Rolled oats, or the whole oat grain, with the straw-like covering removed, furnishes a very valuable food if not overcooked and if thoroughly masticated. It requires considerable mastication to thoroughly bring these food elements into a liquid, but when this is done they furnish a food very valuable in nourishment for every part of the body. Persons who are inclined to be thin, if they will use some oat-food product which is appetizing, they will very often find that this one change in their diet will produce an increase in weight.

Corn will also be found a very valuable food. Much of our stock on farms throughout the country receive but little else than this one article and are usually able to thrive and grow fat upon it.

Corn is very valuable as a fattening food, and is of course a great energy producer. Corn can be eaten in the form of bread and hominy with satisfactory results, and corn cakes are not by any means as objectionable as the white flour product that often adheres to your stomach like glue. Cornmeal mush cannot, however, be recommended. It is of course imperfectly cooked and imperfectly masticated, and under these circumstances the entire work of digestion must be performed by the stomach and intestines. If mush is subjected to the same mastication that is required for crackers and foods of this dry character, it would be digested with ease, but as usually eaten its nourishing qualities are mostly lost.

Though rice is largely used in this country, the amount is comparatively insignificant as compared to that used in China, India, Japan and other Eastern countries. In many parts of China it is almost their sole article of food. This one fact would show that it must furnish very valuable food elements. Though it is slightly deficient in muscle-building elements, it contains large quantities of starch, and hence is valuable for producing energy and adding fatty tissues to the body. It may be prepared in various ways and is appetizing under almost any circumstances. It should, however, never be cooked until it becomes mushy. It is far more easily digested, and furnishes far more nourishment when cooked only to that point where each grain is separate and distinct. As it contains a large quantity of starch, which is partly digested in the mouth, the necessity for thorough mastication cannot be too strongly emphasized.

Barley, rye and buckwheat are all valuable foods when they are enjoyed by the appetite. Buckwheat cakes can hardly be commended as they are, as a rule, hurriedly swallowed and prepared by a process which causes them to be very difficult to digest. Rye bread, when properly made, is nourishing and can be commended. It is so much superior to white bread as a food that whenever whole wheat bread cannot be secured, it should be used in preference to white bread. Numerous restaurants who do not keep Graham bread have a supply of rye. Barley is often used in soups and is nourishing, and if thoroughly masticated will be found valuable.