Food Values

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 258, 29 July 1939, Page 3 (Supplement)

Food Values

Results Of Eating White Flour

(By A. E. Lorimer, M.Sc., A.1.C.) WHITE flour is the product obtained ’’ by removing the brau and the germ (pollard) from the wheat heWJt is obtained from the part of t wheat which is the food-store for the growing plant, but which does not contain that portion of the grain from which the new shoots develop. Yet biochemists have dllscovered iu the past few years that the '’itamius and the mineral salts of the wheat ar contained in the bran and in the gum. The refining of flour therefore makes it into a devitaminized and demineralEvery housewife knows that she cannot make such light scones, cakes or pasties with wholemeal flour as read ly as she can with white flour. Generally, her pride in her cooking is such .that she bakes light, fluffy cakes from white flour in order that her baking may be as light and attractive as that of her neighbour. But does she stop to consider whether those cakes and scones which are made from white flour have the same food value as those made from wholemeal flour? Has she ever considered whether the health of her family is being sacrificed on the altar of physical appearance? It is a fact that the use of white flour is very detrimental to health it eaten over a number of years, and we are beginning to understand, some of the reasons why. The chief vffamin which is found in wholemeal flour, and which is practically absent in white flour, is vitamin 81. This substance is needed in very small amounts daily —approximately one-thousandth of an ounce—and yet if it is not present in sufficient quantities in the daily food the 'body will no longer function normally and all sorts of deficiency symptoms will arise. Vitamin Bl is found in adequate quantity in only three foods, and these ate whole cereals, yeast and liver. Liver can be eaten once a week, but we in New Zealand do not use the fermented milk drinks which are so popular in other parts of the world, nor do we use yeast as a food in any quantity in any other way, the amount present in bread being of practically no significance. So we are forced back on whole cereals as the only available source of this vitamin. To appreciate, therefore, the importance of wholemeal foods such as wholemeal bread and wholemeal porridge, we must know something of the physiological action of vitamin Bl in the body. Briefly, it is this: The myriads of cells

of which the body is composed, have as one of their main functions the burning of gluc'ose- One of the chief agents which helps to bring about this “burning” of the glucose is vitamin 81. It is comparable to the match which lights the fire. Wood and paper can be put together for ever in a grate and there will be no Are until the match is applied. It is the same in the human body. Starches and sugars are broken down into glucose, but the glucose cannot be fully burnt into carbon dioxide and water unless there is an adequacy of vitamin Bl in the cell.

In the absence of sufficient of this vitamin, lactic acid tends to accumulate in the heart, and the brain and this accumulation in its turn is connected in some way with a slowing-up of the heart beat and with the control of the nerves.

Long-continued shortages of vitamin 81, through the daily use of white flour instead of wholemeal flour, may lead In time to the impairment of the function of the heart and the nerves. In other words, biochemistry is beginning to offer a probable explanation of the great incidence of some of the nervous disorders which are only too common in our community! It would appear that the food we eat makes an important contribution to the general wellbeing of our nervous system. Yet housewives continue to feed white flour products to their families, unaware of the grave harm which they may be inflicting unknowingly. No mother would deliberately make her children ill, and yet this is what she may be doing when she denies them gem of the wheat in the cereal food which she serves to them at every meal.