Chapter I: Foreword

It has been said, with considerable truth, that man is not by nature a drinking animal. If present-day economic and climatic conditions permitted, and man’s normal palate called for, a universal, daily and abundant use of fresh fruits and vegetables, the necessity for drinking, _per se_, would disappear, and this book would not need to have been written. Modern civilized life, however, includes an omnivorous diet, widespread adulteration of foodstuffs, a sparsely cultivated countryside and a scarcity throughout the greater part of the year of cheap, sound fruit and salad vegetables. Such factors have produced a physical degeneracy in our midst, clear to all who have eyes to see and perfectly obvious to anyone who is of necessity brought into immediate daily contact with physical disease and ill health. This degeneracy is revealed in bodies all more or less clogged with waste and effete material, a condition clearly traceable to faulty diet and unnatural environment.

A human body thus clogged needs liquid for cleansing purposes, and that need expresses itself in thirst, since it is Nature’s voice. Unfortunately, civilized man is in the habit of answering that cry for liquid by imbibing beverages which not only do not cleanse, but which in many instances sadly _aggravate the very conditions which created the thirst_.

The aim of this book is to make known the vast array of cleansing, curative, tonic and nutritive beverages which, at any given season of the year, can be prepared from the materials supplied by a prodigal Nature.

In the following pages, much light is thrown (in passing) upon the working of the human body, the nature of disease, the process of digestion, the rationale of Nature Cure methods, the principles of sensible diet and the harmful nature of certain popular beverages and commodities.

The chief indication of the need of liquid is thirst. This statement needs qualifying. When thirst is caused by over-indulgence in stimulating drinks, alcoholic or otherwise, the drinking of further stimulants will not satisfy Nature, even if, for the moment, the feeling is stilled. Moreover, when thirst is induced by the eating of salted, over-seasoned, or adulterated and preserved foodstuffs, the mere fact of freely drinking fluids of any kind will not correct the sensation of thirst.

To permanently overcome thirst it is not only necessary to choose a suitable beverage that is really cleansing and cooling, but also to remove the cause of that unnatural thirst by abstaining from the types of food and drink which produce it. Hence the urgent need, among the public, of a better knowledge of food chemistry, of the simple construction of the human body, and of the right kind of food reform, which is inseparable from that study.

Every care has been taken to ensure accuracy. Most of the recipes have been tested, and the subjects have been arranged alphabetically to facilitate easy reference.

I have to thank Mr. E. J. Saxon for carefully revising the MS. of this book and for preparing same for the press. His wide knowledge of the subject has eminently fitted him to give me this assistance.

H. Valentine Knaggs, L.R.C.P., etc.
55a, Welbeck Street, W.

A

ACORNS.

Acorns are the ripened fruit of the oak tree. They once formed a considerable part of the food of primitive man and are still used in some countries as a substitute for bread.

Acorns contain starch, sugar, albumen, citric acid, and tannin; to the last named all parts of the oak tree owe their astringency.

Acorn Coffee.

When dried, roasted, and ground, acorns constitute a fair substitute for coffee, and mixed or blended with a due proportion of either coffee or cocoa they are used as popular beverages in Germany. It is a pity that the acorn is not better known and more freely used in this country, seeing that the oak tree is so widely grown here.

Acorns are gathered in the late autumn, when they are fully ripe; they are shelled, cut into pieces, slowly dried in hot dry air, then roasted to a cinnamon brown colour, ground, and put away in any air-tight package.

Beverages made of roasted acorns are tonic and astringent, and are thus useful in cases of catarrhal irritability of the digestive and other organs. In Germany acorn cocoa is often given to children so suffering as a temporary substitute for milk when the latter is found to be exerting an injurious effect. Acorn coffee is also thought to diminish the desire for strong drink in those afflicted with this craving. If used alone, acorn coffee is best served up as a decoction, the ground roasted acorns being boiled for about five minutes in water, then strained and served.

ALCOHOLIC DRINKS.

Alcohol, especially if taken in the form of whisky, brandy, or strong spirits of any kind, stimulates the nervous system of the body and produces a temporary feeling of well-being. This ultimately lapses into a variable degree of intoxication, drowsiness, and sleep, according to the quantity taken. Alcoholic indulgence exacts an enormous toll in the form of paralysing influences upon the whole human system. Surely, then, it is sheer lunacy for anyone acquainted with the real facts to talk of alcohol as being serviceable and useful to mankind.

