Water5 lb.8 oz.320 gr.Albuminoids, or flesh-formers0 lb.4 oz.110 gr.Starch, sugar, &c.0 lb.11 oz.178 gr.Fat0 lb.3 oz.337 gr.Common salt0 lb.0 oz.325 gr.Phosphates, potash, salts, &c.0 lb.0 oz.170 gr.
This might be furnished by a mixed diet of the following foods:—
oz.Bread18}Butter1}Milk4}Bacon2}Altogether these quantitiesPotatoes8}will contain aboutCabbage6}1 lb. 5¾ oz. of dry substance,Cheese3½}though they weighSugar1}in all 6 lb. 14½ oz.Salt¾}Water alone and in tea, coffee,}beer, &c.66¼}
It will be seen that the weight of this allotment exceeds by 1 oz. even when the solid matter contained in beverage is omitted—that of the analytic table which precedes it. This excess is mainly owing to the fact that in all articles of food actually used thereare small quantities of matters (cellulose, &c.) which cannot be reckoned as having a real feeding value. (A. H. Church, ‘Food.’)
Authorities on the subject of diet say that nitrogen is the most essential of all foods, and that a certain amount—about 316 gr.—should be taken daily by an adult man. If the minimum quantity of nitrogen (which, for the sake of argument, may be put as low as 250 gr.) be not consumed, the various functions of the body languish, and a degree of weakness is induced, with greater or less rapidity, according as the quantity falls much or little below 250 gr. per diem. But let the consumption drop to an average of only 138 gr., which is the smallest amount necessary for the bare maintenance of life, and in a year or two (not at once, for every body contains a store of nitrogen) important modifications of the nutritive processes, with distinct predispositions to disease, will inevitably be established. (Parkes.)
These results of experimental investigation have a practical significance. They find expression in the fact that a failure to consume all the essential elements of full rations, whether nitrogenous or non-nitrogenous, will sooner or later, as in the disastrous Irish and Lancashire famines, give rise to a train of symptoms which have been justly denominated those of “chronic starvation.”
From the small knowledge of the value of food possessed by individuals as well as the public, a diminution in its adequate supply easily escapes attention; loss of appetite is looked upon with indifference, and the first steps are inadvertently taken toward a condition which is as full of meaning in the case of a single person as when a whole community are its subjects. The absence or the keenness of appetite affords no indication of the amount of food which the stomach will digest and the body assimilate or an individual be benefited by swallowing.
The body requires not only to be fed, but filled; and the object of eating is as often to bring up past arrears as to supply present demands. Quality of food, with all the heat and force it may contain, will not make up for quantity, which is required for constructive and reparative purposes. The constant waste of flesh and blood can only be compensated for by an equivalent assimilation of actual materials. Yet, in spite of this self-evident proposition, a large proportion of the better educated classes of the community readily deceive themselves and mislead others in regard to the amount of food necessary for their welfare and nutrition.
From a practice, often beginning in infancy with the common maternal prejudice against giving solid food at a sufficiently early period and in adequate amount, persisted in through childhood from an erroneous idea that “meat once a day” is an ample supply of animal food, still continued during adolescence, especially in the case of girls, under the conceit that eating heartily, or “between meals,” is neither wholesome nor lady-like, a habit of going without enough sustenance is finally established in adult life which is further perpetuated and confirmed by a great variety of influences. Among the more common may be mentioned personal temperament, disturbed mental conditions, languid indoor life, fatigue and exhaustion, theoretical dietetic prejudices, fastidiousness as to eatables, unwise distribution of meals, insufficient variety of food, too rigid domestic economy, and, pre-eminently, the revived fashion of tight lacing. These, and a multitude of similar agencies, apart from pathological derangements, are well-recognised causes of deficient bodily nourishment and prolific sources of disturbed health, revealing themselves in deficient weight, “weakness,” anæmia (want of blood), feeble circulation, neuralgia, cough and throat trouble, constipation, headache, backache, nausea, and a variety of phenomena, unconnected with sensible organic alterations, but characterised by neurotic and functional symptoms easily magnified by the patient and overtreated by the physician.
