The Virginia enterprise., 1909-01-29
DIET. AND !
HEALTH
By DIR. J. 7. ALLEN
Food Specialist
4sf%er Fnr%o<2. "E91%'f ::94" Ee,.. or a
Gospel Of Heaifb,"
Etc. &
WHAT MAKES
GOOD BREAD
copyright, by Joseph B. Bowles.)

WHAT MAKES
GOOD BREAD
Bread is the oldest of prepared
foods. Long before fire was dis
covered it was quite natural to
pulverize the hard grains between
stones, to moisten the meal thus made,
press it into cakes and dry it in the
sun. This was the original unleavened
bread. Only the application of fire
to cakes accidentally fermented by
moisture and temperature was neces-
sary to produce the modern staff of
life.
Good bread will, alone, support life
indefinitely. Thousands of our sturdy
foreign laborers maintain good health
and strength chiefly on coarse bread.
I had an opportunity lately to examine
a Dutch laborer, about 70 years old,
who said he had lived all his life on
rye bread and coffee, and he was in
perfect health-in spite of the coffee.
Thomas Parr, an English farmer,
lived more than $50 year on coarse
bread, cheese, small beer and whey"
The bread was probably rye, wheat
being then used only by the wealthy.
Bread has one advantage over nuts
as the chief staple food-bulk. The
stomach is not absolutely necessary
to the digestive process; it is merely
receptacle for the mass of food
taken at a meal, but has added the
| capacity for reducing the mass to a
fine liquid before passing it on to the
intestine or second stomach, where
the work of digestion is completed.
A German experimenter some years
ago removed the stomach of a dog,
after which it lived for several years,
regaining most Of it's lost weight
The stomach has also developed the
capacity for converting proteid, of
which flesh, nuts and grains largely
consist, into soluble peptone, the sub
stance from which all the tissues are
built. The same process is continued
in the intestine, if all the proteid is
not broken up and made soluble in
the stomach. The conversion of
starch into sugar by the action of the
saliva, begun in the mouth, continues
in the stomach till the mass becomes
saturated with the hydrochloric acid
of the gastric fluid, secreted by the
stomach, after which any starch re-
naming must run the risk of fermen-
tation before its digestion is com
pleted in the intestine.
Experimenters who have lived on a
nut and fruit diet for short times
report "craving' for other foods;
and this is the invariable experience,
for time, Of those who adopt the
scientific" diet. Now a man of ma
ture years and on whose word l can
rely, who has been living on the sim.
pie diet for seven months, working as
| merchant, full hours, informs me
that this "craving" has entirely disap.
peared. Another, manufacturer,
says that he now, after about three
months, enjoys a meal of whole
wheat bread and peanuts or of prunes
as we'll as he formerly enjoyed, while
eating, mixed meal, and of course
never regrets it afterwards, as he for
merely regretted overeating. The
Italian laborer, working hard phys.
fcally on rye bread, macaroni, garlic
and beer, has no craving for oysters
or pie or pork.
The merchant above referred to
commonly had a craving, formerly, on
coming home from church or opera
late, and would eat a second supper
and suffer.
If all the elements necessary for the
body's nutrition are supplied, there
will be no desire for some unnatural
food. We know that one who is eat
ing a few slices of whole wheat, rye
or corn bread and fruit at q separate
meal, can not suffer for lack of any
nutritive element, even If he eats no
nuts or does not drink the glass OF
buttermilk before retiring.
To contribute toward comfortably
filling theestomach till it contracts to
reasonable proportions, which it does
gradually, for it is an elastic muscle
the best food to supplement nuts is
whole-wheat bread or an ideal com
bination Of the cereals to be indicated
presently.
Each of the cereals has distinguish
ing qualities, making it in one or more
respects superior to all the others.
Rice is about 80 per cent. starch
It is more easily digested than any
of the other cereals, but it (milled
rice) is deficient in albumen and the
mineral elements of nutrition. 1t is
superior to potatoes as an energy and
heat producer and costs little more
since the former contains so much
water.
Corn contains more oil that wheat
Corn meal is light and has a bene
f1cial effect upon elimination. It IL
more heating than wheat.
Oats is the richest of the cereals
It contains more fat and more min
eral salts than wheat, but it's starch
cells are encased in coarse cellulose
fbers, so that it must be very thor
oughly cooked to make its starch di
gestible. The rolled oats are pref
cradle to the steel cut.
Rye contains less mineral matte,
than wheat, but its starch is equa
to that of rice. Artificial digestive
tests showed it to be IL times more
digestible than wheat starch. It fol
lows that the objections urged against
fine wheat starch bread do not apply
70 rye bread. The starch of rye bread
Is practically digested beyond the dan
| ger of fermentation. No doubt this