There is not the slightest necessity for anyone, whether in health or ill-health, to partake of alcoholic beverages, and no enlightened Food Reformer would dream of touching them in any shape or form.

If one must indulge in alcoholic beverages, then the light wines and beers, such as are used universally on the Continent, should be chosen in preference to the stronger wines and spirits resorted to in this country.

Wine.

Wine contains albumen, sugar, dextrin, with an abundant supply of organic mineral salts. The light native wines of France and Italy, etc., contain relatively little alcohol, and thus do not bring on those destructive changes in the tissues which occur as a result of imbibing spirits or the stronger wines and beers. The organic salts in the light wines, although verging on the inorganic, may play an important part, since they are asserted to be highly anti-scorbutic. The Food Reformer will, however, infinitely prefer to obtain these same salts by eating the grapes themselves, or similarly constituted fresh fruits or vegetables, before they have been allowed to get into the despoiling hands of the brewers and wine-makers.

Beer.

Beer, like wine, in addition to the alcohol present, contains sugar, dextrin, and organic mineral salts, combined with the yeast extract derived from the yeast fermentation. Its distinctive taste is due to the added hops and bitter aromatics.

When beer is freely drunk, the alcohol, sugar, and dextrin will greedily appropriate the oxygen supply of the body. In this way it saves the fatty and muscular tissues of the body from combustion and equally retards the destruction of uric acid and other partially burnt-up forms of tissue waste. Heavy beer-drinkers either become fat, some of them abnormally so, or they develop rheumatism or gout.

Furthermore, the free acids present and the bitter principles from the hops act as a stomachic and tonic. They stimulate appetite, thereby inducing people to eat more food than they need.

The mineral salts of beer, especially the phosphates of potassium and magnesium, are often present in relatively large amounts, and, as in the case of wine, are said to be anti-scorbutic. Beer has, unquestionably, a decided effect upon the blood in some cases of scurvy, acne, and skin troubles of a pustular kind. This may be due to its inorganic salts, or it may equally be caused by the yeast extract which beer contains (see under Yeast).

Taken in any excess, beer, especially the modern bottled gaseous varieties, will excite attacks of gout and rheumatism even more readily than wine. For such reasons alone it should be rigorously avoided by those who are in any way predisposed towards the rheumatic diseases.

From a nutriment point of view, beer or stout are supposed to give us a supply of soluble carbohydrates, important organic mineral salts, and bitter tonic principles. This may be so, but the whole effect is marred by the alcohol and vinegar present. A better way would be to give these items in the form of “Sweetwort,” the beer liquid before it has undergone the fermentative, destructive alcoholic process, or by the use of malt extracts suitably diluted and flavoured with tonic aromatics. A still better way is to eat the grains first-hand, as some form of wholesome cereal food, and drink with it plain water, to which fruit or vegetable juice has been added.

The following information culled from the _Vegetarian Messenger_ of August 1909 may interest readers:--

“_Reprinted from the ‘Hospital’_:--‘A glass of beer is 89 to 94 per
cent. water, 2 to 6 alcohol, 1 to 5 malt sugar, 2 to 3 the nutriment
in bread crust, and half that in meat. A glass of good ale is as
nourishing as one of milk. A quart of good beer equals nearly ¼ lb.
bread. It contains one-sixth of the energy a working man needs daily.’

“A correspondent writes:--‘_This is rather disturbing_--what is the
truth? Surely some comment is needed in the _Messenger_.’

“I am astonished that a medical journal of such standing as the
_Hospital_ should print such a statement. The writer, if a medical
man, must be strangely ignorant of simple food analyses. Here is
Professor Church’s analysis of a pint of pale ale, _i.e._, 20
ounces:--

oz. grains grains grains
18 409 water 17 acetic acid 10 mineral matter
1 12 alcohol 372 extractive matter

“Here is Church’s analysis of a pint of milk:--

oz. grains oz. grains grains
17 330 water 0 333 milk fat 72 mineral matter
370 protein 1 22 milk sugar

“The comparison speaks for itself; apart from water, the chief
ingredient of beer is alcohol, described by some dictionaries as a
powerful narcotic poison.”

ALMONDS.

