Cook it right, or you're doomed!

If you take it seriously, Let's Cook It Right (Adelle Davis, originally 1947, but mine is a 1962 edition) is kind of horrifying.

The first chapter warns cooks that "Aside from sickness that results directly from nutritional inadequacies, a contributory cause in the onset of infections, allergies, and possibly all illnesses is carelessly chosen food. The degree of health any family enjoys depends to a large extent upon which foods are selected and how they are prepared." So basically, if anybody gets sick, it's probably the cook's fault somehow. There are certainly no other important factors that influence people's health! (I love the obsession with thinking that everyone is in complete control of all aspect of their lives and if anything goes wrong, that means you fucked up somewhere. 🙄 Bad things can't just happen to people, and we all have endless amounts of experience, time, and resources to prevent every possible problem, and our only priority in life should be risk avoidance.)

At least the recommendations in this book aren't the most difficult, complicated, and/ or loony I've come across. There's no insistence that pretty much every spice will give you cancer, so you'd better not use any. The book doesn't turn every single meal into a lengthy math problem. It mostly just requires making any liquids that ever touch vegetables part of the meal itself (to avoid vitamin and mineral loss), discourages overcooking foods (again, to avoid nutrient loss), encourages use of liquid oils, and recommends avoiding food additives. (That last one is probably the most difficult to follow given the ubiquity of additives, but it's discussed vaguely enough that it would be pretty easy for home cooks to rationalize whatever decisions they make about which additives to steer clear of and which to assume are fine.)

It's the kind of health-food book that allows for treats like French-Fried Fish.

It just requires the fish to be coated in wheat germ or whole wheat bread crumbs and powdered milk before frying. (There's also a rule about adding vitamin E to the deep-frying oil to prevent rancidity.)

You can have Beef Stroganoff as long as the round steak is dredged in whole wheat flour.

And it can even be made with a can of condensed mushroom soup if you don't have sour cream on hand!

It's the kind of book that generally requires whole grains rather than refined ones, but if your cold and jiggly chicken loaf seems a bit boring, Davis will allow you to add some converted rice or cooked noodles to it.

But still, it is also the kind of book that recommends this as an appetizer. 

Start a meal with a grapefruit half full of oysters and horseradish? (Hand me a grapefruit half full of raw or canned oysters or shrimps and the meal is already over.)

While you're at it, maybe wash it all down with some Fortified Milk (a.k.a. "Pep-Up" since that sounds less like something that mom forces on everyone).

Still, it's hard to hide the fact that milk blended with eggs, oil, non-instant powdered milk, fortified yeast, frozen orange juice concentrate, and various compounds from the pharmacy is very much something you'd only drink if mom forced the issue because she was certain the entire family would get every known illness (and maybe even develop some new ones!) if she was off her nutrition game even a little. 

Suddenly, the old-school health food books recommending that you end a meal with some Carob Fudge or Bran Candy seem a little less scary...