The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-11-01
SCIENCE OF DIETARY
sTITUTI0Ns DISCUSS METHODS
OF COOKING
DELIVER SEVERAL ADDRESSES
In Some Institutions Cooking Is
Made Suitable to Peculiar Needs
of Individual Patients-Re-
suits of Experiments.

superintendent of all of the custodian,
penal and correctional state institutions
Were present at the quarterly meeting
held yesterday Ky the state ptard Of con-
tro for their benefit The purpose Of
these quarterly conferences is that the
heads of the institutions may exchange
views on questions of general application
and interest in the management Of the
establishments of which they have charge
and the members of the board may IA
miliarize themselves with the affairs of
the institutions and keep in touch With
the existing conditions.
In the morning Mrs. Mary B. James. of
Minneapolis read a paper on the question
of proper dietary for the inmates of pub
lie institutions, Illustrating the views she
presented therein by the use of charts,
showing the chemical analysis and COM
parative nutritive values of various
classes of food She also gave consider
able attention to methods of cooking. The
superinten all of whom have made
more or less of a study of the science of
dietary, listened attentively and inteli1-
gently to Mrs. James address, and show
ed their interest in the subject by fire.
quently asking questions.
Mrs James said that vegetables were
desirable as food but they should be
cooked in their own juices as far as pos
not combine with milk to good advantage.
Among the cereal foods she advised the
use of steel-cut grains rather than the
more modern preparations, which she be-
lieved were not SO nutritious. When
cereals were to be used as food they
should, she thought. contain the whole
grain, as far as possible.
AS to the preparation of meats, she
gave preference to steWing and boiling
t1ao hon n RnnEinO
OH the ground that there was less waste
of the nutritious properties. The coarser
meats, she said, were better than the
finer and more tender pieces, for the rea-
son that they contained more nutriment
Soups she considered highly beneficial.
1t has become generally understood
among the superintendent and all others
who have given the question even SUPER
fetal attention, that the different classes
of institutions require different, and in
some ways, widely divergent dietary con-
sideration, and this condition was en-
phatically demonstrated in the discussion
which followed the reading Of the paper.
In fact it was shown that even in one
Institution the same diet could not be
provided for all of the inmates indiscrimi-
nately with the nest beneficial results
This applies particularly to the insane
hospitals, where the patients are in diff
Ior2DC Stages VI lllSAldl anu PAAS SiNe'A w
terioratiOn.
Cooking as an Art.
Dr. Tomlinson, superintendent of the
ST. Peter hospital, who has made study
Of dietary economics, both scientifically
and practically, strongly advocated the
Standardization of patients. He deVot-
ed his attention almost entirely to meth
DDS of cooking, presumably for the rea-
son that he had found most of his diff
Guilty with that portion of the dietary
scheme of his establishment. He SAID
that. properly speaking, cooking was as
much an art as painting or music; but
persons employed as cooks, almost with
out exception, regarded it as purely
mechanical function to be performed
only as a means of earning livelihood
and to be disposed of with as little work
and expenditure of time as possible. Al
most invariably he had found cooks to
be mere imitators, who Gid what they
lad been taught to do by seeing others,
and gave not the slightest thought to the
Z performance of their duties. He had
found that all of his cooks at the hos
pital and the help generally were chiefly
interested in getting through their work
with the least expenditure of time and
effort, and cared but little for results.