VALUE OF THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF FOOD.--_Beef_ and _Mutton_ possess the greatest nutritive value of any of the meats. _Lamb_ is less strengthening, but more delicate. Like the young of all animals, it should be thoroughly cooked, and at a high temperature, properly to develop its delicious flavor. _Pork_ has much carbon. It sometimes contains a parasite called trichina, which may be transferred to the human system, producing disease and often death. The only preventive is thorough cooking. _Fish_ is more watery than flesh, and many find it difficult of digestion. Like meat, it loses its mineral constituents and natural juices when salted, and is much less nourishing. Oysters are highly nutritious, but are more easily assimilated when raw than when cooked. _Milk_ is a model food, as it contains albumen, starch, fat, and mineral matter. No other single substance can sustain life for so long a time. _Cheese_ is very nourishing--one pound being equal in value to two of meat, but it is not adapted to a weak stomach. (See p. 322.) _Eggs_ are most easily digested when the white is barely coagulated and the yolk is unchanged. _Bread_ [Footnote: Very fresh bread, warm biscuit, etc., are condensed by mastication into a pasty mass that is not easily penetrated by the gastric juice, and hence they are not healthful. In Germany bread is not allowed to be sold at the baker's till it is twenty-four hours old--a wise provision for those who have not strength to resist temptation. This rule of eating may well be adopted by every one who cares more for his health than for a gratification of his appetite.] should be made of unbolted flour. The bran of wheat furnishes the mineral matter we need in our bones and teeth, gives the bulk so essential to the proper distension of the organs, and by its roughness gently stimulates them to action. _Corn_ is rich in fat. It contains, however, more indigestible matter than any other grain, except oats, and is less nutritious than wheat. [Footnote: Persons unaccustomed to the use of corn find it liable to produce derangement of the digestive organs. This was made fearfully apparent in the prisons of Andersonville during the late civil war. The vegetable food of the Federal prisoners had hitherto been chiefly wheat bread and potatoes--the corn bread so extensively used at the South being quite new to most of them as a constant article of diet. It soon became not only loathsome, but productive of serious diseases. On the other hand, it was the principal article in the rations of the Confederate soldiers, to whom habit made it a nutritious and wholesome form of food, as was shown by their endurance.--FLINT, _Physiology of Man_, Vol. II, page 41.] The _Potato_ is two thirds water,--the rest being mainly starch. _Ripe Fruits_, and those vegetables usually eaten raw, dilute the more concentrated food, and also supply the blood with acids, which are cooling in summer, and useful, perhaps, in assimilation.