As testifying to the widespread ignorance relating to food and feeding, the following extract may be quoted from theMedical Times and Gazette, May 24, 1884, p. 712:—“At the existing (1884) International Health Exhibition, London, the ‘Vegetarian Society’are furnishing a sixpenny dinner to 400-500 people daily. From a carefully kept account of the substances used for the bill of fare the following ‘food equivalents’ have been reduced, showing that each diner receives, of
Albuminoids0·63 oz.Fat0·44 oz.Carbohydrates3·17 oz.Mineral matters0·09 oz.
Physiologists lay down the standard diet for ordinary labour pretty much as follows:—
Albuminoids4·2 oz.Fat1·6 oz.Carbohydrates18·7 oz.Mineral matters1·0 oz.
It appears, therefore, that it would require about six of the sixpenny dinners to support a man during a day’s hard labour.”
The consequences of an insufficient dietary, says Hodges, are most frequently exemplified in young people, of both sexes, growing school children, boys fitting for college,débutantesin society, young mothers of families, seamstresses, shop girls, &c.; and, although they also appear at other periods of life, and under other circumstances than those which have been enumerated, it is during the years of adolescence that the utilisation of feeding has its supreme value, and its prophylactic and curative effects, as a therapeutic method, are most easily obtained. Sir Andrew Clark, Grailly Hewett, Clifford Allbutt, and others, who have described the ailments which follow inadequate alimentation, have especially urged the necessity for greater attention to the question of diet in the bringing up of families.
The underfed constitute so considerable a class that a large part of medical practice is devoted to attempts at satisfying their importunate demands for “something which shall make them feel better.” To attack with drugs symptoms which are daily regenerated by starvation is labour in vain, so long as that condition is permitted to exist. But if the famished tissues of those who say they are not sick, and there is nothing the matter with them, only that they “do not feel well,” and “cannot eat,” be permeated with the fat which is so often loathed in food—if veins be filled with a more bounteous supply of blood, and if outdoor air be made attainable without the expenditure of an already slender supply of strength—their bodily functions will take on renewed vigour and be reanimated from better life-giving resources, force will be stored up, energy will be developed, and innumerable discomforts evicted. The futile use of iron, quinine, bitters, elixirs, and other so-called “tonics,” either when self-prescribed or methodically directed by physicians, and the insuccess of medicines, as a rule, to relieve the wearisome complaints daily listened to from persons whose mode of living is an injustice to themselves, do not always serve as a reminder that suitable nutriment, in some form or other, is the only real “tonic,” and that its methodical consumption can alone relieve the protean afflictions of many, if not most, of these querulous supplicants. To say to them in a vague and general way that a nourishing diet should be taken, and that anxiety and overwork are to be avoided, is to give weak advice. The most rigid and literal obedience to fixed and precise rules in regard to the quantity and character of their food and the times of taking it—in fact, the carrying out of a process of “stuffing,” practised at short intervals of time, without regard to appetite and pushed to the stomach’s maximum capacity of digestion—is necessary to extricate them from their deplorable situation.
The theoretical standard of a full ration has been given. The conventional standard,however, is an unsettled one. The statement that a person eats as much as other members of his or her family may mean a great deal or nothing, for there are large and small eaters both by habit as well as by example, and there can be no criterion of the amount proper to be eaten under given circumstances except that which is determined by a physician’s judgment. This amount, as has been said, should not only be specified exactly, but its consumption ensured, and nothing but precise and positive evidence accepted in regard to the fulfilment of the specifications given. (R. M. Holmes.)
Function of Food.—The subject is treated from another point of view by F. W. Moinet, in a lecture on Food and Work, read before the Pharmaceutical Society, who observes that as the food we eat or drink—the latter term applying only to the condition of the article used whether fluid or solid—is the only source from which the elements forming the constituents of the body are derived, it naturally follows that no article of food can satisfy the requirements of life which fails to comply with this condition. But as comparatively few articles of food contain all these elements, or in their proper proportion, it follows that we must combine different articles of food together to make a satisfactory meal, i.e. a meal not only sufficient to satisfy the appetite, but also capable of supplying the different elements required by the tissue to replace what has been spent on work. Hence the reason and necessity of living on a varied diet, which experience taught our ancestors long before the scientific facts on which it is founded were discovered. For with the exception of milk, which is a perfect food, no ordinary article of diet contains all the necessary elements. But this is not only a necessity, but also a great advantage, as our food would be very apt to pall on our palates were it always the same, so nature liberally supplies us with a great variety to choose from, which are nearly equally capable of nourishing the body, and at the same time suiting different tastes, which to some individuals is a matter of importance, either from habit or natural peculiarity, still more valuable to the invalid whose recovery sometimes depends not on medicine, but on diet.
