In addition to a familiarity with the various food groups, the good cook should know something about vitamins. By vitamins is understood certain life-giving substances whose presence in the body is essential to normal growth and health. If omitted from the diet for any great length of time, the so-called "deficiency diseases" arising from malnutrition are likely to develop.

Vitamins are present in some foods, but absent in others. It is therefore of the utmost importance to know which foods contain these life-giving elements, so that they may be included in the daily diet. Some of them are soluble in fat, others are soluble in water.

Whole milk and butter are especially rich in the fat-soluble vitamin, recognized by scientists as vitamin A. For this reason milk and butter are absolutely essential to the growth and health of children. Skimping on milk and milk products is certain to retard the child's development and expose it to the many evils which follow malnutrition. Codliver oil is another source, being more than two hundred times as rich in the valuable vitamin A as butter. This vitamin is also present in the yolks of eggs, in animal fats, in green-leaf vegetables, such as young cabbage, and in most yellow vegetables, such as carrots.

The water-soluble vitamin, known to scientists as vitamin B, is present in most foods, especially in fruits, vegetables and whole grain cereal products. It is absent in foods which have been "purified," such as white flour, cornstarch, polished rice, refined sugar, and most table oils, all of which in their natural state contain vitamins. Vitamin B supplies the nervous reserve so necessary to combat neuritis.

Another water-soluble vitamin is recognized by scientists as vitamin C. This is found abundantly in all citrus-fruit juices, in lemons, oranges, grape-fruit, and in green vegetables. Tomatoes and white potatoes are a valuable source of vitamin C. Vitamin C is the accepted preventive and cure for scurvy.

Since an abundant supply of vitamins exists in all fresh vegetable foods, in milk and in meat from animals fed on fresh foods, the normal adult living on a well-balanced diet is certain to obtain a plentiful supply. But the diet of growing children must be watched carefully to see that they get a proper proportion. Fortunately, vitamins A, B, and C are all found in whole milk. Children suffering from rickets and other diseases of under-nourish-ment have frequently been cured by a liberal diet of foods that contain vitamin A.

It should be remembered that all the vitamins are easily destroyed by excessive cooking or sterilization. Fresh foods, and those that have been properly cooked, contain the helpful element in greatest measure. While canned foods and other dried vegetables and fruits may be necessary for economy and convenience, or to give bulk to the diet, they should never be used to the exclusion of green-leaf vegetables and fruits.

The Graphic Charts on the following pages show the composition of -

Milk Cheese Potatoes White Bread

Eggs Oatmeal Butter Beef powder has been sifted; then the nut-meats and, last, the well-whipped whites. Bake in layers or in round cake dish. Remove and ice with caramel icing and nut-meats. Bake with two radiators.

Chart Showing the Composition of Foods.

Chart Showing the Composition of Foods.