436 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



LEAF VEGETABLES, AND HOW TO COOK THEM. 

 By C. Herman Senn, F.C.A., F.R.H.S. 



[Read November 23, 1915 ; Mr. Joseph Ckeal, V.M.H., in the Chair.] 



There never was a time when food economies required to be more 

 closely studied than the present. The entire vegetable world is 

 calling out to housekeepers and cooks to give it a better show in the 

 competition with the abnormally high-priced butcher's meat for human 

 food! 



Vegetables are essential to both good eating and good health, 

 they possess great nutriment, and many of them valuable medicinal 

 properties in addition. 



The preparation, cooking, and consumption of vegetables should 

 be made a special daily feature in every family, and there is no doubt 

 that we should be better off, in both health and pocket, by consuming 

 well-cooked vegetables more regularly. 



Generally speaking, the use of vegetables counteracts the effects of 

 the constant use of meats. It must of course be borne in mind that 

 different vegetables have different nutritive values. 



Haricot beans, butter beans, lentils, and peas, according to analysis, 

 contain a good percentage of nitrogen, which is the flesh-forming 

 element found in meat. On the other hand, they have a proportionate 

 deficiency in heat-forming elements, which is a most desirable quality 

 during the hot weather, while of salts they show about the same 

 proportion as is found in meat. 



Root vegetables, as well as herbaceous vegetables, contain a 

 somewhat larger percentage of heat -producing elements than of 

 nitrogen. 



The appetite is excited by different vegetables according to the 

 seasons. During spring and summer months vegetables which are 

 classed as greens, and are bitter or sub-acid, are mainly in demand, 

 while in autumn and winter it is rather the farinaceous kind which are 

 most appreciated. It will thus be seen that Nature offers her gifts just 

 when they are at their best and the human system calls for them. It is 

 indeed only civilization that has created the products out of their 

 season, when they possess only an imperfect imitation of the naturally 

 grown products. 



Compared with other articles of diet — fish, meat, and poultry — 

 many vegetables when properly cooked can be converted into correctly 

 balanced food at about one-third the cost. They are, when in season, 