Another reason of this variety in nature is that all animals and vegetables are not found to flourish under the same conditions of climate and soil; hence in different countries the food supply is often obtained from different sources, plants and animals, especially the former.
The function of food may be described as twofold:—1st, to afford material to replace what is spent in labour, physical or mental, muscular or brain; 2nd, to supply fuel which is spent in force.
A considerable proportion of our food, especially the fatty and starchy matters, after being digested and assimilated and stored up in the various tissues, is slowly burnt or oxidised by the oxygen which has been carried from the lungs by the blood; the fat is decomposed into carbonic acid and water, which are given off by the lungs and the kidneys and skin. By this oxidation, or burning, heat and force are generated to keep up the temperature of the body and keep the vital functions going, and to supply physical and mental energy, all the internal and external work of the body being performed by the combustion of the stored-up fat in the tissue. Hence the necessity of a regular and constant supply of food to warm the body, supply mental and physical energy, and repair the waste of the tissues. This brings us naturally to consider next whether this twofold function of food is performed by the same or any article of food. In some cases it is; but as most articles of food do not contain the substance required in suitable proportion to perform both these functions, we require to take more than one article of food to make up what the other lacks, and in this way we get a diet sufficient to fulfil both these functions. It is for this reason that articles of food, or their nutritive principle, have been classified according as they contribute especially to the growth and nutrition of the body, or to the production of heat and force, into two great classes:—(a) Heat-producers; (b) Flesh-formers, or non-nitrogenised and nitrogenised compounds.
(a)Heat-producing, or Non-nitrogenised.Sugar}{CarbonStarch}composed of{HydrogenGum}{OxygenOils and Fats}(b)Flesh-forming, or Nitrogenised.{CarbonAlbumen}{HydrogenGluten}{NitrogenFibrin}composed of{OxygenCasein}{Sulphur andLegumin}{Phosphorus
Of these compounds those which contain nitrogen are used principally for building up the muscles, while those which contain no nitrogen are burnt up in the body to yield heat and force. The flesh-forming compounds are not obtained solely from animal food, as gluten and legumin are derived from the vegetable kingdom, from cereals and peas and beans respectively; while the heat-producers, with the exception of some oils and fats, are obtained solely from the vegetable kingdom. So that for perfect health our food must contain sufficient of both these two classes of compounds to repair the tissues, and to supply heat and force (the mineral substances being contained in these compounds, also partly supplied by the water we drink). As to the relative proportion in which they should be present in our food, there is no hard and fast line; this would be an impossibility unless we were to weigh and analyse every article we eat. We judge by experience what will satisfy the appetite and enable us to feel up to our work. Besides, it must vary considerably according to circumstances,—1st, the amount of work or exercise; 2nd, the climate. Thus physical or bodily exercise compels us to eat more than when idle, our increased hunger or appetite being nature’s method of indicating to our minds that our bodies require food to replace what has been expended in force and to repair the waste of the tissues. Then the colder the climate more food is required, especially of the heat-giving varieties, as more will be spent in keeping up the warmth of the body. Cold is also more conducive to physical work than warm weather, so that for this reason also more food is required in a cold climate.
The following table by Dr. Stevenson Macadam gives an idea of the relative amount of flesh-formers and heat-producers in certain articles of food, showing the amount of heat-producing elements they contain for every 10 parts of flesh-formers.
Flesh-forming.Heat-producing.Rice10123Potatoes10115Barley1057Oatmeal1050Wheaten Flour1044Milk1040Fat Pork1030Fat Mutton1027Beans1022Beef1017Hare102Veal101
In the tropics, where little exercise can be taken, the waste of tissues is small, so that little nitrogenous food is required, and only a moderate amount of fat is taken; the need of heat-producers is comparatively small, so that starchy products, as millet and rice, are the principal articles of food. But gradually as we come north there is a marked increase both in the fatty and nitrogenous articles of food, until in the Arctic zone oilysubstances and animal food are the staple articles of existence, the amount of them that an Esquimaux will eat being something almost incredible, yet necessary to resist the severe cold.
