VEGETABLES. 709 
herbs raw? and are they not admirably sustained thereby ? ” 
Anyhow, vegetables should be cooked only in their own juices. 
or at least in as little water as possible ; most of the valuable 
salts will otherwise be assuredly washed out, and sacrificed. 
When deluged with water in boiling the substance of vegetables 
retains only as much food value as boiled shavings would possess ; 
and it is this worthless mass which must be then eaten, and its 
digestion attempted. It will in the case of Cabbage stay inert 
within the stomach and bowels, for five or six hours, giving rise 
to flatulence, distension, and discomfort. If the Cabbage were 
eaten without being cooked at all, it would be digested in less 
than three hours. For obtaining the maximum of benefit from 
cooked roots, and green vegetables, they should always be 
steamed over boiling water, and not boiled out of all their 
goodness. 
Vegetables, and milk served together are likely to disagree. 
because the milk (which when taken by itself becomes quickly 
digested) is then retained in admixture with the more slowly- 
digesting vegetable food, and undergoes fermentation, with 
sour products. Milk, and meat, are likewise a bad combination 
for the same reason; milk alone is chiefly digested beyond the 
stomach in the small intestine, which it speedily reaches. Some 
salt should be put with vegetables when they are boiled; and 
a very little butter, if added just before they are served, gives 
improved flavour. The length of time for cooking them should 
be twice, sometimes three times as long as is generally allowed 
in this country. All green vegetables should be boiled in an 
open saucepan, and should be put on in a little boiling water 
to be cooked (unless special reasons can be given for the contrary) : 
roots are to be boiled with the saucepan lid kept on, the preserva- 
tion of a good colour being in either case the object in view. 
Purées of vegetables, with meat, are of great value for the sick, 
likewise to persons in health but with defective teeth, or soreness 
affecting the membranes of mouth, and throat; also as part of 
the diet of growing children. A purée is, as the name denotes, 
essentially a purifying process as to foods, whereby the edible 
parts are separated, and removed from the rough, hard, inedible 
parts by the mechanism of sifting. Thus from leguminous 
pods the indigestible shells are removed ; from roots, and leaves. 
the stringy cellulose is separated. Tough meat, old fowls, and 
the remains of cold poultry can be turned to good account m a 
purée. 
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