An excerpt:
"The great question in regard to diet, viz., whether any food of the
animal kind is absolutely necessary to the most full and perfect
development of man's whole nature, being fairly up, both in Europe and
America, and there being no practical, matter-of-fact volume on the
subject, of moderate size, in the market, numerous friends have been for
some time urging me to get up a new and revised edition of a work which,
though imperfect, has been useful to many, while it has been for some
time out of print"
Boiled Grains.
These require less mastication than those which are submitted to other
processes; but they are more easy of digestion, and to some more
palatable, and even more digestible.
Indian corn may be boiled, but the process requires six
hours or more, even after it has soaked all night, and there has been a
frequent change of the water. And with all this boiling, the skins
sometimes adhere rather strongly, unless you boil with them some ashes,
or other alkali.
Steaming is better than boiling. Some fry them; others stew
them with vegetables for soup, etc.
The carrot is richer than the turnip, but not therefore more
digestible. It may be boiled, stewed, fried, or made into pies,
puddings, etc. It is a very tolerable article of food.
Asparagus, well boiled, is nutritious and wholesome. Salt is
often added, and sometimes butter. The former, to many, is needless; the
latter, to all, injurious.
Muskmelons are richer than watermelons, but not more
wholesome. Of the canteloupe I know but little.
The cucumber. Taken at the moment when ripe;neither green
nor acid;the cucumber is almost, but not quite as valuable as the
melon. It should be eaten in the same way, rejecting the rind. The
Orientals of modern days sometimes boil them, but in former times they
ate them uncooked, though always ripe.
Greens and salads are stringy and indigestible. Besides,
they are much used, as condiments are, to excite or provoke an
appetite;a thing usually wrong. A feeble appetite, say at the opening
of the spring, however common, is a great blessing. If let alone, nature
will erelong set to rights those things, which have gone wrong perhaps
all winter; and then appetite will return in a natural way..."