Sweet almonds are one of the most highly nutritious forms of food known to mankind. They contain approximately 21 per cent. albumen, 55 per cent. pure fat, 17 per cent. carbohydrates, and 2 per cent. organic mineral salts.

The sweet Valencia and Jordan varieties, on account of their purity of taste and composition, are particularly suitable for making nut milks and nut beverages. Almond milk is especially useful as a demulcent in catarrhal troubles. The bitter almond is sometimes used for flavouring and culinary purposes, but it contains certain principles which render it impossible to be used freely as a food stuff.

Almond Milk.

One method of preparing a milk from almonds is that known as the old-fashioned Almond Mixture which the chemist of olden days often found a troublesome thing to prepare. To make this it is first necessary to prepare the compound powder of almonds. This is composed of 8 ozs. of almonds, 4 ozs. of refined sugar, and 1 oz. of gum arabic. In selecting the almonds for use they should not be too old, as they are then too oily and do not lend themselves to beverage making. They should not be rancid or unpleasant to taste, otherwise the beverage will be undrinkable. Pine kernels can be used with almonds if desired, if it is wished to cheapen the cost of the finished article. Assuming that the nuts are fresh and of good quality, the next thing is to blanch them. The best way to do this is to soak them overnight in cold water, then rub off the skins and subject them to a slow dry heat until all moisture has been removed and the nuts are found to break crisply. It is a bad plan to put the almonds into very hot or boiling water, as this coagulates the albumen of the nut, toughens it and so renders it difficult of assimilation.

When the almonds are blanched and thoroughly dry they must be pounded or buttered. In the olden times it was usual to place the almonds in a mortar and pound them until they were reduced to a soft buttery mass. Nowadays it will be found better to put the dried nuts through a food chopper which possesses a nut butter attachment, or through the flaker attachment of the Dana Food Flaker. In this way we get an almond butter in a state of very fine subdivision. This will answer equally well either as a nut butter for table use, or for the purpose of making the almond mixture or almond milk. Pure almond butter (or “almond cream”) is sold by most “Health Food” stores, ready prepared in tins and can be purchased by those who do not wish to go to the trouble of making it for themselves. To make the compound powder of almonds, mix the pounded or buttered nuts with the sugar (or with an equal amount of sugar of milk) previously mixed with the gum arabic also in a state of fine powder. Rub them all lightly together and pass through a coarse sieve. To make the almond mixture, add gradually one part of the compound almond powder to 8 ozs. of distilled water, then triturate and strain.

_To make almond milk_, add water to the prepared “almond cream” mentioned above, little by little, working the cream and water together all the time with the back of a spoon, until the desired consistency is attained. This constitutes a very digestible and extremely valuable substitute for cow’s milk. Pine kernels can be used to replace almonds if desired.

Almond Emulsion Milk.

Almond milk of a sort can be made by mixing 3 ozs. of pure almond oil with 1 oz. of the best quality of powdered gum arabic, then adding water gradually with constant stirring until it has become thickened, then adding more water until the required consistency is obtained. Rose water, or orange flower water, used to be added to this in the olden days, but powdered cinnamon, or lemon juice, or other flavouring can be added instead, if preferred.

APPLES.

The apple is the best of all fruits, and has also the immense advantage of now being practically available all the year round. It contains ·4 per cent. of protein, 14·2 per cent. of sugar in its perfect form, ·5 per cent. of fat, ·5 per cent. mineral matter, with 84 per cent. water, also in its purest form.

Apple juice stimulates life and activity, owing to the purity of its ingredients and the large store of organic nerve-feeding phosphorus that it possesses.

Naturally the best way to drink apple juice is by eating the fruit itself, ripe and ready to hand, finished by Nature. As this is not yet compatible with the modern view, which calls for endless variety and no end of cooking, the apple has of necessity to lend itself to all forms of cookery, and, as such, has to be prepared in many different ways as beverages. In the case, also, of ill people, the cooked apple, although in reality less digestible than its unfired prototype, yet may appeal more to the jaded appetite of the invalid.

One noted fact which should not be forgotten is that the typhoid bacillus, and many other germs of the same family, cannot exist in fresh apple juice for any length of time. Hence fruit and vegetable juices are obviously the remedy for typhoid fever, not milk or whey.

Fresh Apple Juice.

