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I > 8 Copyright 1!>1" by ihr Star Company. Great Britain Rights Reserved. I SAVING the NUTRIMENT IN Cooking Your FOODS By ALICE QUIMBY, n. n os . Sc. A GREAT deal of valuable food, meaning the most nutritious part, is daily lost by the average housewife because she doesn't know exactly bow lo prepare it For instance, potatras should never be peeled before they are boiled, because next to the skin there are always found valuable salts which are naturally boiled away and dissolved if the skins are off. Kish and meats decrease in weight in cooking, whereas vegetables and cereals always increase. Meat loses from one-sixth to one-third of its weight, and boiled meat is probably the least wasteful of its bulk. Boiled meat, however, may lose some of its best foodstuff properties if too much water is used in its boiling, or if it is taken from the water in which it is boiling, instead of allowing it to remain and recover by absorption some of its valuable properties. Eight .pounds of beef, after it is boiled, will weigh To Prevent Wasting VALUABLE MINERAL SALTS AND PROTEIDS in Meat and Vegetables six and a-haJf pounds. After it is baked it will lose two pounds and six ounces; after it is roasted it will lose three pounds and ten ounces. Other meat loses almost in the same proportions when it is cooked. It will be noticed that roasting meat causes it to decrease con siderably more than boiling. One great trouble, of course, in boiling meat is that it loses nearly 45 per cent of its mineral matter and 12 per cent of its fats and nearly 8 per cent of its proteids. Housewives should not worry over this, however, when it is known that there is a greater percentage of nutriment In cooked meats, notwithstanding the loss by cooking,- than there is in raw meats. Tn the matter of vegetables, great care should be taken not to cook in too much water. Experiments made by a skilful scientific commission showed that there is a considerable loss of nutriment 1n cooking vegetables, but that this loss can be lessened when only enough water is used to perfectly cook them. A hundred pounds of uncooked cabbages contain only 7!4 pounds of solid matter, and in the cooking 2% pounds of this is lost. This loss consists of mineral matter, carbo-hydrates and proteids. Carrots, for in stance, lose 25 per cent of the total food material. This Is extracted from the vegetable into the broth, and explains why light, broths or soups are of such value to Invalids. These broths are full of various forms of nutritious matter, mineral salts, carbo-hy drates and proteids. At the same time there is no great bulk of fibre or waste materials and so the invalid gets only the best of foods that will never overload his stomach or overtax his digestive organs. There Is practically no loss suffered in boiling / s ibs. of Raw Beef Boiled it we \ 6/2 Vos. \ \ Baked it weighs ( 5Tlha I 4-lbs, 5 oi. \ \ How Beef Loses Weight Through Va rious Methods of Cooking It. potatoes if the peeling remains intact, as it acts as a protection. On the other hand, spinach is the most remarkable vegetable for shrinkage, there being only ten pounds of solid matter in one hundred pounds, the remainder being water. When it is cooked more than two pounds of the remaining ten pounds of bulk is lost. Rice, while a common article of food, is by no means as nutritious as many would have us believe, and when it is boiled a f great share of what little nutrition it possesses Is lost from the kernels and taken into the water. The cleverness of the native soldiers in the Par East has been demonstrated when they gave the English soldiers the solid rice and demanded only the water the rice was cooked in. About the best way rice can be cooked is to boil it for 20 minutes in two and a half times its bulk of water. If covered with a piece of cheese-cloth it will keep warm for an hour. At the same time the rice will not only be tender and sweet, but will have retained a good share of whatever nutriment it originally pos sessed. With perhaps one or two exceptions, all vegetables will weigh more when cooked than in their raw state. All vegetables contain an extremely high percentage of water. Naturally when they increase their weight by cooking they have taken on more water and this in time dilutes or lessens the food value to a certain extent, it is said that 100 pounds of Brussels sprouts when cooked will weigh about 122 pounds. Onions gain equally in weight, while oats will sometimes in crease in bulk ten times while in the process of being cooked. Our bodies demand a certain amount of food—starch sugar (carbo-hydrates), mineral salts and proteids— every tiay. It is the proteids that build up the tissues and give us both energy and heat, but this must be with the help of water and minerals such as common table salt. At the same time certain carbo-hydrates or foods, especially bacon, are the real energy producers. All over the world the amount of actual nutriment that a working man needs is just about the same, whether he be mining in Siberia, engineering in Panama, planting in Brazil or farming in New England. This average has been found by a number of scien- ( tiflc investigators to be about 4% ounces of proteid 16 ounces of carbo-hydrates and 4% ounces of fat for a man which does a moderate or average day’s work. For a woman, about four-fifths of the above amount is required, while children, except in a few especially rapid growing stages, need even less than that. The little red herring that has been joked about for ages still remains a particularly good food, although the edible portions yield only one-iiftieth per cent of nutriment. Trout, on the other hand, yields % per cent of