The vegetable kingdom alone can supply all that is necessary for the human body both of flesh-forming and heat-producing substances, and we must not for a moment imagine that animal food is the only source of flesh-formers, as the world’s population is supported to a large extent on vegetable products, especially in tropical regions, while in colder climates, where vegetable products are hardly to be obtained, flesh and fat are indispensable. Thus man is clearly omnivorous; while men may be advantageously almost vegetarians in one climate, mixed eaters in another (as with us), and almost exclusively flesh eaters in a third, as in the Arctic regions. But there are some people who live exclusively on a vegetable diet (vegetarians) in our country, believing that such a diet is right in principle. Only those are true vegetarians who exclude milk, butter, eggs and cheese, as these are the very essence of animal food.
Man is capable of deriving all that is required for living and working from the animal or vegetable articles of food, either separately or combined. The question, therefore, is whether a purely vegetable diet or a mixed diet of vegetable and animal food is the better suited for our existence. To judge the question we have some facts to go upon. (1) We are so physically constructed as to be able to derive our nourishment from both animal and vegetable food. (2) In the Arctic regions hardly any vegetables are to be obtained. (3) Man alone has the intelligence to obtain food from all sources, and, by cooking, to render it fit for nourishment. It apparently follows, therefore, that while we are suited for either diet, or rather a combination of both, we may also select to some extent our diet according to our individual taste, habit of body, and other circumstances, as work and climate, experience having taught us that for the enjoyment of good health our diet must be regulated by the circumstances we have mentioned.
Nutritive values of Foods.—The following tables, based on those published by Letheby,[2]show the nutritive values (per lb.) of various food-stuffs, with their composition.
(a)Animal Food-stuffs.
Value per lb.Carbon.Nitrogen.d.Grains per lb.Grains per lb.Butter, fresh166456—Butter, salt124585—Lard94819—Bacon, dry9598795Cheese, cheddar83344306Beef81854184Bacon, green8542676Suet74710—Pork, fat74113106Dripping65456—Mutton51900189Herrings, red41435217Cheese, skim31947483Liver, bullocks’3934204White fish2871195Milk, new259944Milk, skimmed143843Buttermilk½38744Whey½15413
(b)Vegetable Food-stuffs.
Value per lb.Carbon.Nitrogen.d.Grains per lb.Grains per lb.Sugar52955—Cocoa43934140Oatmeal22831136Pearl barley2266091Rice2273268Flour, seconds1½2700116Bread, bakers’1½197588Rye meal1¼269386Peas, split12698248Maize meal13016120Barley meal1256368Carrots150814Parsnips155412Beer and porter12741Treacle12395—Potatoes½76922Turnips½26313Vegetables, green½42014
Digestibility of Foods.—There cannot be the least doubt that in the matter of digestion no rule holds good for all stomachs alike, and it is absurd to attempt to lay down a hard and fast line. At the same time, some idea of the relative period required to digest various substances may be gained from a study of the published results of experiments, though one very doubtful element is left out of the case altogether, namely, the quality of the cooking, which every one knows influences the digestibility of the food. The most complete list is that by Dr. Beaumont, from observation of the process in the stomach of a wounded soldier.
