=Disadvantages of Bad Cooking.=--Proteid foods are hardened; flavors may be driven off; too many kinds of food may be mixed; cooked vegetables are more likely to ferment than raw vegetables; palatable food may be made tasteless or soggy or greasy; soda and other indigestible ingredients may be added; food may be so highly seasoned as to cause catarrh of the stomach; it may so stimulate the appetite that so much is eaten as to overload the stomach. Food may be made so soft that it cannot be chewed and is eaten too rapidly; for instance, bread shortened with much grease. =The Five Modes of Cooking.=--Food may be cooked (1) by _heat radiating from glowing coals_ or a flame, as in broiling; (2) by _hot air_, as baking in a hot oven; (3) by _boiling in hot water or grease_, as frying; (4) by _hot water_, not boiling, as in stewing; (5) by _steaming_. =Radiant Heat.=--_Toasting_ bread and _broiling_ meat are examples. The meat should be turned over every ten seconds to send its juices back and forth, thus preventing their escape, and broiling the meat in the heat of its own juices. _Roasting_ is an example of this method combined with the second method. The fire should be hot at first in order to sear the outside of the meat and prevent the escape of its juices. If the piece roasted is small, the hot fire may be kept up; but if it is large, a longer time is required, and the fire should be decreased, otherwise the outside will be scorched before the central part becomes heated. White, or Irish, potatoes roasted with their skins on best retain their flavor as well as valuable mineral salts (potash, etc.). =Cooking by hot air= can only be used with moist foods. Baking is an example. Foods only slightly moist are made hard, dry, and unpalatable if cooked by this method. =Cooking by Boiling.=--To boil _potatoes_ so as to make them mealy instead of soggy, the water should be boiling when they are put in, and after they are cooked the water should be poured off and the pot set on the back of the stove for the potatoes to dry. Boiling _onions_ drives off the acrid, irritating oil. Rapid boiling of vegetables gives less time for the water to dissolve out the nutrients. (See Steaming.) Raw _cabbage_ is treated by the stomach as a foreign substance, and sent promptly to the intestine; cabbage boiled with fat may remain in the stomach for five hours. Instead, it should be boiled in clear water for twenty minutes. _Beans_ and _peas_ require several hours’ boiling.