There are several questions which frequently arise in the mind of a person who begins to study food values. One is, why are articles included in the menu of almost every meal which have almost no value as nourishment? In many cases such articles are appetizing and refreshing; such are lettuce, celery, muskmelons, cucumbers and many soups and desserts. They also contain much water, of which the body has great and constant need. They also give bulk to our food, which is a necessity because some of the processes of digestion do not begin until the organs to which they belong are expanded. A housewife who is bewildered or disheartened will sometimes ask why we cannot take our food in capsules, or why an ideal dietary cannot be made and used over and over again. She will not be the first person who has thought of these expedients, but it has been fairly well proved that highly condensed food, as also "predigested" foods, not only lack this element of bulk of which we have been speaking, but have an even worse defect. They give us something for nothing, which is always bad for us. That is, they furnish us with nourishment without requiring any effort to speak of from the digestive organs. As a result the digestive organs grow flabby and useless from having nothing to do. A child in school who is never given anything difficult to do grows flabby in mind and character and soon _can't_ do anything difficult; so it is with a digestion. The objection to the use of an ideal dietary is, in the first place, that such a dietary has not been discovered. People claim to have discovered it, but that is different from really doing so. But the chief objection to the use of such a thing is that the body requires a variety of food, that a variety of food has been provided for it on the earth and that the part of us which is not body will not stand eating the same thing every day or even every week. Have you ever lived in a boarding house or in an institution where there was an invariable week's menu. It is a mechanical contrivance which soon stirs up rebellion, and rightly. Probably a word more needs to be said on this subject of variety, for it is a saving grace in menu making. If one can give one's household _real_ variety of food, not merely that which is made by different methods of serving and cooking, but that which is actually a difference in constituents, mistakes in selection will then never get very long or thoroughly established. If one cannot be right all the time, by means of variety one can be fairly sure of being right some of the time. Variety is also made necessary by changes in season, in occupation, in state of health, and I think I may add without making a loop-hole for pampering people unduly, that it is made necessary at times by change of mood.