The juice of fresh apples is extracted in cider-producing districts, and is a very excellent drink. Cider, too, is good if the amount of alcohol contained in it is very small. At the present time there are several brands of sterilised apple juice on the market which are practically free from alcohol.

To extract quickly the juice from apples so that it may be available in an uncooked or unsterilised form, all that is necessary is to pass apples, from which all bruised and tainted parts have been cut out, through an Enterprise Fruit Juice Press. This costs from 18s. upwards according to size and capacity required. In this way the juice can be quickly extracted in a vital, uncooked state.

Crab-apple juice, or verjuice, is much appreciated in certain parts of the country, the sharpness appealing to some palates more than sweetness. If some of our farmers in the apple-growing districts would start small factories and have one or two machines with a quantity of bottles and a sterilising outfit, they could use their windfalls, and any ripe apples which they could not sell to advantage, for the purpose of bottling sterilised apple juice.

Apple-peel Tea.

The peel of an apple contains quinic acid, which is a powerful natural solvent of uric and other acids. Some food reformers have even advised people to eat the peel, and discard the pulp. The peel of apples should never be thrown away, but made into a drink, or added to other beverages. It should, of course, be rubbed clean, and any decayed parts removed before use.

Apple Soups.

Fruit soups are made on a general plan of utilising one or more fruits to give the distinctive flavouring, then adding some form of starchy material, such as potato flour, sago or barley, to thicken, then adding honey, dried fruits, and spices to flavour the soup. This is a strange way of treating one of Nature’s finest productions, but the modern palate has to be led, not pushed.

Apple soup should preferably be served cold, or iced, in small cups. It is a food--spoilt to some extent by the cooking process--and should always be very slowly sipped, and used as an appetiser.

A plain apple soup can be made as follows:--Take 2 lbs. of apples, preferably of the sour cooking kind; either slice them along with peel and core, or, if the soup is wanted at once, finely grate the apples on a flat grater, or the apples can first be roasted or baked. To the apples prepared in one of these alternative ways add 1 oz. of mealy baked potato, or flaked rice or pot barley, and about 2½ pints of water. Simmer until soft, strain through a wire sieve, and serve either very hot or very cold. If the apples are sour, season them with honey or prune juice; and if sweet, use parsley, spices as cinnamon or cloves, or ginger. Chemical-free “cracker” or “wafer” biscuits, or macaroons, can be served with the soup.

Apple Water.

This is an excellent cooling, antiseptic fever drink provided it is not too much dosed with sugar. To prepare it, cut a few sound apples into small pieces, or grate them finely; remove any tainted or wormy parts, while doing this, but do not throw away the peel, as this, as mentioned, contains valuable organic salts which exert a strong purifying effect upon the blood. If the outside surfaces of the apples are dirty, they can be scrubbed and dried before use. Place the apples (say three large ones) into a quart of boiling water, cook, or, better, simmer in a double-lined saucepan until soft. Pour off the liquor, season with a little lemon juice, grated lemon peel, and honey, and serve very hot. Unripe apples make the best apple water, or windfalls can be used for this purpose.

Another method of making apple water is to bake some sound apples in the oven. When softened, stick a few cloves into them and sprinkle with a little brown sugar. Let the apples fully bake and the cloves and sugar become slightly browned, then pour boiling water upon them. Let them stand until the water has taken up the goodness, then finally strain and serve hot.

Apple Coffee.

Apple coffee, or apple tea as it is sometimes styled, as sold commercially, is made by taking a quantity of apple rings or pippins, drying and roasting them slowly until quite crisp, then grinding them and storing away in an air-tight receptacle. Moisture causes the powdered roasted apple coffee to become sticky, and eventually to cake together in a mass.

To prepare apple coffee for use, add to one teaspoonful of the powder a half pint of boiling water, boil for a few minutes to bring out the flavour, then serve hot by pouring through a strainer into a breakfast cup. Add milk or cream and lemon juice if desired.

Apple coffee is a pleasant beverage if nicely made, but people soon tire of it and return to ordinary coffee or tea, unless they have entirely evolved out of the use of all stimulating beverages, and then they would not require even the apple coffee.

B

BANANAS.

The banana, on account of its peculiar flavour, does not lend itself well to the making of beverages. This fruit contains 1·3 per cent. of protein, 22 per cent. of carbonaceous material, ·6 per cent. of fat, ·8 per cent. mineral matter, with 75·3 per cent. water.

