True food values and their low costs

"A few contain a little true coffee. bat for the most part they appear to be made of parched grains of barley, wheat, etc, or of grain mixed with pea hulls, corncobs, or wheat middlings. It is said that barley or wheat parched with a little molasses in an ordinary oven makes something indistinguishable in flavor from some of the cereal coffees on the market. The manufacturers claim that they make a harmless, unstimulating substitute for coffee, hardly to be distinguished from it in flavor and yielding much greater nourishment at lower cost. The bulk of the infusion of cereal coffee is seen to be water, and so the nutritive value must be correspondingly low. Skimmed milk is about twenty times as nutritious. The cereal substitutes are undoubtedly cheaper than the real article, costing as they do from ten to twenty cents per pound less than the coffee berry, though much more expensive than home-parched rye or corn. For those who, for any reason, cannot drink true coffee, the cereal coffee furnishes a harmless substitute, but the nutritive value of the infusion is hardly worth considering in the ordinary diet. "If strict economy is necessary, it would perhaps be wiser and probably just as pleasant to use the old-fashioned 'crust coffee,' made by steeping the toasted or browned broken crusts of white, brown, or preferably 'rye and Indian' bread in hot water, and then straining until comparatively clear. Parched corn, rye, or sweet potatoes, and other old-fashioned coffee substitutes may also be used." A Word About Cooking Thoroughness of cooking is a factor which has 1. a bearing upon digestibility. It not only makes the cereals more palatable, but also breaks down the walls of indigestible cellulose, which surround the starch grains and other nutrients, and produces other changes so that the digestive juices can work on the nutritive ingredients more effec- ively. Poorly cooked cereals are less palatable than the same dishes well cooked, and may cause indigestion and be really harmful. When the partially cooked preparations are used care should be taken to insure sufficient recooking before serving. The majority of the ready-to-eat brands are apparently thoroughly cooked. In the selection of cereal breakfast foods the consumer may be guided by the results of the analyses of disinterested chemists, by the digestibility as determined by actual tests, by cost, by taste, by economy, or by the observed effects of the goods upon individuals. It seems fair to conclude that the chemical composition, considered in connection with digestibility and cost, furnishes a satisfactory guide for selection, due attention being paid to palatability and individual preferences. All things considered, the cereal breakfast foods as a class are nutritious, convenient, and reasonably economical foods, and worthy of an important place in the diet when judiciously combined with other foods. Eggs Eggs contain everything needed to make bone and flesh, but they are too concentrated to be taken as the sole element of diet, for the system requires waste. The digestibility of the egg is increased by beating it up with water, milk, or other liquid. In a chart brought out by the United States Department of Agriculture is shown the food value of eggs and cheese, and the energyproducing value of eggs measured by the number of calories to a pound. A man requires about three thousand seven hundred calories of energy a day ; a woman three thousand two hundred. Cream cheese 1885 Collage cheese 495 Egg, ■white of 245 Egg, yolk of 1650 Whole egg 695 Eggs, boiled 765 Boiled whites 2S0 Boiled yolks 1705 American pale cheese 2055 n red cheese 2165