nutriment, while lentils are a valuable food because of their supply of proteids. If we depended entirely upon them for all the proteids our bodies needed we would have to eat more than a pound of lentils a day, cooked, which would mean over four pounds of the uncooked lentils. Our carbo-hydrates we can obtain from bread, About three pounds of bread alone would give all the sugar and starch we needed. If we depended solely upon potatoes for the starch we needed, we would have to eat about 8% pounds a day, while the supply of proteids in potatoes is so small that if we ate potatoes alone we would have to eat 22 pounds a day to get a, sufficient supply of proteids. Why the EEL Is T HERE are few things more aggravating to scien tists than 4o know how a thing must take place and yet be unable to prove it. The eel still baffles the experts on fishes, although another chapter in its life history has just been written. In a late re port of the groat Michael Sara exploration of the depths of the Atlantic four smaller and younger stages t f the oe! young are described and pictured than had ever been seen before. But stili no egg- bearing common eel has yet been netted, and no eel egg has yet been found. The migrations of the eels or the eel-fare, as it is known in Europe have been known for centuries, hut the origin of the eel is yet unknown, though its life history—especially with the new Information—is one of the most curious of all sea-and-land creature*. The eel, it must be pointed out, is thoroughly lib cral in his tastes. He will live for years in the abyssal depths of the ocean, and, though abyssal fish rarely come to the upper water, he will spell I the next few years right at the surface of the • •.». For a while he will disport himself in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, then he will strike for colder currents, l.aiter he abandons the open sea and decides to try coastal waters, seeming to enjoy the MOST MYSTERIOUS of All FISH ! the new experience. Then he turns his attention to fresh water and starts up the rivers, in some cases having already traveled some 3,000 miles. The river attracts him for a while, then the young eel finds still reaches of water, or ascends tiny streams and • settles in fish-stocked ponds. Nor is the young eel insistent in his demand for water. If the ground is moist and the grass wet, an eel will quite cheerfully make his way over land, and in some places, such as the valley of the Severn in England, for two or three weeks at a time pro cessions of young eels—millions upon millions- will swarm up the streams and scatter to all the ponds at the river source. After some years spent in these fresh-water popds. f.he memory—I use the word deliberately- of the salt water seems to come back and. coupled with some aged-old instinct of spawning, the now full-grown eel takes up his jour ney overland again, reaches the river, swims straight out to sea and is lost to the sight of those who search for him. Where the adult eels finally go as yet has not been found; but they seem never to come back. The - eel, moreover, is as generous to himself in the shapes he uses as in the places where he makes his home. How he begins, one is compelled to re- j peat, we do not know, and it was not until this last j cruise that an eel baby (they call him a Leptoceph- j alus) as small as two inches in length was ever - found. He is then absolutely transparent, thin as j the thinnest kind of a knife blade, and absolutely j colorless except that the iris of the eye is silvery. ! Apparently he does not feed; or, if he does, it is in such small quantities and on such microscopic life that growth is extremely slow, finally reaching three inches. Until quite recently these transparent, flat fish were thought to be a species by themselves. In the late Autumn the young eel changes his shape, becoming more eel-like and actually reducing his length. This is necessary, because during the change hp fasts, and after the change is only one-third his former weight. During this period, lasting a yeaik he certainly has taken no'food. By this time he is recognizable as a glass-eel, though still almost trans parent; and when a little darker and stronger, about the size of a knittnig needle in girth and 2% inches long, he starts with millions of comrades on a 3,000- mile swim. But the real eel babyhood is unknown, though almost any day some dredge from deepest ocean may reveal the story. The Psychological VALUE OF A CAT in a Factory O NE of the most remarkable instances of how so simpleqi diversion of the ntind as petting a cat occasionally during the day in a factory actually increased the efficiency of the working girls is described by the Dean of the College of Engineering of the University of Cincinnati, Herman Schneider. This occurred in a large piano factory, ac cording to Dean Schneider, who tells the story in a recent number of “Factory.” The trouble was with the women employes. They were engaged in assembling the pianos. Each workman had a certain part of the piano to adjust or put iu place. The result, was that each girl went through the same work hour after hour. That is, each girl did something different, but each individual girl had the same motions to perform until the monotony became almost unbearable to them, because it is well known that mechanical motions alone so affect the mind as to make a person dull and wearied in brain, just as constant brain work alone will actually weary the body- The foreman of the factory tried every thing to help the girls, but they continued to become dissatisfied and they would leave their jobs and seek other employment. Hr tried rest rooms and recreations, but they did not seem to work. One day a happj thought, struck