The banana contains a relatively large amount of starch and sugar. While unripe the fruit develops starch, and in that state closely resembles the potato. As the fruit ripens this starch is converted into sugar. If the fruit ripens naturally on the plants, this sugar will become fruit or grape-sugar. If, on the other hand, the bananas are picked unripe, and then imported from the Tropics to this country, the sugar obtained will be largely cane sugar. The latter sugar is evolved by the starchy part of the unripe banana undergoing fermentative changes which lead to the production of cane, and not fruit sugar. It is this cane sugar, developed in the imported and artificially ripened fruit, that makes the banana more difficult to digest here than in the countries where it is allowed to ripen naturally.

Banana Soup.

Pass a number of bananas through a potato masher to finely pulp them, then sterilise by prolonged boiling in a steamer or double-lined saucepan. Dilute, if necessary, with rice water and serve as a soup. This soup _exclusively used_ is said to be excellent as a cure for severe diarrhœa or dysentery. 10 to 40 ozs. of banana pulp can be taken daily in this way.

Banana Water.

Unlike apple water, banana water is not very pleasant, and it is difficult to make it palatable. To make it, put about three fully ripe sound bananas into a pint of boiling water, allow to slowly simmer until dissolved, then strain and warm up for use as required. A little honey or malt extract, with ginger, cinnamon, or other spice, can be added to give flavour.

Banana Coffee.

This is not at all an unpleasant drink if properly prepared and not burnt.

It is made from the dried bananas which are sold usually at 6d. per lb. These are cut up, slowly dried in the oven until crisp, then ground and stored away in any damp-proof packages. The beverage is prepared by pouring ½ pint of boiling water upon a teaspoonful of the ground coffee. A few minutes’ simmering brings out the flavour more strongly, and so does a small pinch of salt, if the user has no objection to this. The coffee should be poured through a fine strainer before serving.

BARLEY.

Barley is a cereal grain which in many respects differs from wheat and other cereals. The Roman gladiators were trained on barley; and barley cakes, or bread, constituted the staple article of diet among the labourers of earlier days. The protein of barley consists chiefly of albumen and casein (not gluten). Hence, like oatmeal, it cannot readily be made into bread, unless wheat or rye flour, which is rich in gluten, be mixed with it. Barley cakes are a splendid food and have the advantage for most people of being decidedly laxative. Barley contains from 15 to 17 per cent. albumen or protein, 2 to 3 per cent. fat, 70 to 75 per cent. starch and dextrin, 2·5 to 5·5 per cent. of mineral salts, being specially rich in iron and phosphates, and from 10 to 15 per cent. water. There are several varieties of barley sold commercially. The grain sold varies according to the amount of treatment that it has undergone at the hands of the miller. Thus, we have whole barley, which when ground is known as barley meal, a favourite food, alas, for pigs. This when rolled and supplied as flaked barley is best for making beverages, etc. Scotch milled or pot barley is the grain deprived of its outer husk by the miller. Pearl barley is this same pot barley deprived of all its covering layers and rounded and polished by attrition. Patent barley is the flour made from pearl barley. Pot barley bears the same relation to the pearl variety as unpolished rice does to the polished kind. The polishing process removes the outer coating of the grain, in which much of the protein and the bulk of the organic salts are secreted.

Barley Water.

Barley water is useful as a remedy for colds and catarrhs, and, when taken for coughs and chest troubles, is usually flavoured with liquorice, figs, and raisins. To make it, proceed as follows: Take 4 tablespoonfuls or 2 ounces of either pot or flaked barley, wash same and put into 1 or 2 pints of clean cold water, preferably distilled. Bring to the boil and simmer for from 5 to 20 minutes. The time allowed should be regulated according to the consistency required. The more glutinous the longer should it boil. When done to the required consistency the water should be strained and served up very hot. To season, just before time has expired for boiling, add strips of lemon rind and some lemon juice. Gum arabic can be used to increase demulcency, and honey or malt extract to sweeten. To make “Barley water pectoral” for coughs, etc., add to each quart 2 ounces of sliced figs, ½ ounce of bruised liquorice root, 2 ounces of stoned raisins, and 1 pint of water, then boil down to 1 quart and strain.

