27 



the process. Snyder* has shown that when a definite amount of two lots 

 of oatmeal were cooked for periods of thirty minutes and four hours, 

 respectively, and treated with an equal quantity of malt, 6.1 per cent, of 

 the starch of the oatmeal cooked for the shorter period, and 20.3 per cent, 

 of that cooked for the longer period, was found to be digested at the 

 end of ten minutes. Gudeman,f working- along- the same lines as Snyder, 

 excepting that he used saliva and pancreatin instead of diastase of malt 

 as the digestion agents, "found that the raw cereals, if sufficiently cooked, 

 were as quickly digested as the best malted cereals, more quickly than 

 prepared (cooked) cereals and a large majority of the so-called malted 

 cereals. " 



Ease and rapidity of digestion are probably closelv associated ; for it 

 is natural to assume that if a food is rapidly digested it will be done with 

 the expenditure of less energy than if it required a long time. This is a 

 point of considerable importance, especially to those who are inclined to 

 be dyspeptic. From the data presented, it is evident that the ready-to- 

 serve foods are no more completely digested than the raw foods when 

 properly cooked; and, if we may judge from the percentage amount of 

 soluble matter in the different foods when ready to serve, they are no 

 more easily or rapidly digested. 



Digestibility of Foods, as Influenced by Short and Long Periods 



of Cooking. 



It is quite generally stated that when oat meals, farinas, etc., are 

 cooked for a long time they are made "more digestible." Data has been 

 presented in Table No. 5 which show that the solubility of these foods 

 is increased by the longer periods of cooking. Consequently, as argued 

 above, they would be, as commonly expressed, "more digestible" in the 

 sense of ease and rapidity of digestion. To ascertain whether this would 

 be accompanied by a greater absorption of the several nutrients, we 

 cooked two samples of rolled oats and two samples of farinas for twentv 

 minutes and for eight hours and carried through digestion experiments 

 in the same manner as previously described. To overcome the influence 

 of individuality in digestion, the same men were used as subjects of the 

 experiments with both methods of cooking, and all the conditions were 

 kept as uniform as possible. The only exception to this was in the case 

 of Sample No. 45, where two men were unable to go on with the second 

 part of the experiment. The results obtained in this work, calculated 

 to percentage, are given in the following table : 



*Minnesota Experiment Station Bulletin No. 74, p. 153. 

 tJournal American Chemical Society, Vol. 26, p. 321. 



