12 THE BIOLOGY OF DAILY LIFE. 



food, good for us, are two : (1st) Vegetable con- 

 dition of organization, and (2nd) Latent solar 

 force, or to put it shortly, " PLANT-FORM " and 

 " SUN-POWER." Now, if any process alter the plant- 

 form, it is bad cookery, if it diminishes the sun -power 

 it is worse, for it destroys the most vital portion of 

 the aliment. But if I can find a process which, 

 without really changing the plant-form, will at 

 the same time add to the sun-power, then I have a 

 process which does not destroy but does fulfil 

 Nature's Law more completely ; and if, in addition 

 to this, we also mechanically save undue labour to 

 the organism by presenting its food to it in a state easy 

 to be dissolved, such a process is as perfect as we 

 can imagine. Now all wholesome food and good 

 cooking answer to this description. If we remember 

 that all our fuels coal, petroleum, gas, peat, wood 

 are really stored up solar force " bottled sunlight" 

 so to speak non-chemical cookery* simply adds to 

 the solar force in the vegetable tissues which, by the 

 Law of Interchange, form the best aliment of man. f 



* I say non-chemical cookery, to exclude dressing with mineral 

 salt, baking-soda, vinegar, &c., and to imply mild cookery ; heat 

 applied by means of water, steam, olive oil, and such like. 



f An eminent American professor of chemistry, Josiah P. Cooke, 

 Jr., thus accurately and readily describes the facts mentioned here: 



" All carbonaceous materials used as fuel, whether wood, coal, 

 oil, or gas, if not themselves visibly organized, were derived 

 from organized structures, chiefly plants ; and all the light, all 

 the heat, all the power, which they are capable of yielding, were 

 stored away during the process of vegetable growth. The origin 

 of all this energy is the sun, and it is brought to the earth by 

 the sun's rays." . . . 



" How it comes, how there can be so much power in the gentle 