Barley water as usually made is said to contain to each pint 43·6 grains of solid matter. It is composed thus in 100 parts: Protein ·028, fat ·025, carbohydrates ·375, mineral salts ·021, water 99·551.

Barley water, unless made with the whole or flaked barley, is much overrated as a food for infants. It is better to give extract of malt (a teaspoonful to a pint of fresh cow’s milk) than a mixture of milk and barley water made with pearl or patent barley.

Infants under 5 months of age secrete very little “diastase,” the mouth ferment which digests starch or sugar. Mother’s milk is rich in diastase and other ferments.

Barley water should not, as a rule, be made from the patent barley flour, which is mainly starch and sadly deficient in protein and mineral salts. The sole justification for its use is urgency, for barley water can be prepared at once with the patent flour. One teaspoonful of the flour is added to two tablespoonfuls of cold water, and a pint of boiling water is poured upon it; it is then boiled with constant stirring for 5 minutes until clear.

BEEF TEA.

Considering what an almost endless series of palatable and really nourishing drinks can be produced from purely vegetable sources, it is surely unnecessary to add beef tea to their number.

Yet a few words about beef tea may not be out of place, in order to clear up any doubts that the public may have about it.

Beef tea imparts a sense of well-being and exhilaration, because it stimulates the living tissues of the body to increased and unnatural activity. This is naturally followed by a subsequent stage of fatigue.

Claude Bernard found that dogs fed on meat extractives and beef teas died sooner than dogs having nothing at all but water. This arose from the stimulation of these preparations.

Dr. Austin Flint of New York also showed that beef tea and urine gave practically identical results on analysis. (Bulletin No. 28, revised edition, Agricultural Dept., U.S.A.)

Urine is an extract of the tissues; the blood bathes the tissues and washes out from them the poisonous waste; these are carried by the blood-stream to the kidneys, by which they are thrown out of the body as urine. An extract from the tissues, as in the case of meat extracts or beef tea must thus possess the same characteristics as urine. Why, therefore, drink it, or indeed any form of meat beverage?

The truth has been well expressed by Mr. Edgar Saxon in the following passage (extracted from _The Christian Commonwealth_ of June 7, 1911):--

“It is obvious to all who have studied animal physiology that
conservative cookery applied to mutton or any meat is a fatal error.
Animals function in the same way as you and I. Their processes of
digestion, assimilation, and excretion are, especially in the case of
the higher mammals, almost identical with our own. When their life
ceases under the poleaxe or the knife their tissues are inevitably
saturated with waste matter on its way to excretion through the
kidneys, the lungs, and the skin. The comparatively pure arterial
blood escapes; the impure venous blood to a large extent remains,
and gives the colour and flavour to the gravy so highly prized by
meat-eating nations.

“So that the only way to get the proteid (or the body-building
element) out of meat, without at the same time getting all this
highly undesirable and distinctly poisonous broken-down waste matter
is to make the strongest possible ‘beef tea’ or ‘mutton tea,’ throw
it down the sink, and then eat the tasteless fibre that is left
behind. The latter is rich in proteid, the former is simply a harmful
and intrinsically repugnant stimulant. These are not the wild ravings
of a one-eyed vegetarian crank, but plain scientific facts which
cannot be refuted.

“It would seem to be, therefore, a fair working principle to lay
down if we say that the juices of vegetables should be conserved as
cleansing tonics, and the juices of meat eliminated as poisonous
stimulants.

“I hasten to add that I am not suggesting that people should live
on vegetable broth and meat fibre! The former is an excellent natural
medicine, but not a food in the sense of building tissue. The latter
is very nourishing, but insipid to a degree.”

BEETROOT.

The beetroot of our kitchen gardens contains a large amount of cane sugar, mixed with, relatively, an abundant supply of organic mineral salts. Sugar is extensively manufactured from beetroot on the Continent. Among the organic salts, that of soda predominates, so that in a raw state beetroot is an excellent food to remove acidity.

Beetroot is in almost universal use as a form of salad. For this purpose it is cooked, peeled, cut into slices and then served steeped in vinegar. In this state it is decidedly indigestible. The vinegar should be omitted and the cooked beet should be put through a wire sieve to form a purée. In this form it can be taken freely without discomfort.