Articles.Preparations.Time.h. m.RiceBoiled1.0Pigs’ feet, sousedBoiled1.0Tripe, sousedBoiled1.0Trout, salmon, freshBoiled1.30”””Fried1.30Apples, sweet, mellowRaw1.30Venison, steakBroiled1.35SagoBoiled1.45Apples, sour, mellowRaw2.0Cabbage, with vinegarRaw2.0Codfish, cured, dryBoiled2.0Eggs, freshRaw2.0Liver, beef, freshBroiled2.0MilkBoiled2.0TapiocaBoiled2.0MilkRaw2.15Turkey, wildRoasted2.18””Boiled2.25” domesticatedRoasted2.30Potatoes, IrishBaked2.30ParsnipsBoiled2.30Pig, suckingRoasted2.30Meat hashed with vegetablesWarmed2.30Lamb, freshBroiled2.30GooseRoasted2.30Cake, spongeBaked2.30Cabbage-headRaw2.30Beans, podBoiled2.30CustardBaked2.45Chicken, full-grownFricasséed2.45Apples, sour, hardRaw2.50Oysters, freshRaw2.55Bass, striped, freshBroiled3.0Beef, fresh, lean, rareRoasted3.0” steakBroiled3.0Corn-cakeBaked3.0Dumpling, appleBoiled3.0Eggs, freshBoiled soft3.0Mutton, freshBroiled3.0Mutton, freshBoiled3.0Pork, recently saltedRaw3.0Soup, chickenBoiled3.0Oysters, freshRoasted3.15Pork, recently saltedBroiled3.15Pork, steakBroiled3.15Corn-breadBaked3.15Mutton, freshRoasted3.15Carrot, orangeBoiled3.15Sausages, freshBroiled3.20Beef, fresh, lean, dryRoasted3.30Bread, wheat, freshBaked3.30ButterMelted3.30Cheese, old, strongRaw3.30Eggs, freshHard boiled3.30””Fried3.30Flounder, freshFried3.30Oysters, freshStewed3.30Potatoes, IrishBoiled3.30Soup, muttonBoiled3.30” oysterBoiled3.30Turnip, flatBoiled3.30BeetsBoiled3.45Corn, green, and beansBoiled3.45Pork, recently saltedRaw3.0Beef, fresh, leanFried4.0Fowls, domesticBoiled4.0””Roasted4.0Veal, freshBroiled4.0Soup, beef, vegetables and breadBoiled4.0Salmon, saltedBoiled4.0Heart, animalFried4.0Beef, old, hard, saltedBoiled4.15Pork, recently saltedFried4.15Cabbage, with vinegarBoiled4.30Ducks, wildRoasted4.30Pork, recently saltedBoiled4.30Suet, muttonBoiled4.30Veal, freshFried4.30Pork, fat and leanRoasted5.15Suet, beef, freshBoiled5.30TendonBoiled5.30
This may be compared with the following table of precedence in digestibility of some animal foods, on the authority of Chambers:—
Sweetbread and Lambs’ Trotters.Roast Veal.Boiled chicken.Boiled Veal, Rabbit.Venison.Salmon, Mackerel, Herring, Pilchard, Sprat.Lightly Boiled Eggs, New Toasted Cheese.Hard-boiled and Fried Eggs.Roast Fowl, Turkey, Partridge, and Pheasant.Wood Pigeon, Hare.Lamb, Wild Duck.Tame Pigeon, Tame Duck, Goose.Oysters, Periwinkles.Fried Fish.Omelette (?), Tripe (?).Roast and Boiled Pork.Boiled Sole, Haddock, Skate, Trout, Perch.Heart, Liver, Lights, Milt, and Kidneys of Ox, Swine, and Sheep.Tripe and Chitterlings.Lobsters, Shrimps, Prawns.Mutton.Caviare.Roast Beef.Smoked, Dried, Salt, and Pickled Fish.Boiled Beef.Crab.Rump Steak.Ripe Old Cheese.
The contradictions are sufficiently glaring.
From some recent experiments by Jessen it would seem that raw meat is more digestible than cooked, which is perhaps not astonishing when due allowance is made for the way in which that operation is often performed. Thus the times required for digestion were:
Raw beef, shaved fine2hours.” mutton2”” veal2½”Boiled beef, half done, shaved fine2½”Raw pork3”Boiled beef, well done, shaved fine3”Roast beef, half done, shaved fine3”Roast beef, well done, shaved fine4”
Klenze, experimenting on 18 kinds of cheese, found that cheddar was digested in the shortest time (4 hours), while unripe skim Swiss cheese required 10 hours for solution. There is no difference in the digestibility of all sorts of hard cheese, or all soft cheese, but all fat cheeses are dissolved the most rapidly, because, being open by reason of the fat, they are the more readily attacked by the solvent. There is no connection between the digestibility and the percentage of water present in the cheese, but there is some connection with the percentage of fat and the degree of ripeness.
Animal Foods.—There is surely no need to insist on the value of animal foods. At the same time there can be no doubt of a general tendency among town dwellers to eat too much meat. Twice a day is quite often enough for a meat meal, and then it should not form more than about ⅕ of the whole meal. Fresh fish is an excellent and wholesome substitute for meat, especially in the case of brain workers. Cheese is highly nutritious, but digestible only by those living out of doors; this does not apply, however, to the soft cream-cheeses. Lard, dripping, butter, and even butterine or bosch, have great value as heat-producing foods.
