The Laurel Health Cookery: A Collection of Practical Suggestions and Recipes for the Preparation of Non-Flesh Foods in Palatable and Attractive Ways

elements, both nitrogenous and carbonaceous. They cause extreme nervousness and irritability. “To a certain extent, tea produces intoxication.” “The second effect of tea drinking is headache, wakefulness, palpitation of the heart, indigestion, trembling of the nerves and many other evils.” “The influence of coffee is in a degree the same as that of tea, but the effect upon the system is still worse.” Theobromine, the essential element of cocoa and chocolate, is identical with the thein and caffeine of tea and coffee. “Some of the best authorities claim that the quantity of theobromine in chocolate is greater than that of theine or caffeine in tea or coffee, and also that in equal quantities, theobromine is a stronger drug than caffeine or theine.”--_Dr. George._ A. B. Prescott, Ph. D., M. D., for many years Dean of the chemical department of the University of Michigan, says in his “Organic Analysis,” published by D. Van Nostrand Co., New York City in 1892, pp. 77 and 513: “Coffee contains 1 per cent. of caffeine.” “Dry cacao seeds contain 1.5 per cent. of theobromine.” “The physiological effects of theobromine are like caffeine but are obtained by smaller doses.” The increasing use of chocolate and cocoa in and with everything is alarming, and we feel that we must raise our voices in warning against this “habit,” since many are innocent in regard to its nature. “The use of unnatural stimulants is destructive to health and has a benumbing influence upon the brain, _making it impossible to appreciate eternal things_.” As our bodies are made up so largely of water it is necessary to take a sufficient amount to keep the tissues bathed and built up, but it should not be taken with our meals, for solid foods cannot be digested until the liquids have been absorbed, and when retained in the stomach too long food _ferments_, making an _inebriate_ of the _water drinker_. Fluids also dilute the digestive juices so that they lose their power to act. Do not drink for a half hour or more before meals, or within 1 to 3 hours after--persons with