Edgar Cayce cooking: alternatives to 'Patapar Paper'
In addition to his dietary recommendations, Edgar Cayce also told how to better prepare foods to provide superior nourishment for our bodies.
Some vegetables can be eaten raw, while most vegetables need to be cooked - to deactivate anti-nutrients (enzyme inhibitors, anti-thyroid substances, etc), and to start the process of breaking down the starches (carbohydrates) and proteins to facilitate digestion. Cayce incorporated this wisdom into his advice: carrots, celery and lettuce can be eaten raw, while the nutrients in kale, collard greens, spinach and other vegetables are more accessible when they're cooked.
One of the great tragedies of the modern diet is how people don't realize that boiling potatoes and steaming green vegetables causes many of the nutrients in these foods to be lost to the cooking water.
Cayce frequently recommended cooking foods WITHOUT adding water. Often this was by preparing the foods, putting them in a heavy water-resistant paper called Patapar Paper, then submerging the paper-encased food in boiling water for 35+ minutes.
French Sous Vide cooking is similar to cooking in Patapar paper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sous_vide
I found this note from Gladys Davis at the end of reading #133-4:
[The Patapar paper for cooking the foods should be obtained at any ten cent store or department store, or the like. It is made by the Paterson Parchment Paper Co., Bristol, Penna. I am enclosing a sample for your use. Prepare the vegetables or any other foods for cooking...that is, clean and cut in small pieces...and tie up in the paper, using a stout white cord. Put in Boiler of water (not letting water get inside of paper) and boil from thirty-five to forty-five minutes, depending on what is being cooked. The paper may be washed...just as a cloth...and used again and again. GD.]
The Paterson Paper Co. has moved to Nevada. This is their website: https://patersonpaper.com/baking-parchment.htm (Amazon has smaller quantities of the Patapar paper.)
I've never personally used patapar paper, as it is no longer sold at most modern stores. I do try to cook my vegetables without adding water to them. One of my usual techniques is using a pyrex glass bowl inside a pressure cooker:
I put water in the outer bowl, and the foods in the pyrex bowl on the inside. This is basically a double-boiler. Potatoes and mushrooms are two foods I commonly cook this way. A little water condenses inside the bowl, but the volume is small enough that it can be consumed.
Cayce approved of pressure cooking with steam in a few readings:
34. (Q) Consider also the steam pressure for cooking foods quickly. Would it be recommended and does it destroy any of the precious vitamins of the vegetables and fruits?
(A) Rather preserves than destroys.[462-14]
This was Cayce's recommended diet to help someone transition from a liquid diet to include more semi-solid foods:
4. Between the periods of the grape and grapefruit diet, in the beginning use a liquid diet consisting of the citrus fruit juices of mornings (such as grapefruit, oranges, lemons and limes) and the vegetable juices at other meals; gradually - that is, in eight to ten days - beginning to add the semi-solid foods as in this manner:
5. Mornings - citrus fruit juices (either the juice of one or the other of such fruit), with browned whole wheat toast that may be buttered if so desired, and a little coffee; or preferable to coffee would be Ovaltine or any CEREAL drink, though if coffee is taken it should be without cream or milk.
6. Noons - not too much should be taken at this meal, and that only of vegetable juices. And the preferable way to prepare such juices would be through cooking the vegetables after tying them in Patapar paper; not putting them in water to boil, but cooking either in the Patapar paper or in a steam steamer, so that only the juices from the vegetables may be obtained - and no water added in the cooking at all. Then these juices should be combined and seasoned to the taste. This activity will build into the system the proper associations with that which has been indicated by the corrections in the spine, and make for the corrections in the activities throughout the digestive system.
7. Evenings - (these foods only added gradually, after the eight to ten day period) - a little chicken or mutton broth, but very little of the meat itself. A little later the body may begin with stewed chicken, or broiled chicken or broiled fish, and well-cooked vegetables - but not with too much grease in same. Even these vegetables and the chicken or fish would be better cooked in the Patapar paper or a steam cooker.
8. With the spinal corrections and doing these, we will find we will bring the improvements.
9. Ready for questions.
This is the A.R.E.'s page about Patapar paper:
Cooking with ‘Patapar’ Paper for Taste and Nutrition - Edgar Cayce Health Care
Not only do the Edgar Cayce readings offer a wealth of dietary advice and information, they also give suggestions on proper and healthful ways of preparing and cooking one's food. Such is the case with Patapar® paper, known today as "parchment paper," recommended in over 160 readings as a preferred way of cooking vegetables and
If you don't already have a pressure cooker, I recommend looking for one (at a thrift store, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, etc) that can also make yogurt: most of the "instant pot" line have yogurt settings.
-James Knochel
radialappliance.teslabox.com/shop/