Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-09-05
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BEANS BETTER THAN WHEAT.

OCsANO DE- tCh Il
The Former Said to Ee More Especially
the Food of Civilization.
The bean is better food than wheat.
and is more especially the food of civil
cation. The average graham bread has
but 9.5 per cent of protein, while beans
have 23.2 per cent, or two and half
times as much. The function of protein
as food is principally to form the basis of
blood, muscle, connective tissue, etc.
Herein Is the nitrogen that furnishes
nerve and brain nourishmcnt. Graham
bread has IA per cent. Of fat, while
beans have 2. per cent. OF carbohy-
drates, beans have 53.7 per cent. and
graham bread 53.3 per cent, including
woody fiber for the latter. The service
OF carbohydrates is tc he transformed into
fat and to be burned as fuel. as in the
case of the fats themselves. The chief
use OF the carbohydrates of wheat bread
seems TO be to serve for fuel, though they
are also transformed into fats In power
TO keep the body warm and to furnish
muscular energy mot muscle), graham
bread hardly equals beans, and ii we
take into account the animal fats which
men have always instinctively combined
with beans, no doubt the cooked bean is
much richer than wheat as a heat and
force food. The mineral matters in
graham bread, which are reduced t. /
per cent. in wheat bread, amount to only
10 per cent, while beans have 36 per
cent. of them. These help largely to
form bone and blood.
In no respect, then, ara cooked beans
inferior 10 graham bread as food, and in
most respects they are more than twice
as nutritious, particularly in those sub
stances that go 10 brain and nerve norr-
ishment and TO the building up of the
muscles and bones of the body. It is
fair TO presume that beans would have
made a more vigorous man than wheat
has done, with lis large amount OF starch
10 be converted into fat and heat. In
case of famine and a small supply OF
food, the advantage of beans over wheat
would have been considerable, and tho
same may be said of trem for long
marches and military campaigns 1t is a
matter OF common experience that people
are made cOrpulent by eating starchy
foods, and these unwicldy bodies are not
so healthy and workable as the leaner
bodies Of other people. a good diet for
persons who want TO reduce flesh is made
up of leguminOus foods, and these have
been eaten in such cases with successful
result. 1t is not easy to over eat the
leguminous foods, for they soon satisfy
the cravings of hunger. Professor At
L.
sulting from over eating are greater and
more common than those resulting from
the Incorporate Use Of alcoholic drinks.
Whether this is fully true or not, the ills
from over eating are incalculable, and
they would have been and would be
greatly reduced if beans had been sub
stituted for wheat.
Other things equal, the bean eater will
prevail over the wheat eater and over the
potato and The rice eater. The Arabian
bean eaters came within one battle of
spreading Mohammedan civilization all
over Europe. The superiority of the
bean over wheat would have made Eu-
rOpeanS a stronger and better nourished
people than tnev have been as wheat
eaters, and equally as energetic, and they
would have had the food that would
have made possible, not TO say probable,
Il higher degree of intelligence.
Il beans had been substituted for wheat,
the effect on the agriculture of the world
would have been incalculable. In Massa-
chusetts. in 1850, sos acres produced
Is, 16S bushels Of wheat, or 10 Is bush
els per acre. The average product in the
United States in that wear was but -
bushels. The product of beans in MaSSa-
chusetts in 1879 was II. 679 bushels from
I, 354 acres. or 81 bushels per acre.
Therefore, since beans are about two and
a half times as nutritious as wheat fhe
animal fat mixed with cooked beans re-
duceS the exception III the matter of
fueiis and since an acre produces twice
as much beans as wheat, then it follows
that five times more nutriHent is got
from an acre Of beans than from an acre
of wheat.
The western farmer might till but ono
acre in five of his wheat area if he could
raise beans, and people would eat them
instead of wheat The savings of land
tillage in the United States would amount
10 four-tifths of the wheat area, or TO
44.2S0 square miles, according to the
census of 1880, and the same amount OF
nUtriment would still be got for the
nation and the world-that is TO say, an
area larger than the state of Pennsyl-
vania, and larger than the state of Ohio,
would be freed from the necessity of pro-
duCing sustenance for the human race,
taking account of the land in the United
States alone When the time comes,
which is generally expected when the
pressure of population viii try the ability
of the soil TO sustain it, the substitution
of beans for wheat will be q live ques-
tion.-Good Housekeeping