It has been shown that when meats are boiled, from 20 to 67 per cent, of their salts are found in the broth. When these are baked 2.5 to 57.2 per cent of the mineral is found in the drippings of the meat. The meat is already predominantly acid-forming, before it is subjected to these processes.

When potatoes are peeled and soaked in cold water before boiling 38 per cent. of their mineral matter is lost. Green vegetables, when boiled and the water in which they are boiled is poured off or rejected, lose practically all of their soluble minerals. White flour, denatured corn-meal, polished rice, and all other denatured or demineralized foods have lost most of their minerals. Beans and peas, cooked in the usual manner lose much of their mineral content.

Prof. Snyder showed that 100 lbs. of cabbage contains 7.5 lbs. of solids, more than one-third of which--2.50 or 3 lbs.--are lost when cooked in water. Spinach has a solid content of 10%, of which, nearly one-fourth is lost when cooked in water. Carrots cut into small pieces and cooked in water lose 20% to 30% of their weight. If rice is boiled and the water poured off, it loses so much of its valuable nutriments that Native Indian soldiers preferred to drink the liquid and leave the rice for the British.

Milo Hastings writing about some cooking experiments conducted in the laboratory of the department of agricultural chemistry of the University of Wisconsin, says:

"In this interesting investigation sixteen kinds of vegetables were cooked in three different ways. One lot of each vegetable was boiled in enough water to cover the cut up vegetables. A second lot was cooked in twice as much water. A third lot was steamed without coming in contact with the water except such water as would collect on the vegetables by the condensation of steam.

"The raw vegetables and those cooked in these different fashions were all carefully analyzed for the total amount of food elements, of protein and of calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and iron. The results showed that all food elements are lost to a much greater extent in boiling than in steaming.

"The general average of loss of total nutriments was three times as great in boiling as in steaming. The loss was naturally greater from the leaf vegetables than from the root vegetables. Cabbage seemed to suffer more than any other type of food in the experiment. The reason for this is that cabbage, when cut up for cooking is cut across the leaf structure. Spinach suffers less because the leaves are cooked whole. Cabbage cooked in the larger volume of water lost 60 per cent. of its total dry matter, 62 per cent. of its protein, 72 per cent. of its calcium, 60 per cent., of its phosphorus and 67 per cent. of its iron. In other words, when one eats cooked cabbage, he is getting only a third of the value of raw cabbage, to say nothing of the destruction of the vitamins. Even the steaming process of cooking cabbage gives none too good a record, as this showed losses of from 22 to 43 per cent. of the above listed food elements.

"In the case of spinach the loss of iron is of especial interest as spinach is the richest known source of food iron. Boiling in enough water to cover showed a loss of 43 per cent. of the iron in spinach. Cooking in twice that much water showed a loss of 57 per cent. of the spinach iron. Steaming showing a loss of 25 per cent. of the iron.

"Not all foods showed such large losses from the cooking, thus potatoes, even though pared showed only 9 per cent. loss of total food in boiling and only 4 per cent. loss in steaming.

"This investigation will certainly help to explain why the ordinary boiled vegetable dinner, such as is served in the unprogressive restaurants, is such a flat tasted and washed out affair. Nearly half of the valuable mineral elements have probably been poured down the sewer along with the dish water. Clever cooks make sauces for such washed-out vegetables that may compensate for the loss in tastiness of the natural ingredients, but only intelligent cooks try to prevent such losses."

Berg says: "the mere steaming of vegetables for five minutes dissolves out so large a proportion of the inorganic bases that the residue contains an excess of acids. Simultaneously the vitally important complettins (vitamins) are entirely dissolved out of the vegetables."