Undoubtedly the best way to serve beetroot as a salad is to first clean and scrub the uncooked roots, then scrape them with a cobbler’s knife, which should have a saw-edge made by sharpening it upon a piece of sandpaper. A plateful of fine beetroot shavings is thus obtained which are very light and digestible. They contain also the full available amount of the mineral salts in the roots. Scraped beetroot, mixed with lemon juice, makes an excellent dressing for green salads. It can also be used to give colouring to salads or to drinks.

Beetroot Juice.

The juice from beetroots can be extracted by means of the Enterprise Press, or it can be had by finely grating and then extracting the juice under pressure. 1 ounce of juice can be obtained from about 2 ounces of the freshly pulled roots.

Decoction of Beetroot.

Take 1 large fresh beetroot, scrub, clean and chop it up into pieces, add 1 quart of water, boil until the goodness has been fully extracted, then strain and serve.

BLACK CURRANTS.

The black currant, on account of its rich flavour and acid, astringent juice, lends itself specially to the making of pleasant beverages.

Black Currant Juice.

The freshly expressed juice of black currants _sparingly taken_, diluted with distilled water, makes an excellent cooling and tonic beverage. The juice can be extracted in quantity when the fruit is in season by means of the Enterprise Press and, after first being sterilised, can be kept in bottles for use as required. If only small quantities are needed an ordinary potato masher will do quite well for extracting the juice. When ordinary wine bottles are used for sterilising purposes the juice must be bottled into them and then sterilised. If corks are used instead of stoppers they must be first boiled in paraffin wax.

Black Currant Drink.

Take one ¼ lb. jar of best black currant jelly, add the contents to 1 pint of hot water, dissolve and serve hot. This should be sipped at intervals and not taken freely.

BRAN.

The bran and husks of wheat are the richest known substances in potash and phosphate salts. 1 lb. contains 93·1 grains of potash and 201·6 of phosphates. There are several kinds of bran, but that known as “Pollard” (the part of the flour rejected in making “Standard” flour) is the best for making beverages.

Bran Water.

To make this, select bran that is fresh and clean, so that a fair percentage of the cerealin, or bran ferment, adheres to it. Take two handfuls of this fresh bran and pour pure cold water over it. Allow it to stand four hours, or overnight; then strain off the clear part for use.

Add lemon juice for making bran lemonade. Do not boil or heat the bran used for making bran water, as heat destroys the action of the bran ferment. This drink is invaluable in cases of rickets, and can be sweetened with honey or malt extract.

Bran Tea.

Take three heaped-up tablespoonfuls of good fresh bran. Place in a large jug. Pour upon it a quart of boiling water. Cover with cosy, and let stand for fifteen minutes to draw. Strain and sweeten with lemon and honey, and if required in a thickened form add a few pieces of good gum arabic.

If required thick and glutinous, the bran should be boiled in the water until it has attained the requisite consistency. An eggshell is useful to clarify the liquid. The gum arabic would not be needed if the bran were boiled for any length of time.

Bran Coffee.

To use bran as a coffee substitute, old bran will do just as well as new. It needs to be roasted until a strong coffee flavour has developed; but great care should be taken not to burn the bran. It is often a very desirable thing to bake or roast old bran, as thereby it is effectively sterilised.

BROOM.

The tops of the ordinary broom, which grows freely on moors and commons, are said to be a good remedy for dropsy and kidney trouble. The tops contain much carbonate of potash, and a powerful sedative.

Broom Tea.

This is made by pouring a quart of boiling water upon a large handful of fresh or dried broom tops, placed in a warmed jug, allowing to stand until drawn, straining and serving up warm as required.

Broom Decoction.

This is made by boiling broom tops in water in a covered vessel for 10 minutes and then straining for use. Use 1 oz. of tops to the pint of water.

Compound Broom Decoction.

Boil half an ounce each of broom tops, dandelion leaves and juniper berries, with 1½ pints of water. Continue to boil until the liquid has been reduced to 1 pint, then strain for use.

BUCHU.

Buchu leaves come to us from South Africa, and contain a strong aromatic principle which has an excellent effect upon the kidneys.

Buchu Tea.

Put ¼ oz. of the leaves in a teapot, previously warmed, pour on them 1 pint of boiling water. Allow to stand for 5 to 10 minutes and then pour into cups and drink.