him and he brought a great handsome cat into the assembling room. Al most instantly every girl in the room “fell in love” with the cat, as .they expressed it Many times throughout the day they would pause to pet the cat, who traveled about among the workers. They would bring dain ties for him to eat and speak about him, and it was the constant little interruptions from their dreary mechanical work that saved the day in the factory and actually made the workers more contented. The foreman declared, according to Dean, Schneider, that girls working there and leav ing for some of the rival piano factories, were known to become dissatisfied and return to his factory. The psychological reason for this was not that they really loved the cat enough to make them come back to their old jobs, but that they found the work much harder in other factories while thp monotony in this particular factory was broken for them throughout the day at irregular intervals. Aiding Vegetation by Means of WIND SHIELDS I N some parts of Europe, especially in the Swiss and Kalian Alps, shields have been erected at the top slope of fields (and nearly all fields slope there) to prevent the sliding of snow in Spring from carrying away tb valuable top soil. But now experiments are being made both in Germany and in France with wind shields because, the experi menters claim, wind actually retards the growth of vegetation. There are several reasons for this, it is claimed. A German agricultural and forestry publication lias pointed out that even a wind that never injured vegetation by breaking or bruising or scattering away its little branches and buds, will do great damage, and this is because a constant wind will rapidly evaporate the water from the soil. Wet the hack of your hand and with your watch time it—that is, see how long it lakes for the water to dry. Now wet the back of your band again and fan it vigorously. The result is that the moisture on your band will disappear in less than half the time it took it to dry when no air stirred about it. This is what happens to the soil. In ex posed lands where there are many high winds or constant winds, the soil is evaporated from the land. Only constant rains serve to pre vent the land from becoming actually barren. A moderate wind in the German highlands is J said to be about fifteen feet per second, and t through experiments it has been found such a j breeze lessened the yield of the land by fully J one-half. Of course, the other objection to wind is the damage it does to growing things l>y bending stalks and stems and branches to the breaking point, making them rub together and break off buds and retarding the growth of sprouts. The strong winds remove the mois ture from the ground when there is a long while between rains. This causes the ground to harden and then the wind is more likely to break dow n various vegetable growths be- , cause the ground is not moist enoughVi allow the stalks to bend at the roots, but holds them In a vise-like grip and causes them to break. With all this damage resulting from the wind, the wind shields were hit upon and . theg it was found that the laud yielded much more. The planting of the more tender grow- , fng things on ground that is little exposed to \ wind, and the erection of wind shields wher ever necessary will result in nearly doubling the output of the cultivated soil, these in vestigators claim. These shields have been tried but little in this country, although there are many places 1 where they would be needed quite as much as iu Europe. On the eastern slope of the ( Rocky Mountains, where farms slope up from ( the plains, there is always a stronger current of air and stronger winds than on the plains themselves, caused probably by the wind cut ting down between the mountains something like a forced draft. In a few places here the ( wind shields have been tried. t Interest in this has been shown in the 1 United States Agricultural Department, and j experiments will doubtless be made at sev- j eral of tile experimental stations that are well j situated for such a trial. J Wind shields are not of a necessity gigantic j board fences, strongly braced. It has been shown that certain trees that grow strong and tall will serve admirably for this. In Ger many the clearings are not now made clear to the top of a slope, but a thick ridge of tall < trees with protecting uhderbrush for a shield \ below the foliage of the trees is left, and this j serves as- a natural wind shield. YOU MIGHT TRY- Squeaking Shoes. T F your new shoes squeak disagreeably, the sound may be stopped by ! having the shoemaker “spring” them on each side and insert a spoon- ) A Queer New Test for MENTAL DEFICIENCY spring ful of French chalk between the soles, I To Remove Wall Paper. 'TUt remove old wall paper, make a thick pasty solution of flodr and a \ few spoonfuls of salt in boiling water. Then add a few ounces of J acetic acid, which is cheap, and apply with a brush to the old paper, which t will, after a few minutes, readily peel off in large strips. For Removing Warts. ejvO remove waris rub them daily with a radish when in season, or with the juice of the marigold flower. For the Flot Water Bottle. A FTER filling a rubber water .bottle with hot water, press the side of it ' before putting in the stopper. This allows the steam to escape, and i there is little danger of the seams coming undone. J Keeping Your Tie Smooth. A FTER removing your tie at night don’t throw' it aside, hut wind it tightly around the rail of your bed, and leave it till morning. When , you wake up you will he surprised to see the creases have completely dis- t appeared. F you are able to judge accurately which of two weights in the heavier, you are ment