The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1909-01-08
WHITE BREAD,
THE BROKEN STAFF

~~S~@AA o"A00s>
WHITE BREAD,
THE BROKEN STAFF
Wheat very closely resembles nuts
In composition and digestive action. A
large constituent of nuts is albumen
Corresponding to this we have in
wheat, gluten, a form Of albumen
The fact that nuts contain almost
SO per cent. fat, while grains contain
from one to seven per cent, is an OBJ
lection to the displacing of nuts. This
weakness Of the grains has been met,
intuitively, by adding butter fat to
bread, though animal fat is not a per-
feet substitute for nut fat.
Starch, which forms about 60 per
cent. Of cereals, is nearly the same,
chemically. as fat, the essential element
of each being carbon, but it's digestion is
materially different. When changed
to sugar by the action of the saliva
and of the intestinal fluids, starch is
easily assimilateq and serves the same
purpose as fat; it supplies heat and
energy. But cereal starch, if it is
natural substitute for other forms of
carbon-sugar, fat and honey, is ex-
tremely indigestible when incased, as
1t is in the ripe cereals, in cells that
cannot be penetrated by the digestive
liquids. Butter fat and nut fat are
quickly reduced in the intestines to a
soapy condition, and readily alb
sorbed. Sugar is also easily taken up
and used to supply heat and energy,
but cereal starch must first be con-
verified into sugar or glucose.
The infant cannot digest starch, and
the weak intestinal digestion is al
ways debilitated by it. The same is
true Of potato starch, unless baked or
made floury by dropping in boiling
water and boiling rapidly.
These facts have proved by actual
experiment, living for several days at
time on raw and again on cooked
starch, besides testing them by artifi-
cial digestion in the laboratory. They
have a very important bearing upon
health, especially of children.
Wheat contains all the elements
needed to support life and in due pro-
portion. The starch converted into
sugar by the action of the saliva and
Intestinal fluids, gives heat and en-
ergy, the gluten or heterogeneous part
builds flesh, and the minerals found
in the coarse brown outer layers fur
nish all the mineral elements needed
to support the action of brain and
nerve and for the finer processes of
nutrition.
In the milling of superfine -four, how
ever, some of these valuable minerals
are thrown out. This reduces the nu-
tritive value Of the flour, but it also
makes it much less valuable as food,
in another respect, as we shall see
presently.
No question in diet, except the
meat question: has been so vigorously
debated as that of the relative values
Of white and brown or entire wheat
bread. Some maintain that the fine
white flour contains larger per cent.
of nutriment than the entire wheat
flour, quoting the analysis of the gov
eminent chemist to prove it. They
also insist that the coarse outer shell
Of the wheat is extremely irritating to
the delicate lining of the intestinal
canal, one physician, who writes ex-
tensively on diet, going so far as to
say that it is better to use the white
bread and take ''judicious pill" &C.
casionally
In speaking of the chief defect of
milk as food for adults, I called at
tention to it's deficiency in iron, which
gives that sand" that is necessary to
bring the moral qualities into play.
Now the standard analyses show that
the percentage of iron in whole wheat
is more than double that in SUI
perfine white -four. Sulphur and chlor-
inc, highly essential elements of the
blood, are entirely eliminated from
white -four, and only trace of sodium
is left-which cannot be naturally
supplied in common salt.
The ordinary white -four contains
less than half as much fat as whole
wheat, and only opefourth the min
eral matter.
OF course the deficiency of mineral
elements of nutrition in white bread
can be made up by eating potatoes,
green vegetables, beans, eggs and
meat. Indeed, it is probable that the
general use Of this broken staff of
llfe-white f1our-is one Of the causes
of the abnormal craving for variety"
Variety is the only salvation Of him
who depends upon white bread for his
staple nourishment.
But granting that variety is desir-
able-though for reasons already
given in the article on ''The Simple
Diet" think it is MOTT does not
then follow that the. substitution of
white bread for whole wheat is ad-
visable.
The greatest enemy the physician
has to fight in some severe digestive
disorders is fermentation; and of all
the elements that favor continuous
destructive fermentation in the food
tube the worst is wheat starch-not
excepting the putrefying tendency Of
meat in the lower intestine. Anyone
who has made -four paste knows how
quickly it spoils and becomes a
source of contamination.
The condition most necessary to the
digestion OF bread is that it be fully
exposed TO the action Of the digestive
fluids. White bread forms in pellets,
especially when eaten fresh; the
whole wheat is much more open to the
circulation of those fluids; it cannot
form dough pellets.
1t is urged by those who favor white
bread that tests show a larger per-