Wheeling majority. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1907-192?, 1911-01-19
nent with bran. We cannot s
And Postum is made from maste

mostly bran. The exact PROPORTION
of bran cannot be wormed out of thu
reluctant Post employees, even on the
witness stand. 1t is certainly more
THAN so per cent; it may be much more
Eight million pounds of bran are de
liyered every year to the Postum
works in Battle Creek. AS. harm
Hess, non-toxic substitute for coffee, il
is all right if you like it. AS flood
drink it has no more value than the
coffee which it supplants, and little
more than hot water It is not true,
as some believe, that Postum is
adoped" with coffee extract. 1t would
/ be harmless were it not so advertised
that it leads the sick to attempt treat
ment by Postum instead of by a physi-
clan.
A Plain Breakfast Food.
Grape-Nuts is breakfast food, very
like brown bread in composition, but
prepared by special process, which
involves, SO Mr.. Post says, twenty
seven hours of baking and drying. 1t
is Just breakfast food, nothing more.
It is a little more nourishing. ounce for
ounce, than some, less neurishing than
others, and far less nourishing than
many simple foods which never bore
a trade mark. The Michigan State
Agricultural College published in 1904
their results on series Of experiments
to determine the value of breakfast
foods, patent and plain. Pound for
pound, the fuel value of Grape-Nuts
proved a little higher than. that of
whole wheat bread or graham bread;
but that is because it contains less
water. But the table headed Total
Amount of Nutrients and Their Fuel
Values in the different foods for ten
cents told different story. Ten
cents worth Of entire wheat bread or
graham bread, it appears from the
table, mas one and half times the
fuel value of ten cents worth of
Grape-Nuts.
However, Post has almost ceased to
claim that Grape Nuts contains more
nourishment than any other known
food" His main hold now is the as
sertion that it is "predigested," that
it is dextrose and grape-sugar, made
by special process of entire wheat
and barley" From this grows the
absurd, the murderous, claim that a
person attacked by the swift and dead
ly appendicitis may get well through
eating Grape-Nuts, without any other
food, and washing out the intestines."
On that point-the alleged prediges-
ton of Grape-Nuts--the court took
several days of testimony. The reader
must bear with a little scientific ter
minology; we will keep it as brief as
possible.
Grape-Nuts is made Of wheat, bar
ley, salt, and yeast. The barley, in
the process of making, is matted or
allowed to sprout. It is ground and
mixed with whole wheat flour in the
proportion Of one part to two; the
mixture is then treated like ordinary
bread, being mixed with yeast, raised,
baked The brown bread, after bak-
ing, goes through a grinding and dry
ing process, lasting several hours. 1t
comes out, ready for packing, In
brown grains.
Now the food constituents of Grape
Nuts, like those of other cereal foods,
are proteins and carbohydrates. OF
the former, this food has 10 per cent;
of the latter, Is. Let us dismiss the
proteins. The long baking hardens
and toughens them; it is pretty GER
tain that this decreases their digesti-
bility. The white of an egg, which is
typical protein, is less digestible
hard-boiled than soft-boiled. And the
same is probably true of the proteins
of Grape-NutS.
The carbohydrates of wheat and
barley are starch. Grape-Nuts, there
fore, is Is per cent starch. And the
process of starch-digestion is as fol-
lows: In the mouth the saliva starts
the transformation. A little OF the
starch is changed to dextrin. AS soon
as the starch strikes the stomach the
process of digestion ceases, not to be
resumed until the starch reaches the
duodenum. There, through several in
termediate processes, the whole mass
finally becomes dextrose. In that
form it is ready to be taken up by the
blood. and the process of digestion is
complete. Grape-sugar is common
name of dextrose.
Now as to Grape-Nuts, which Post
at various times has advertised as
"pure grape-sugar" and "dextrose":