ally deficient, according to Dr. Demoor, a Belgian physican and scientist. Dr. Demoor doesn’t go quite as far as to declare this is an infallible rule, and you may possess this ability without being, perforce, w’eak minded, but in a series of experiments made by this doctor, those who guessed cor recently which of two objects was heavier were known to be weak-minded while those who made errors in their guesses were all norfhal. One experiment along this line of consider able interest was carried on by Dr. Demoor among 380 children whose ages varied from six to fifteen years. For this the doctor pre pared two bottles by covering them with black paper. These bottles were of different size, which could be told at a glance, but in each bottle the doctor put a heavy mineral until both the large and the small bottle had exactly the same weight. The black covering prevented the children from seeing the equal amount of mineral in each bottle. An Easy Way to Make YOUR GARDEN Furrows Straight 1 ANY an amateur gardner has viewed the gar den of his neighbor who has no more experi ence in such things than himself, and has wondered how he managed to make his garden look so trim and neat. Generally the secret is in straight rows. A garden with rows of beans, radishes, beets and other things that wabble about like a piece of string, and with rows that have different spaces between them, certainly does not present an attractive appearance. It may produce just as much as the neighbor's garden, but why not make the garden a thing of beauty as well - s of value? The trouble is that many gardeners make their drills “by the eye." That is, they make the rows for plant ing as straight as they can at guess, without measur ing. A simple little device that will cost nothing for material and take only ten minutes to make will sol\e this problem and enable the amateur gardener to have his vegetables grow in straight and attractive rows with equal spacing between them. For instance, iu your small garden where you do tile weeding by hand instead of with a borse cultivator, the average distance auart for the rows should be twenty inches for bush beans. For lettuce and endive A Simple Little Home-Made Implement That Will Keep the Furrows Straight in Your Garden l and many such things, only twelve inches is needed between the rows. The good amateur gardener has his table for planting, of course. He can secure it of any seed man, as it generally comes with the catalogues. The rake-like implement is made of ordinary boards or old fence pickets. It is well to have the piece (E) made of 2x4 joist or even heavier to give it weight. Place the “teeth” twenty inches (A to B) for beans. On the other side place the “teeth” twelve inches apart lor beets, carrots, onions, spinach and such things. If you are making an extensive garden you might make iwo of these row markers. This will give you four widths and provide about all the various spacing needed in the little truck garden. After your garden is ready for planting, i” for re ceiving transplanted plants, mark the first row with a string and two stakes. This insures a straight Hue. Now drag this marker along, keeping one end of it even with the string and you will have made from four to six or seven absolutely straight rows in about one-eighth the time you could have done it with stakes and string and certainly much better than without a guide of any sort. These markers are so simple to make they may be cut up for kindling later instead of storing them, as a few minutes work each Spring will give you others. These two bottles were handed to each of the 380 children and they were asked to judge which was the heavier. They balanc ed them in their hands and many said the larger one was heavier, many others said the smaller bottle was heavier. Three hun dred and seventy of them failed to judge ac curately, or, to declare that there was no difference in the weight of the bottles. Ten of these children guessed correctly, they declared the bottles were equal in weight. The remarkable part of this is that among these three hundred and eighty chil dren there were only ten mentally deficient, and these were known positively to be ab normal or degenerate. And every one of these ten mentally deficient children stated that there was no difference in the weight of the bottles—they were the correct guessers. And because of this and many other similar experiments Dr. Demoor is satisfied that while ordinary people, people with normal brains, find it difficult to guess weights ac curately, it is quite the reverse with the mentally deficient. The bottle test was by no means the only one made. Other objects were used, such as boxes of the same size, but containing things that made them unequal in weight. Also boxes of unequal size, but that weighed the same. These same children were used in the experiments with the same results, the nor mal children made wrong guesses, while the mentally deficient ones either guessed cor rectly or very close to the correct weights. Then, to make doubly certain, the experi ments were tried on other people, different groups of children, and also of adults, and it was found that among the children the normal ones could not make anywhere near as accu rate guesses or estimates as those who were recognized to be abnormal, mentally deficient, degenerates, etc. In institutions for the feeble-minded it was found they very fre quently made the right guesses in these ex periments, while it was only rarely that a nor mal adult would lift the objects and then make a correct guess as to their relative weight. Dr. Demoor is continuing his inter esting experiments along this line to learn if other senses are made keener in the men tally deficient