Perth Amboy evening news., 1920-11-12
THE BEWILDERED EATER


= AA@NN - ~ AAAAAAH All
each seems completely to displacc
the old one.
Some of us can remember back
to the time, for example. when but
termilk was to make new men OF
us all. Many persons of the older
| generation still retain a'faith in but
termilk as a %prolonger of human
life which is like unto the faith OF
a little child in Santa Claus.
But more recently attention was
diverted from buttermilk to a mys-
FERROUS thing called the calorie. Lots
of people thought a caiorie was it,
self something to eat, but the more
sophisticated grasped the idea that
1t was a unit of heat or of energy.
You need a certain number of caio-
ries in order to do your work in the
world, and too many or too few will
ruin you. The calorie-counter, who
computed the number of calories in
every dish set before him, became
so common that n great chain OF
restaurants placed the number OF
calories in parenthesis after each
article on its MENU.
Then, still more recently, the CAL
orie was eclipsed in popularity by a
still more mysterious 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 neces-
sary to health. 1t occurs in milks,
eggs, fresh fruit and vegetables. We
ourselves went into the matter with
many experts and set forth the facts
in detail in these columns. Thew
need not be repeated. Suffice it to
say that unless you get enough Wit
amines, your machinery won't work.
Mineral Starvation
But now a new complexity has
been introduced into this business
of eating, which the ancients re-
garded as a simple pleasure, and
which has become such q 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
III teeth decay, not because of the
particles of food deposited on the
surface OF them, but because our
habitual diet does not contain
enough mineral-building material
to keep them In repair. And this
same idea of mineral starvation has
been advanced by many other t
dents of the food situations. Once
again guinea pigs, dogs, and pigeons
have been sacrificed to prove the
point. Fed on some of the denim
eralized foods which make up so
large a part of the civilized diet, it
Is said, they practically starve to
death,
This is the idea of mineral STAR
walton, 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 done
by manufacturing processes and
sometimes by cooking processes in
the home. Sometimes it is done
merely because we are in the habit
of eating the food that way, and
sometimes a it is necessary
10 rehne the foods in order to i'm
prove their keeping and shipping
qualities.
Disadvantage of Bolted Flour
The leading refined manufactured
foods, it appears. are the white,
bolted wheat flour of which our
bread Is made, the manufactured
corn meal of commerce, and the
polished rice. Some Investigators
have taken the %belllgerent position
that food manufacturers are poison
ing the American people. They
have, in a word, tried the usual
American stunt of finding a scape-
a and raising a moral issue. AS
a matter of fact there is none. The
manufacturers give us what we de-
mand. 1t is true that it is impossi-
BILE to buy whole wheat bread in
many American cities today (Grah-
am bread is not the same thing).
But if even one housewife in ten
began regularly demanding whole
wheat bread. it would make its ap-
pearance. The manufacturers are
not slow to satisfy any paying de-
mand. And you can't blame them
for not trying to put out a product
for which there is no demand. One
manufacturer a few years ago did
try putting on the market natural
brown rice instead of polished rice
in the interests of health. He could
not sell it.
Taking the blame unto ourselves,
then, let us see why it is that the
refined foods are not good for us
In making our white bolted flour,
the millers remove the outer husk
of the wheat. In so doing they
greatly reduce its content of miner
al and fat. leaving largely pure pro-
TEN. The same happens in the
commercial process of making corn
meal. In like n the brown
husk of the rice contains valuable
minerals, while the white polished
rice contains almost none. In the
tropics the disease known as beri-
beri follows upon eating polished
rice, and is prevented by a diet of
natural brown rice.
These minerals which are re-
moved are necessary to the building
of bone and tissue. But they are
also necessary to keep the blood in
its proper chemical composition.
The proteins which form the bulk
of u food tend to make the blood
acid. These minerals keep it aka
II A great many of our typical
diseases are due to acid blood.
Eat Potatoes Baked %
Many of the elements il our diet.
which might counterfeit this tend
ency to acidosis of the blood, are
demineralized before we eat them.
Thus the potato is a valuable aka
line food. but If boiled and mashed
much of the best of its substance
is leached away. 1t should be eaten
baked with the skin on, and parts
of the skin should be eaten, too.
In general, the way to avoid a
demineralized diet, as we under
stand 1t. is to eat whole wheat
bread if you car get it. Some food
experts advise that you buy whole
corn n make your own corr meal
in a little hand mill. 1t is true that
whole corn ground by hand makes
a more tasty bread than the COM
mercial product. The Indians in
the southwest grind their own corn
by hand. and its fame has spread
so that the Indians have quite a
demand for it from ethe white peo-
pie. Oatmeal is a good natural food
and breads and cookies NAV be
made from it as well as mush. h
l nlfural brown RIGA L. croad u -.