Speculations upon the origin of cooking are, perhaps futile. I have suggested that it may have developed out of ancient black magic--that it was an effort to impart the magic properties of fire to food. Certain it is, man did not cook his foods until after he learned to use fire and it was probably long thereafter, before he cooked much of it.

Someone has said: "God made man and the Devil made cooks." A British writer says: "Just try to imagine what a powerful lever the Devil possessed when he invented cooking and persuaded the primitive savages to seek after extraneous foodstuffs which could only be eaten if they were softened and made tasty by means of heat." Accepting the Devil as merely the personification of evil, he is undoubtedly the Father of Magic.

Simple prolonged heating of foodstuffs, especially at a high temperature and doubly so in the presence of water, either that contained in the foods themselves, or that added in the process of cooking, certainly results in a number of important changes in the foodstuffs which render them less and less valuable as foods. Even those foods that are regarded as fairly thermostable are certainly damaged by prolonged heating so that a diet that may be adequate in the uncooked state may be very inadequate after being thoroughly cooked. (High degrees of heat in the presence of water produces hydrolysis.)

At about 145 degrees Fahrenheit certain properties of plant life are destroyed. A leaf of cabbage, for example, if immersed in water that can be easily borne by the hand, will wilt, showing that part of its cellular life is destroyed at that low temperature. The heat to which such foods are subjected in cooking may be increased or prolonged until all the properties of the plant are destroyed. Many articles of food which are baked in an oven are subjected to a very intense heat ranging from 300 degrees F. to 400 degrees F. Much of their food value is destroyed, thereby. Bread that is browned in an oven is half-destroyed, being partly charcoal, tar, and ashes. If it had been left in an oven twice as long it would have been entirely destroyed. At every step in the process of cooking from the time the food is put in or upon the stove until it is entirely destroyed, if it be permitted to cook that long, destructive changes take place that impair its food value and unlit it for use by the body. I propose here to discuss the most important of these changes in the following order: