The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1920-11-12

and confused must be the man who
tries to eat scientifically IN accord
ance with the information he hnds
In the public prints. Every few
months q new dietetic god and .
new salvs.ion ID offered him, and
each seems completely to displace
the old one,
Some OK VS. can remember back
to the time, for example, when but
termilk was to make new men OF
MS all. Many persons Of the older
generation still retain q faith In
buttermi!k. as . prolonger OF hu-
man lie which 10 like unto the faith
Of d little child in Santa Claus.
But more recently attention was
diverted from buttermilk to a mys-
terious thing called the calorie.
Lots of people thought q calorie was
itself something to eat. but the
more sophisticated grasped the
idea that 1t was unit OF heat or
of energy. Yon need a certain
number Of calories in order to do
your work in the world, and too
many or to few will ruin you. The
calorie-counter, who computed the
number of calories in every dish
set before him, became SO common
that one great chain Of restaurants
placed the number Of calories in
parenthesis after each article on
its menu.
Then, still more recently. ~the
calorie was eclipsed In popularity
by still more mysterious class OF
things known as vitamines. A vita
mine, 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 vege-
tables. We ourselves went into the
matter with many experts and set
forth the facts in detail in these
columns. They need not be repeat
ed. Suffice it to saw that unless
you get enough vitamines, your
machinery won't work.
Mineral Starvation.
| But now a new cdlnplexity has
been introduced into this business
of eating. which the ancients re-
] garded as a simple pleasure, and
which has become such a complex
science for us. The latest bugaboo
Of the dinner table is generally
known as mineral starvation" A
Boston dentist, whose work was re-
Gently described in The Haskin Let
ter, has reached the conclusion that
our teeth decay, not because Of the
particles OF food deposited on the
surface Of them. but because oul
habitual diet does not contain
enough mineral-building material te
keep them in repair. And this
same idea of mineral starvation has
been advanced by many other stu.
dents of the food situation. Once
again guinea pigs, dogs and pig
cons have been sacrificed to prove
the point. Fed on some Of the de-
mineralized foods which make W
so large a part of the civilized diet
it is said, they practically starve te
/ death.
| This is the idea of mineral star
walton, as we understand it:
great many of the foods which w
Eeat are refined. This means thai
certain portions of the natural prod
uct are removed. In some cases
this is done by manufacturing pro-
cesses and sometimes by cooking
processes in the home. Sometime!
} it is done merely because we are II
the. habit OF eating the food tina
way, and sometimes because it i!
necessary to refine the foods IL
order to improve their keeping ant
J shipping qualities.
! Disadvantage Of Bclted Flour.
The leading refined manufacture,
. foods, it appears, are the white
, bolted wheat flour Of which GU
: bread is made the manufacture,
) corn meal Of commerce, and tn
polished rice. Some investigator
have taken the belligerent position
! that food manufacturers are poison
ing the American people. The
2 have, in a word, tyied the usus
American stunt of finding q scape
: goat and raising a moral issue. A