The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1903-10-16
VALUE OF GREEN STUFF.
Various Properties of New Vegetables
and Their Eject ON the
Human System.

Green vegetable foods, with the not
able exception of the pea and bean-are
not to be valued chiefly for the amount
of proteids, fats and carbohydrates OBJ
tanned from them, for these are small.
They are more digestible when eaten
tender and green than are the older veg
etables in which the cellulose becoms
incrusted and intergrown with a SUBJ
stance of a mineral nature-hard and
woody-which resists the action of the
digestive juices and makes it impossible
for us to separate and appropriate to our
needs the proteids, sugars and starches.
The well-informed cook will treat this
substance in such a manner that it is
softened, broken up and, if necessary,
completely separated from the useful ell
ements, says the Washington Star.
Green vegetables, generally speaking,
are composed of large per cent. of wa
ter and The chief value they possess as
food depends on the amount of mineral
matter which they contain-which is
relatively large. In cooking green
vegetables, however, they lose much OF
their mineral substance as well as the
greater part of their already poor stock
of nutrients. On the other hand, they
gain water. They require the most
careful treatment, therefore, in order to
retain the small amount of valuable con-
stituents they hold. Vegetable leaves,
shoots, stalks, even cabbages, are too
often cooked without much thought in
regard to why the new" vegetables cook
tender so much sooner than the Older
ones, and to this lack Of knowledge is
due the loss of very large per cent.
of the whole amount of nutritive value.
Green vegetables, whether served raw
or cooked, may be made the means Of
conveying fat into the body in form of
butter, oil or cream, and with many
cooked green vegetables can be served
a sauce that will greatly enrich and in
crease their worth.
The presence of green vegetables in
our diet is necessity of life; the amount
and kind to be eaten must be deter
mined by the individual. Generally their
free use is to be recommended, espe-
cially in some diseases of the skin, mi
nor forms of scurvy and for patients suf-
fering from gravel. Rhubarb, contain
ing a considerable amount of oxalic
acid, should, however, be avoided by
those so afflicted, as oxalic acid in food
may cause the production of oxalic cal
culus. This acid may also produce acid
dyspepsia. The sour taste of the tomato
is supposed to be due to to the presence
in large amount of oxalic acid While
it is existent in the tomato, the sour
taste is said to be due to citric acid.
Green vegetables do not contain much
IRON; this element, if present, varies
! greatly with amount of iron in the soil,
and is found in traces in the green col
oring matter, spinach, perhaps, being
the richest in it's amount. In an or
binary mixed diet of the well-fed indi-
vidual there should be sufficient guam
tity of this mineral constituent to salts
fly all physiological demands. The
amount of sodium chloride, or common
salt, necessary for our needs, should be
supplied in natural form in green veg
etables, but when much of this is lost in
process of cooking, the craving for a
moderate amount of an extra addition of
artificial salt to these foods should be
satisfied, as it has favorable influence
In the absorption of the food.