Evening star., 1941-12-14
Vitamin Miracles

in the hole That is the date when the
Food and Drug Administration will put
into effect regulations governing the
amount of vitamins and iron that may
be added to white -four so that the miller
and the baker can say their bread Is
enriched.
With unofficial consent, many are al
ready doing this.
The additions won't be compulsory,
but every store will be able to offer a
-four or bread containing added Bl BIZ,
B3 and iron. All are diet essentials
which-outside the military forces-may
be deficient in many persons or many
places.
Such -four or bread is officially called
enriched" The history of that single
word is a whole sermon on the vitamin
puzzles.
When synthetic vitamins became avail
able. there was rush of propositions to
"fortify" food That meant to add vita
minis. It meant to add them whether
the food contained them naturally or
not
No. said many nutritionists; no, thun-
dered the A. M. A-you should restore"
vitamins, where food processing had
taken them out. That is enough, they
said, by all the standards of both health
and safety.
Fertilization, said the doctors, adding
unnecessary vitamins, would cost the
poor many millions of dollars-uselessly
The A. M. A. made this stick.
The national defense meeting of l94l
which decided on popping up the white
flour, adopted the principle of restora-
ton. But restoration can't be exact, be-
cause even nature varies in vitamin con-
tent. The authorities therefore agreed
upon a reasonable and. they hoped, not
too costly addition of vitamins.
So the name was changed from resto-
ration to enrichment. The latter is
probably more accurate. 1t also is better
for advertising. Furthermore, it best
fits American psychology about names.
and-make no mistake-psychology here
is an important factor.
A warning already has been given by
DR.. Russell M. Wilder, chairman of the
Food and Nutrition Committee which
steered the enrichment.
Curative claims for enriched flour and
bread are unwarranted," he wrote in a
November issue of Bakers Weekly, q
magazine of the baking industry.
The miracles published about vitamins'
effects are really true. What the reader
does not usually note is that the miracle
can happen only to persons deficient in
that vitamin.
There are 1001 reasons for feeling Ill.
Only one comes from vitamins, and that
one is all that can be helped by vitamins.
There is great misunderstanding
about vitamin B1 and morale. The pub
lie seems to believe it has been told that
B1 builds morale. That was not the
story at all. The straight of 1t is that
without B1 courage fails. The catch
lies in the fact that most persons are
not In the class without Bland cour.
age can fail from other reasons, anyhow.
Consider the test of Mayo Clinic nurses
who, deprived of a B vitamin, became
morose and irritable. Given back their
B they became smiling. That is literal
fact, and. unoficially. it is probably trus
that they became more beautiful.
You have heard that new B vitam1n
p. aamino benzoic acid, changes gray
hair to its natural color. That is ur.
doubtedly backed by facts. But no one
knows which gray hair-that Is, the
cause or causes of grayness-that this :
acid relieves 1t is not even known that
the acid won't help all gray hair.
You have heard of inositol. 1t cures
badness in rats, when scientists cause
the badness by one Of those dif1cult-to-
find diets. For man it is a complete un-
known, except it is probably B vitamir1. 2
About the gold rush Of 1941: The
unof1cial estimates are that Americans
have spent about $3oo,ooo,ooo for Vita
MINIS this year. -.1-F