is no reason why healthy people should not eat griddlecakes once in a while ; but griddlecakes are not meant for a steady diet. How can we make griddlecakes more digestible .^ If people insist on eating them, we will try to make them as wholesome as we can. 1. Use some material that has been cooked before, — bread crumbs, cooked corn meal, oatmeal, rice, or any other cooked cereal. 2. Make them very light and porous with sour milk and soda, or with baking powder. One good cook ^ See a physiology for further description of the digestive process. makes delicious, dry, light griddlecakes by using sour milk and soda, and a little baking powder, too. 3. Bake the griddlecakes as thoroughly as you can. Do not take them from the griddle the moment they are brown, but let them stand until they are cooked " inside.** 4. Do not drown them in sirup or bury them in sugar when you eat them. 5. Take small mouthfuls, and try to chew each portion. Sour milk griddlecakes. What and how much. Flour 2| cups Salt \ teaspoonful Melted butter 2 tablespoonfuls Sour milk 2 cups Soda I J teaspoonfuls Egg How to make. Mix dry ingredients. Add sour milk, egg well beaten, and melted butter in order given. Beat thoroughly. Drop by spoonfuls on a greased griddle, and let cook until the edges are done and the cake full of bubbles. Turn with a cake turner or knife, and cook on the other side. Serve with butter and sirup or scraped maple sugar. Cake making. One of the Pleasant Valley girls said that her father and brothers wanted cake at every meal. Cake has good food materials in it ; so why should we not eat it often .? Some food has to be cooked ; why should it not be cake .? The answer to this is a simple one. Although sugar is an important fuel food, yet, if we use >too much, it is likely to cause an acid ferment in digestion and to irritate the stomach. Little children should not take more than two ounces a day, and grown people about four. We should not eat sweets between