Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-02-28
FOODS
THEY BUILD OR DESTROY
Amazing but Rarely Suspected Truths About the
Things You Eat
Copyright 1915. Alfred W. Mccann)

range the molecular composition of
sugar and starch.
1t is n strange but interesting fact
that formaldehyde and wood alcohol
actly the same elements as those
which make up the composition of
grain alcohol and acetic acid, whisky,
and vinegar.
Starch, cane sugar. glucose, Tactic
acid, and carbolic acid also contain
the same elements QUALIFICATION,
hydrogen and oxygen. The only diff
ference among them is in the propor-
tions and arrangement of them. 1t is
this arrangement which makes some
OF them beneficial foods and some of
them deadly poisons.
Ordinary starch can be converted
into sugar by the action of ferments.
Sugar can be converted by the action
of the other ferments into Tactic acid,
alcohol, and acetic acid, depending
entirely upon the character of the fer
ment employed
In other words. there are good and
bad ferments. That we sometim
allow the bad ferments to develop and
kill off the good ones with so-called
harmless" preservatives will be
shown as we proceed
1t was thought at one time that the
ferments found in the digestive glands
were the only ferments to be found in
A
knowledge of their conduct in the pro-
cesses of digestion was limited and in
the treatment of many diseases the
symptoms alone were treated for the
reason that the cause was never sus-
pected.
1t has been determined in recent
years that ferments are of many
kinds and they are present in every
cell and are intimately concerned in
all the manifestations of life.
AS many as a dozen different fer
ments have been found, for example
in the liver cells.
1t has also been demonstrated that
for the maintenance of life in the
case of the higher plants the organ
lied ferments are of profound import
ance. Through them the higher plants
obtain their nitrogen from the air in
form which they can utilize.
So it is seen that even in the pres
ence of all the necessary food min
erals, IL the ferments be absent or de-
stroyed or decomposed, vegetable or
animal life cannot be normal.
Each of these ferments has a spe-
cial function to perform. In the
animal body for instance, some of
them, such as pepsin, can act to ad-
vantage only under acid condition.
Others, such as ptyalin, require an
alkaline condition. Still others can
conditions. Fixed laws control them.
Certain ferments will act only upon
certain definite substances and under
the proper conditions.
Fat-splitting ferments, for instance,
will act only upon fat; diastase fer
ments will act only upon starch and
sugar: proteolytic ferments will act
only upon albumen.
OF their chemical composition little
is known that is definite and just as
little is known of the equally import
ant vitamines. We do know. however.
that food of the wrong kind, food
badly prepared, food which has suf-
fered an unnatural loss of some of it's
elements, can set up conditions that
are hostile to the action of these fer
ments. and that in setting up these
conditions we are inviting physiologi-
cal discord which means disease.
1t is imperative that we do not in
terfere with the normal conditions
that control the conduct of these little
workers in the body. AS we go along
all this will be explained so simply
and so fully that many of us will
doubtless wonder why we ever toler-
ated the food conditions that are about
to be described