Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1886-03-20
BREAD MUST BE WHITE.
Fashions Arbitrary sway Over the STAR OF
Lffe.-How Good bread initiates
Against Badness.


There are fashions in bread, and
bakers pander to them. These fashions
do not take the form Of additional nutri-
ment or hygenic regulation. On the
contrary, their existence weakens the
wholesome principles of bread and
sacrifices everything sanitary to outward
appearance. Bread must be white. a
housekeeper declines to look at loaf
until it be what she calls .'milky.n A
brown tint, she has been taught to be-
lieve. implies defective bread, and, be-
sides, its aspect is not pleasing This
religion is carefully instilled into girls,
and at the present time there is de
mand for nothing but white bread.
Bakers may have secret ideas on the
subject; in their inner consciousness
they may recognize the fact that If white
bread be used largely its effects may not
be as healthful as those of browner
bread, but they pander to the fashion,
and as long as that fashion supplies
them with loaves and fishes they are
content to be unscientific and leave the
hygenic side of the question alone as ir-
relevant and inniaterial.
An agitation on this subject, however.
is taking place. and there is no doubt
that i'm short time it will assume for
midatde proportions. Several enthusi-
asts whose ideas run in other grooves
than those Of dollars and cents have
been giving the point very mature con-
sideration. Physicians have been con-
suited and their sympathies enlisted.
and movement started. Mrs. III. S. G.
Jones is an energetic worker in the
cause of bread. She has thoroughly
studied the question and talks with
fluency and interest upon it. '',The
present generation" she said, "believe
as firmly as they believe the earth to be
round that the best flour is the whitest.
1t is dcep-seated prejudice, which has
been catered to for years. and it is a
harmful and wholly unwarranted idea.
s'Apart from the fact that white flour
can be so readily adulterated with alum
and other pernicious substances. its very
whiteness is a sign that all its whole
some properties have been abstracted
from it, which in itselfone might almost
call adulteration. Very white flour is
deprived of the gluten of the wheat.
which is what may be compared to the
lean part of meat, while only the starch.
which corresponds with the fat part of
the meat, remains. BY using the fine
flour of the entire wheat which causes
the bread to be brown, which the senti-
mental people of the present do not like,
all the mineral properties OF the wheat
are retained, and bread becomes whole
some and reliable article of food
In the white bread which the makers
of to-day supply, adulterated with alum
in the German portions of the city, or
with anything else which will satisfy
the eyes and not the digestive organs of
the people, there is an excess of starch.
which gives rise to diseases dependent
upon fatty degeneration. Aaiendie, the
celebrated scientist, toel1 two dogs, one
of which he fed on white flour, while to
the other he gave the flour made of the
entire wheat. In forty days the dog
who had received the white flour died of
starvation; the other remained in perfect
health, and could have lived indefinitely
with no other food.
1t is possible to walk from San Fran
cisco to New York with no. other food
but sound wheat The health, i'm the
opinion Of doctors familiar with the
subject, would be iii no wise impaired
and the yigor as satisfactory as ever.
This feat, however, would be impossible
with nothing but the white bread sup
piled at the present time. DIR. Ham,
mond, of this city, on one occasion tried
TO live on starch. At the end of ten DAYS
he was forced to give up his attempt
An excess Of starch will cause Bright's
disease of the kidneys and paralysis.
The reports and statistics of the Massa-
chusefts board OF education show that
two-thirds of the children under 10 years
Of age in every civilized community are
found with diseased teeth.
This is not the ease with the Indian
children in the India territories. and
this fact il accounted for by the circum-
stance that the Indians live upon wheat,
which supplies food for the teeth. With
the wealthy Of the metropolis bread
does not form vcry large constituent
Of the daily food. But with the poorer
people it IS a sine Qnu nan of existence
and IN many miserable districts nothing
else is eaten. The smaller bakers ape
the peculiaritics Of their more thriving
fraternity. They see that white bread Il
the fashion in tue upper part Of the city.
and they are determined not to be out
done. They adulterate their bread to
make It white, while using the entire
wheat, instead Of merely the kernel:
their bread would be wholesome and
health-giying, and its brown color. to
which people would become speedily ac-
cnstomed. would need no aduIterafion.
The outside part Of the wheat is most
nutritious, said DR.. Carleton, .sbut its
use il entirely discouraged. owing to the