Vegetable Foods.—Few people rightly estimate the true value of vegetables, apart, that is to say, from the starchy products of the vegetable kingdom, such as potatoes, sago, rice, &c. Many people hardly think of eating cabbage or spinach with their meat, yet there is no more wholesome food as an adjunct to the dinner table. The same may be said of many other vegetables. On the authority of theMedical Record, asparagus is a strong diuretic, and forms part of the cure for rheumatic patients at such health resorts as Aix-les-Bains. Sorrel is cooling, and forms the staple of thatsoupe aux herbeswhich a French lady will order for herself after a long and tiring journey. Carrots, as containing a quantity of sugar, are avoided by some people, while others complain of them as indigestible. With regard to the latter accusation, it may be remarked, in passing, that it is the yellow core of the carrot that is difficult of digestion—the outer, a red layer, is tender enough. In Savoy the peasants have recourse to an infusion of carrots as a specific for jaundice. The large sweet onion is very rich in those alkaline elements which counteract the poison of rheumatic gout. If slowly stewed in weak broth, and eaten with a little Nepaul pepper, it will be found to be an admirable article of diet for patients of studious and sedentary habits. The stalks of cauliflower have the same sort of value, only too often the stalk of a cauliflower is so ill-boiled and unpalatable that few persons would thank you for proposing to them to make part of their meal consist of so uninviting an article. Turnips, in the same way, are often thought to be indigestible, and better suited for cows and sheep than for delicate people; but here the fault lies with the cook quite as much as with the root. The cook boils the turnips badly, and then pours some butter over it, and the eater of such a dish is sure to be the worst for it. Try a better way. What shall be said about our lettuces? The plant has a slight narcotic action, of which a French old woman, like a French doctor, well knows the value, and when properly cooked is really very easy of digestion.
Fruits.—There are few who cannot enjoy fruit in one form or another. For diabetics only the least desirable kinds, as certain nuts and almonds, are available, all others, as containing sugar, being forbidden. Sufferers from acid dyspepsia must select carefully, and limit their consumption to the least irritating—a few strawberries or a few grapes. Diarrhœa and dysentery preclude the use of all fruit. On the other hand, for constipated persons it is sometimes the only trustworthy remedy which they can use continuously with comfort; it is also of benefit in renal diseases, by its action on the bowel. Atonic persons generally take it well, and feel the better for its digestive propertyThose in normal health may eat almost any ripe fruit. The bland varieties are the most wholesome and nutritious—strawberries, apples, pears, grapes, and gooseberries. The last named, however, with currants and raspberries, are less wholesome than the others. Stone-fruits are apt to disagree with the stomach; but the more watery, as peaches and large plums, are better than the smaller and drier, as apricots and damsons. The pulp of oranges renders them heavy. Among other foreign fruits, bananas are wholesome. Dried fruits and the skin of fruits in general are indigestible. Nuts, the edible part of which is really the seed, contain much albumen and some fat in a condensed form, and are particularly difficult of digestion. Fruit may be taken with a meal or on an empty stomach. In the former case it promotes digestion by its gently irritating effect on the mucous membrane of the stomach and intestine. If an aperient effect be desired, it had better be taken in the morning before breakfast or between meals. A succulent and pleasantly acid variety is best for both of these purposes, while it is also a food. The quantity of fruit which should be taken depends on the kind. If it belongs to the bland nutritious class, a healthy person may now and then partake of it as freely as of any other wholesome food; but he will gain most benefit if he take only a little, and take it regularly. The same may be said of the invalid with whom fruit agrees. Cooking removes much of the acidity from crude fruit, and renders it lighter as well as more palatable. So treated, it is productive of good and no harm; but it is a fundamental principle that whatever fruit is eaten uncooked must be fully ripe and not over-ripe. This may sound trite, and indeed the principle is commonly admitted, but not, it would seem, by all, for we still find people, and not a few, who will themselves deliberately take, and worse, will give to their children, green gooseberries, green apples, &c., the very hardness of which, apart from their acid pungency, suggest their unfitness for digestion. Such people use as food an acid irritant poison, whose necessary action is to cause excessive intestinal secretion, with more or less of inflammation. Hence arises diarrhœa. On the other hand, fruit which is over-ripe, in which fermentation has begun, is a frequent cause of this disorder, and equally to be avoided, and perhaps also more difficult to avoid because the insidious beginning of decay is not easily recognised. It should never be forgotten by any who incline to follow the season in their feeding, that the want of such precautions as the above may produce that dysenteric form of diarrhœa, “British cholera,” which is occasionally as rapidly fatal as the more dreaded Asiatic type of that disease. (Brit. Med. Jour.)
