Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt Book. Catharine Esther Beecher
cannot be determined, and that it is as correct to assume, that to be the proper medium, which is secured by a mixed diet, as to assume that the proper point is that, which is secured by an exclusive vegetable diet. Moreover, the fact that the teeth and digestive organs of man, which seem to be fitted both for vegetable and animal food, and the fact that the supplies of food on the earth make it needful to adopt sometimes animal, and sometimes vegetable diet, and sometimes a mixture of both, furnish an à priori argument in favor of a mixed diet.
In deciding which kinds of animal food are most healthful, several particulars are to be regarded. The flesh of young animals is more tender than that of the old ones, but yet they usually are not so easily digested. Beef, and Mutton, and Venison, when tender, are considered the meats which are most easily digested, and best for weak stomachs. Venison is more stimulating than Beef and Mutton. These meats, when tough, are not so easily digested as when tender.
All meats are made more tender and digestible by hanging.
Solid meats, properly cooked, are more easily digested than soups and broths. For it is found that these liquids are never digested till the water is absorbed, leaving a solid mass more undigestible than was the solid meat. When useful to invalids, it is because they supply the loss of the withdrawn fluids of the body, but not because more easily digested. The white meats, such as Chicken and Veal, are best for invalids, because less stimulating than dark meats.
Liver contains so much oil that it is not good for invalids or dyspeptics.
The digestibility and healthfulness of meat depends very much upon the mode of cooking. Boiled meats are most easily digested, when properly boiled. Roasting, broiling, and baking, are healthful modes of cooking, but frying is a very pernicious mode of preparing meats, the reason of which will be explained hereafter.
Though there is a disagreement of opinion among practitioners and physiologists, as to the propriety of using any animal food, they are all agreed in regard to certain general principles that should regulate its use. They are as follows:—Less animal food should be used in warm climates than in cold, and less, also, in summer than in winter. The reason of this is, that heat is stimulating to the system, and as meat diet is also stimulating, when heat increases, meat, as a diet, should decrease, or fevers may ensue.
Another principle is, that the proportions of meat diet should depend somewhat on the constitution and circumstances. When a person is of full habit, or inclined to inflammatory attacks of any kind, the proportion of animal food should be much less than in other cases.
On the contrary, when there is a state of the system that demands gentle stimulus, an increase of meat diet is sometimes useful.
Persons subject to cutaneous eruptions are sometimes entirely cured by long abstinence from animal food, and all kinds of oily substances.
FOOD THAT STIMULATES WITHOUT NOURISHING.
The articles which come under this head, are usually called the condiments. In regard to these, Dr. Pereira remarks—
“The relish for flavoring, or seasoning ingredients, manifested by almost every person, would lead us to suppose that these substances serve some useful purpose beyond that of merely gratifying the palate. At present, however, we have no evidence that they do. They stimulate, but do not seem to nourish. The volatile oil they contain is absorbed, and then thrown out of the system, still possessing its characteristic odor.”
The articles used for food of this kind, are the sweet herbs employed for seasoning, such as Thyme, Summer Savory, and the like, and the spices, such as Cloves, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Pepper, and Ginger. Mustard, Horseradish, Water Cresses, Garlic, and Onions, contain these stimulating oils, combined with some nourishing food.
“Condiments,” says Dr. Beaumont, “particularly those of a spicy kind, are non-essential to the process of digestion in a healthy state of the system. They afford no nutrition. Though they may assist the action of a debilitate stomach for a time, their continual use never fails to produce an indirect debility of that organ. They affect it as alcohol and other stimulants do—the present relief afforded is at the expense of future suffering. Salt and Vinegar are exceptions when used in moderation. They both assist in digestion, Vinegar by rendering muscular fibre more tender, and both together, by producing a fluid having some analogy to the gastric juice.”
FOOD THAT IS ENTIRELY UNDIGESTIBLE.
There is no kind of food used which consists exclusively of indigestible matter. But it often is the case, that a certain amount of indigestible matter is mixed with nourishing food, and serves, by its mechanical aid, to promote the healthful action of the stomach and bowels. This is the reason why unbolted flour is deemed more healthful than fine flour, and is consequently preferred for dyspeptics. But where there is too great a quantity of such indigestible matter, or where it is not properly combined with digestible food, it proves injurious and often dangerous. This is the case when the skins and seeds of fruits are swallowed, which always pass off entirely undigested.
FOOD THAT IS UNHEALTHFUL IN NATURE, OR MADE SO BY COOKING.
The most injurious food, of any in common use, is the animal oils, and articles cooked with them. On this subject, Dr. Pereira remarks:—“Fixed oil, or fat, is more difficult of digestion, and more obnoxious to the stomach, than any other alimentary principle. Indeed, in concealed forms, I believe it will be found to be the offending ingredient in nine-tenths of the dishes which disturb weak stomachs. Many dyspeptics who avoid fat meat, butter, and oil, unwittingly eat it in some concealed form. Liver, the yolk of eggs, and brains, such individuals should eschew, as they abound in oily matter.”
“The influence of heat on fatty substances effects chemical changes, whereby they are rendered more difficult of digestion, and more obnoxious to the stomach. Hence those culinary operations in which fat or oil is subjected to high temperatures, are objectionable.”
“Fixed oils give off, while boiling, carbonic acid, an inflammable vapor, and an acrid oil, called Acroleon, while the fatty acids of the oil are, in part, set free. It has always appeared to me that cooked butter proves more obnoxious to the stomach than cooked Olive oil. This I ascribe to the facility with which, under the influence of heat, the acrid, volatile acids of butter are set free. The fat of salt pork and bacon is less injurious to some dyspeptics than fresh animal fats. This must depend on some change effected by curing.”
“In many dyspeptics, fat does not become properly chymified. It floats on the stomach in the form of an oily pellicle, becoming odorous, and sometimes highly rancid, and in this state excites heartburn, disagreeable nausea, eructations, and sometimes vomiting. It appears to me, that the greater tendency which some oily substances have than others to disturb the stomach, depends on the greater facility with which they evolve volatile, fatty acids, which are for the most part exceedingly acrid and irritating. The distressing feelings excited in many dyspeptics by mutton fat, butter, and fish oils, are, in this way, readily accounted for. Butter contains no less than three volatile, fatty acids, namely—the butyric, capric, and capröic. Fats, by exposure to the air, become rancid, and in this state are exceedingly obnoxious to the digestive organs. Their injurious qualities depend on the presence of volatile acids, and in part also on non-acid substances.”
These statements show the reasons why the fried food of all kinds is injurious. Fat is an unhealthful aliment, and when heated becomes still more so. This mode of cooking, then, should be given up by every housekeeper, who intends to take all reasonable means of preserving