Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1914-11-13
Copyright. 1914. By A. S. Gray)
VITAMINE FOODS.

of feeding. Plants are essentially con-
Btructive and work up for themselves
the simplest inorganic elements into
food Animals, on the other hand, are
essentially destructive and can make
use Of these same elements only by de-
stroying the combinations arranged by
the plants and recombining and ex-
GREETING them in such forms as are alb
Bolutely useless for animal food until
they are once more worked up by the
plants. All the carbohydrates, the
starches and sugars, all the nitrogen
compounds and the prOteins. are ulti-
mately provided for the whole animal
world by the plant world. Obviously,
we have here a cycle analogous to cy-
c.es to be found everywhere through
out nature, from which we may-but
seemingly will not-learn. In this cy>
and man is about the most hopelessly
parasitic Of all, because his sublime
egotism blinds him to the fact that he
Is but single link in an incompre-
hensible chain OF universal life.
In our ignorance we have presumed
to interfere with natures plans, with
dire results, and only very recently
have we generally begun to suspect
that the key to the solution of our
serious ills, both physical and social,
and covering disease, poverty and
crime, Is to be found in a comprehen-
sion of the subject Of nutrition. Very
obviously, then, the study Of nutrition
Is worth while and must begin at the
foundation, with the breathing and
drinking Of plants and their reactions
to light, heat and gravitation.
Eykeman in 1892 called attention to
peculiar relationship between beri-
beri and polished rice, and he followed
1t up from time to time for some four
teen years. Gryns Joined In the quest
In 1910, and in 1911 Fraser and Stan
ton quite definitely proved that the
corticle layer of rice contains a sub
stance which curev beri-beri In man
and the polyneuritis that is produced
In birds by feeding them on polished
rice. Then Casimir Funk in 1911 iso-
lated. from the material ground from
the surface of rice in polishing it def
Unite crystalline body with which he
cured polyneuritis induced in pigeons
by feeding them on ordinary polished
rice.
Funk named this substance vita
mine" because it constitutes a subs
lance in foods indispensable to life.
The vitamines are contained in the
hard, colored shell that is ground off
rice to produce a nice white product,
and it is in the hard protective coat
of the wheat berry which constitutes
about 16 per cent of the grain. The
bran of the milling process, as re-
moved by the steel rolls, includes the
aleurone layer, together with the peri
carp, the tesla and the germ; these
are starchless but rich in fats and min
erals, and besides they contain the
newly discovered vitamines.
The vitamines are heterogeneous bod
les of highly complex structure and
no diet is complete without them.
Vitamines are found in plants, and
especially in their seeds. So far as is
known at present, animals are incap-
able of making them and obtain them
only by feeding on plants. Vitamines
occur in meat, fresh milk and in the
yolks Of eggs. They are found In
whole grains, potatoes, carrots, beans,
peas, lentils and the like; also in lime
and in other fresh fruit juices.
Vitamines are destroyed by expos
IRE for from ten to twenty minutes to
a temperature of $50 to 265 degrees
Fahrenheit and also by exposure to
extreme dryness. Cattle may suffer
from MEANINGLESS diet following
long drought. All this substantiates
the theories advanced by the late Ed
ward Atkinson prior to 1890 as to the
deleterious effects Of cooking human
foodstuffs at high temperatures and
should lead to a revival of interest in
his Aladdin oven," patented by him
and dedicated to the use of the Amer
lean people.
Wherever any cereal robbed of its
colored aleurone or vitamine layer
forms the chief food Of peop.3, there
deficiency disease appears. The
chief increase Of beri-beri, caused by
eating polished rice and resulting in
thousands of deaths annually in Japan
and other countries, comedies with the
replacement of the primitive stone
grinding by the modern steel roller
process. The stone mills ground the
entire grain; the modern rolls enable
the miller to reject from the -four prac-
tically everything but the starch.
A diet largely composed of sterilized
milk, condensed milk, corn flours,
starch and sugar. or of any foods sub
jected for a long period to tempera-
lures above ESQ degrees. may be con-
sidered MEANINGLESS diet, and, as such,
will predispose to tuberculosis and the
deficiency diseases.
White fours, corn dours and pol
fshed rice are deficient foods, because