Bread and other Grain Foods.—Arguments on the bread question threaten to be endless, probably because the champions on both sides have just enough scientific knowledge to enable them to misstate the case. The most reasonable review of the whole circumstances is contained in one of Prof. Church’s papers inNature. He deals first with variations in composition in the grain itself. These variations, chiefly affecting the percentage of nitrogen, depend upon hereditary qualities in different strains of the wheat-plant; upon climate and season: and, to some extent, but not so largely as is often stated, upon cultivation, soil, and manure. The hard translucent wheats,blés durs et glacés, are of high specific gravity, about 1·41, and, owing to their lengthened and wrinkled shape, of low weight per bushel; these wheats are rich in nitrogen. The soft opaque wheats, of less specific gravity, about 1·38, and, owing to their rounded and plump form, of high weight per bushel, are poor in nitrogen. The hard wheats grown in Poland, in Southern Russia, in Italy, and in Auvergne, are used in the manufacture of macaroni, vermicelli, semolina, and pâtés d’Italie. The softer and more starchy wheats are especially appropriate for the production of fine white flour. According to the most recent analyses, the percentage of nitrogen in different varieties and samples of air-dry wheat may range from 1·3 up to 2·5—numbers corresponding to 8·23 and 15·83, respectively, of gluten or flesh-forming substances. But the same variety of wheat may give a grain having 3 per cent. more gluten in a bad season than when matured in a fine summer. More than this,one may select from the same field, the same plant, or even the same ear, individual grains which shall show quite as wide a variation in gluten as that just cited.
Church next considers “how much flour and how much bran will 100 parts of ordinary soft wheat yield on the ordinary system of low-milling adopted in England?” As the averages from an immense number of independent estimates we may put down the flour at a total of 80, the bran at 17, and the loss at 3. Thus, from an economical point of view, we appear to lose ⅕, or 20 per cent., of our wheat by submitting it to the numerous treatments involved in the manufacture of flour. But is this really the case? We think not. For much of the nitrogen in the rejected parts is not in the form of flesh-forming matter, and much that does so exist in the bran passes unaltered and unused through the alimentary canal, because of its close incorporation with fibre. But on the other side we must not forget that bone-forming materials are clearly deficient in wheaten flour, and that those phosphatic compounds present in bran are readily soluble to a large extent, not only in the several digestive secretions with which they come in contact in the body, but also in pure water.
But in comparing and contrasting bread made from flour with that made from whole wheat, Church considers other points. We shall find it impossible to make, by means of leaven or yeast, a light spongy loaf from whole wheat finely ground, the so-calledcerealinof the bran inducing chemical changes which result in a moist, clammy, dense product. Even whole wheat merely crushed into meal, and not ground, partakes of the same defect. Fine flour, on the other hand, yields a bread which is light enough before mastication, but which, when masticated, possesses a marked tendency to become compacted into dense lumps which may never become penetrated by the gastric and intestinal juices, and which are a frequent cause of constipation. Whole-meal bread cannot be charged with this defect; indeed it acts medicinally as a laxative, and by reason of its mechanical texture is hurried rather too quickly along the digestive track, so that the full virtue of such of its nutrients as are really soluble becomes in part lost. Yet there is no doubt that for many persons, especially those who have passed middle age and are engaged in sedentary occupations, whole wheaten meal in the form of bread, biscuits, scones, &c., forms an invaluable diet.
The following analysis may present some of the foregoing statements in a cleared light, and may add some additional particulars of interest. They represent, so far as a couple of sets of average results can do so, the percentage composition of ordinary white bread and of the whole-meal bread made by Hill and Son:—