The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1908-08-01
rROTTN BREAD NOT Rpa1D
Despite Boston Culture. the Dark Produc, =.
an Producing Eneryy

The graham bread that grandmoth.
er used to make is not what one is
| wont to think it was, according to the
latest shocking discovery of science
People used to eat 1t in the faith that
II mad some sort Of medicinal virtue
and. made with whole wheat, was far
superior to the pale white loaf OF the
baker. Those who wished to cultivate
f, Draln power were particularly inclined
TO consume brown bread and fish. Bos-
| ten and all New England seemed to
prove the efficacy OF the theory. Culture
and cod, mentality and molasses hued
bread. appeared to be more than Or
binary condolences. The cult Of col
ored lOaves still has powerful follow
ing. and perhaps many of its adherents
It's ON the mere say-so Of chemists.
However. the evidence obtained by
the United States Department of Agri-
culture in six years of exhaustive ex-
periments. recently described by Pro-
lessor Harry Snyder in Harper's Mag
azlne is not easily to be cast aside. 1t
IS admitted by the ruthless scientist
that brown bread contains much more
protein than white. He grants even
that the bran is richer in protein than
any other part of the ground wheat
berry. But he retOrts that leather has
81 percent OF protein, and yet few per-
sons step into restaurant and call for
nice juicy cut Of leather with fried
onions. The point is that the human
system has limited resources of di-
gestion and starves amid the wealth
OF GOlconda If it cannot reduce and as
simulate the food presented to it. White
bread is poorer in protein than the
other kind, yet the body is able to get
much more nourishment from it.
The experiments OF the Department
of Agriculture were carried on at the
universities of Maine and Minnesota.
Samples of different wheats were OBJ
tanned from half a dozen Western
states and each lot was divided into
thre parts. which were then turned
into white -four, whole wheat and Ora
to insure exactitude Bread was made
by analytic process and then it was
tried on different classes of human
subjects. including farmers. drivers.
college students and professional men.
The ordeal was. of course, less heroic
than that undergone by subjects OF
pure food and poison tests, not to
mention newly married men with
brides of culinary ambition.
There were four day experiments, in |
which the same variety of bread, with |
milk, formed the diet of the subjects. !
More than one hundred digestion trials
were made. Each man had a ledger
account opened with his stomach, be-
ng debited with all the chemical con-
'tltuents of the food he consumed and
credited with what was missing, or,
n other words. digested. as shown by
analysis of waste products. When he
tie pound of bread, for example. he
vas charged with one-tenth of a pound
II gluten, five-tenths of a pound of
starch and small quantities of miner
lis. He was treated exactly like ma
hine, and it was determined how much
# his food went for fuel and how much
or repairs. The process was the same.
n fact, SO that for determining the
uel value of coal, which Is weighed
nd analysed before and after COM
'ustion. The calorimeter measured the
leat given off by a loaf of bread
trough combustion and this result was
with the digestive process.
The reports declared that while gra-
am bread had the most protein the
of digestible protein and
energy was largely in plain
'hite bread. The lower digestibility of
he protein in graham and entire
heat bread was due to the fact that
luch Of the protein was contained in
be coarser particles of bran and so
esisted the action of the digestive ,
lices. There was a noticeable in .
rease In the amount of indigestible ,
waste matter when the coarser ,
read was consumed. )
It. Is admitted that the indigestible ,
articles Of graham bread give exer- ,
se to sluggish digestive tracts and ,
lat the muscles are stimulated to
kpel the material-in fact, hurry along
, fact as to minimize the already
nall chances Of assimilation, but this
as nothing to do with the value of
utrition. There are stomaehs too SEN
tive to Withstand the irritation pro- 7
need by graham bread, as was shown ! i.
= the case of young man in the