Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-03-01

have been equal to the task of Jogging
the atmosphere sufficiently to cloud
any attempted work of reform under
the darkness of controversy.
Chemists and pathologists are to be
found who are willing to so on rec
ord with some such statements as
these: "Of the metabolism~ of foods,
of chemical change, of the exact ac-
ton of engines and bacteria, we are
profoundly ignorant, therefore we
should not give much consideration to
the mineral contents of our diet.
I'VE derive so many minerals from
so many articles of food that we can
afford to remove most of them from
our diet; and, furthermore. so little
is known about the conduct of these
minerals when ingested with food that
the subject is at least not important
enough to occasion grave alarm.
There are so many offsetting foods
which completely replace the mineral
salts and vitamines that are lost
through commercial methods of food
refinement and manufacture that we
need not at all worry about the pres
ence of these substances in our food
supply"
Signed statements and magazine ar
ticles appearing regularly in the
magazines of uplift, the purpose of
which is everlastingly to quiet natural
anXieties concerning commercial food
stuffs. in spite of the death of nearly
1000 children under ten years of
age in the United States every year,
constitute the defense of those Whose
food industries would suffer if the
people enacted State and National
laws that would forbid them to dena-
ture their food supply.
For reasons of their own these men
tell us that we have sufficient carbohy-
drates, proteins, and fats (bread, meat
and butter), so we need not bother
about the minerals or ferments of our
food.
Yet they admit they know nothing
about the food minerals. Prior to
1912 the only thing the public ever
heard of in connection with descrip-
ton of food was the academic divi-
sion made by dietitians. This divi-
sion consisted of three groups-car-
bohydrates, proteins and fats. There
was another division to which some
of them, on rare occasions, slurringly
referred. They called this fourth divi-
sion ASH"
The division of ash was always ex-
asperatlngly ignored and apparently
had little if any meaning for dietitians
and was not considered by them as
significant or important.
AS it began to dawn upon the minds
of various investigators working at
different places in Europe and Amer
lea that a diet of pure carbohydrates,
pure proteins and pure fats would not
support life, the subject of lash" grew
more formidable and more fascinating.
Physicians and chemists everywhere
admitted that personally they knew
nothing about ash in relationship 20
food and did not know where TO go 20
obtain information.
It is the ash of food that contains
the mineral salts of that food.
Tons of ashless food, denatured
food, demineralized food, debased, i'm
poverished, foodless food, were con-
sumed along with good and adequate
food by nearly 100000 children under
ten years OF age who died in the
United States last year.
How many of them would be alive
and well to-day if none of their foods
had oeen denatured, If all of 1t had
been good and adequate? That is the
] question we must answer here.