Uncooked Foods & How to Use Them - Soil and Health Library

CEREALS.
THE literary fabric of the ancient world has been woven from
a warp of fiction and a woof of fact. When we turn to it we
find the beautiful, the poetic, the absurd and the true so mixed
together that scholars of every nation regard their separation
as worthy of their most profound thought.
It was from this confusion that the word "cereal" came.
Ceres was a goddess worshipped by the ancient Romans. She
occupies a most conspicuous place in the beautiful myths that
adorn the classic literature of those ancient peoples. She was
considered the head of the Agricultural Department. Her
special duty was to sit on fleecy clouds and pour from the
hollow of her mythical hand floods of sunshine and showers
of rain over the grainfields of the Caesars. Therefore, all
grains grouped together were called cereals.
These articles were first used only when in a green or
soft state—that is, from the time the grains began to form in a
milky condition until they ripened and become so hard as to
hazard the integrity of the teeth. Later they were soaked in
water to soften them, and then in warm water, •which saved
time and facilitated the work of preparation. This custom
evolved into the use of hot water, then hotter water, until
boiling or the present method of cooking resulted.
In order to facilitate and lighten the labor in the
preparation of cereals, they were pounded, crushed and
broken, which custom very naturally evolved into the modern
grinding and bolting mill. When cereals are in a milky state
before they become hardened, before nature throws around
them an envelope of cellulose for their protection, they are
easy of digestion, and are excellent food. But when they have
become thoroughly ripened and hardened, each molecule of
starch, of which they are so largely composed, is enclosed in
another envelope which is almost impervious to the digestive
fluids.
It has been shown by modern research that cooking does
not break up this covering. The modern methods of grinding
and cooking cereals render mastication unnecessary as far as
pulverizing them is concerned. Therefore, they pass the tastebuds
under false pretenses; they deprive them of their rights;
they do not have time to perform their duties, hence they do
not pour into the mouth the amount of saliva necessary to
perform the first step in digestion.
Soft, mushy foods are also responsible for the woeful
decay of teeth, which is such a conspicuous mark of civilized
man. Nature will not keep alive or produce, generation after
generation, any part of the anatomy that is not used. Her
system of economy is perfect.
When cereals are taken in their natural state, or not too
completely pulverized, so that the teeth may be employed in
their final and complete grinding, they constitute a valuable
food for a normal, healthy person. This would also be better
for the teeth, and make cereal substances much easier to