Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-11-13
WY ASHINGTON, Nov. Sad and con-
wv fused must be the man who tries


to eat scientifically in accordance
with the information he finds in the public
prints. Every few months new dietetic
god and a new salvation is offered him, and
each seems completely to displace the old
one.
time, for example, when buttermilk was to
make new men of us all. Many persons of
the older generation still retain faith in
buttermilk as a prolonger of human life
which is like unto the faith of little child
in Santa Claus.
But more recently attention was diverted
from buttermilk to mysterious thing called
the calorie. Lots of people thought calorie
was itself something to eat, but the more
sophisticated grasped the idea that it was a
unit of heat or of energy. You need GER
tain number of calories in order to do your
work in the yorld, and too many or too few
will ruin you. The calorie-counter, who COM
puted the number of calories in every dish
set before him, became so common that one
great chain OF restaurants placed the num-
Der of Galleries in parenthesis after each ar
ticle on it's menu.
Then, still more recently, the calorie was
eclipsed in popularity by still more mystic
rious class of things known as vitamines
A vitamine, we gathered was not a unit Of
measurement like a calorie, but an actual
substance, which was necessary to health 1t
occurs in milks, eggs, fresh fruit and vegeta-
with many experts and set forth the facts
in detail in these columns. They need not be
repeated. Suffice it to say that unless you
get enough vitamines, your machinery won't
work.
Mineral Starvation
But now new completely has been intro
duced into this business of eating, which the
ancients regarded a simple pleasure, and
which has become such complex science for
us The latest bugaboo of the dinner table
is generally known as mineral starvation"
A Boston dentist, whose work was recently
described in the Has1in letter, has reached
the conclusion that our teeth decay not be-
cause of the particles of food deposited on
the surface of them, but because our habitual
diet does not contain enough mineral build
ing material to keep them in repair And
this same idea Of mineral starvation has been
advanced by many other students of the food
situation. Once again guinea pigs, dogs and
pigeons have been sacrificed to prove the
point Fed on some of the demineraliZed
foods which make up so large part of the
civilized diet, it is said, they practically
starve to death.
This is the idea of mineral starvation, as
we understand it: A great many of the
foods which we eat are refined. This means
that certain portions of the natural product
are removed. In some cases this is lone by
manufacturing processes and sometimes by
cooking processes in the home. Sometimes
IL is uOue IueIe!y D0CduSc We are Ill LIE udUlL
of eating the food that way. and sometimes
because it is necessary to refine the foods in
order to improve their keeping and shipping
qualities.
Disadvantage of BoIted Flour
The leading refined manufactured foods,
it appears are the white bolted wheat flour
of which our bread is made, the manufac-
tured corn meal of commerce and the pol
ished rice. Some investigators have taken
the bellgerent' position that food manufac-
turers are poisoning the American people.
They have, in word tried the usual Ameri-
can stunt of finding a sCapegoat and raising
a moral issue. AS a matter of fact, there is
none. The manufacturers give us what we
demand. 1t is true that it is impossible to
buy whole wheat bread in many American
cities today (Graham bread is not the same
thing) But if even one housewife IN ten
began regularly demanding whole wheat
bread, it would make it's appearance. The
manufacturers are not slow TO satisfy any
paying demand And you Can't blame them
for not trying to put out a product for which
there is no demand One manufacturer a