The object in cooking food is:

1. To soften the cellulose covering of the cell wall in vegetables, as beans and peas, and also to soften the fibrin of meats.

2. To open the cells, especially those in which starch predominates.

3. To slightly and quickly coagulate albuminoids, as white of egg, casein of milk, or gluten of cereals, or to dissolve other forms, as that of gelatine and legumin of beans.

4. To destroy active bacteria.

5. To free the fat globule that it may blend with other foods.

6. To render digestion as easy as possible.

7. To increase the flavor and the possibility of combinations to gratify the palate and aesthetic tastes.

8. To raise the food cells to the temperature of the body, and separate the proteid cells from other combinations, that they may be more quickly utilized by the human system.

While many kinds of food are called tissue building foods, the proteid element is found in company with the starch grains, and in other kinds of combinations, hence must be liberated for quick digestion, and at the same time kept buoyant with life. Even from a point of digestibility all authorities upon nutrition agree that boiling and baking, as done at present, injure one part of the food, at the same time another part is supposed to be improved, hence if cooking is not at fault nature must be at fault in its combinations. Ellen H. Richards and S. Maria Elliott, in "The Chemistry of Cooking," express the general effects of cooking upon food, as follows :

"Starchy foods are made more soluble by long cooking at moderate temperature. Nitrogenous foods, the animal and vegetable albumens" (including eggs and casein of milk) "are made less soluble by heat; the albuminoids" (bones, cartilages and connective tissue) "are more soluble. Fats are readily absorbed in their natural condition, but are decomposed at a very high temperature and their products become irritants".

From this it is apparent that the first consideration to improve cooking, from any standpoint, must be to fulfill the demands of all of the different kinds of nutrients found in combination, as it is not policy to destroy one part of food to render another part serviceable.

Without regard to this fact, to say nothing of the . life of the cells of which food is composed, all kinds have been boiled at 212º of heat, or baked, or fried hard and long at a much higher temperature, because but few have realized the harm done or thought of the possibility of cooking otherwise. At the same time each discovery in the means of cooking has been made from a special effort to intensify heat that cooking may be more rapid. If great heat devitalized food, changing its chemical basis, and rendering a large part of it more indigestible, besides being less palatable, than that cooked in the slow ovens of the olden times, why the eagerness to pursue such a mistaken course? Only ignorance, and the excessive energy of the race, tending always to do more in less time, without regard for life and health, is the answer.

The question of the best nourishment can never be solved by the application of greater heat, although improved means makes it possible to more easily regulate and produce heat.

A few experiments as to the degree of heat required, to render starch soluble and to coagulate albumen, will overcome the first great difficulty of injuring one kind of element while improving another. The low degree of heat required to make these changes has long been known to science, but has not been made practical in cooking.

The starch granule can be dissolved or cooked at a temperature as low as 1600 F., if applied for some time, or 2000 more quickly. It is then easily changed by the saliva, pancreatic juice and serum of the blood into dextrine, or grape sugar, which is oxidized or burned in the body to create heat and energy, or is stored as fat. Cereal grains must be heated to a much higher degree than that of boiling from 300º to 500º, to convert starch into grape sugar in such commercial products as grape-nuts, toasted flakes, etc.; hence, every proteid cell, as well as the chemical organisation, is destroyed, rendering the food valueless for tissue building, although it is serviceable for energy and reserve force of fat.

Cellulose or the structure of the cell walls of dry foods is softened by heat being gradually raised to 180º, or even 205º, but is hardened or toughened by boiling, as it contracts at first to protect the cell contents, after which it only yields to opening when the nuclei are dead from long cooking. Because of the covering, the cells of cereals are not destroyed by heat so quickly as those of meat, milk, eggs, and cheese.

The albumen of cells of soft foods like the white of eggs will coagulate at 150º.

The fibrin of meat softens at 180º.

All combinations in cooking as thickening gravies, creams, and custards may be made as soon as starch and albumen are affected, thus making it possible to gratify the taste for variety without boiling the combination, simmering being several degrees below boiling temperature.

As all the necessary changes in food rendering it thoroughly cooked take place below 212º, or the boiling point, it is needless to kill the fertilizing nuclei of the cells, change the chemical nature, or to toughen one part of the food while making another soluble by intense heat. Less heat instead of more heat is what is needed. The starch and fat bound closely in the same kernel of grain with the proteid or body building element may be made digestible and palatable in the temperature best suited to the most vital action of the nuclei of the cells.

Experiments with bacteria prove that another great object of cooking may be attained as well with a moderate degree of heat as with that required for boiling. Fully developed animals or vegetables soon cease to live if exposed to greater heat than that required for natural propagation of growth. The germ of a seed or of an egg will survive a much greater amount of heat than can be endured by the plant or the chick after it has gained individual existence. The torula, or yeast germ, is one of the lowest forms of life that must be overcome in relation with food. Huxley says it is a plant instead of an animal as it has a cellulose coat like the vegetable and possesses the power to construct its own proteid, which an animal cell cannot do; however, it has some of the qualities of an animal. It also multiplies rapidly and is useful in raising light bread and for other purposes. It is rendered inactive for a time at a temperature of 140º, but requires 160º to kill it entirely.

The amoeba, or white corpuscle of the blood, is another much feared germ. It is the lowest form of animal life. It exists in all human blood to a greater or less extent, but the vegetarians consider it is greatly multiplied by being introduced into the system with meat if it has not been intensely heated, or thoroughly cooked. This is a needless fear as the amoebae are destroyed at the same temperature as the yeast germ - that of 160º.

The numerous disease bacteria causing alarm are infinitesimal forms of active animal life. They thrive best at a temperature of 120º, but are entirely killed at 160º, however, the spore of many bacteria are not killed even by boiling. The individual life, no matter how minute, cannot survive in very great heat, but if the spore opens in a healthy system the protecting cells devour it before it can multiply.

The cell of food is not an independent animal or plant. While it has life and many forms of action as is essential in growth its nuclei are more like the spore of plants or bacteria, holding life in latency until conditions are right for it to quicken. This life principle is not destroyed by heat until it is raised to a temperature of 212º, or the boiling point long enough to heat through the cell wall. Because of this it is possible to destroy all active bacteria without killing the nucleus of the proteid cell, thus all the demands for cooking food may be fulfilled, at the same time retaining the living element of the cell for tissue building, by cooking with heat between 180º and 205º, or just below the boiling point. This is the place of "greatest good" in the application of heat to food and the next question arising is: How is it to be accomplished most directly ?