THE STAFF OF LIFE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LI, Issue 9139, 11 July 1906, Page 6

THE STAFF OF LIFE.

Fifty years ago a small handful of settlers in this neighborhood (says the Wairarapa Daily Times) understood chat bread was the staff of life in a way that is now impossible. In those early days tho up-country farmer grew his own wheat, ground it with a hand grinder, and his wife made the meal into bread. At that period there was no professional miller and no professional baker to tickle the palate with superfine flour and a milkwhite emasculated loaf. All that wa6 in the wheat went into the bread, and a loaf fifty years ago meant a good' deal more than it does now.

The perfect loaf, which can only be regarded as the staff of life, must be made of coarse flour. The wheat requires to be ground about the same fineness that the molar testh will grind it. The comparative coarseness of such meal ensures a due penetration and action by the gastric juices. Xature has so made man that food of a certain coarseness is digestible and food of a certain fineness is indigestible. .Bifty years ago the coarser food was customary, but to-day the preference is for the fimeT food, and therefore the miUer and the baker give the public what they ask for rather than that which is good for them. The loaf of the present day is pleasant to the taste, but it is not altogethier the staff of life.

Even the action of yeast leads to a partial decomposition of the meal 1 and a loss of its substance. The ideal bread is simply flour and water mixed together — the unleavened bread which was eaten by the Israelites in the days of old, and which is still used in certain solemn anniversaries by their descendants. The unleavened bread is not so nice to the taste as the leavened bread, but it is purer and more rholesome and keeps swf-et while the leavened bread becomes sour.

. The bread of the present day is made of flour from which the shell of the phosphates has been taken away. This shell is a valuable nourishment for both brain and bones. In feeding a racehorse, no owner would dream of -removing from its food this important husk. No trainee would take the risk of rearing a pure-bred colt on crraiii reduced to the fineness which is considered suitable for^fouman requirements. Hence, as a rule, 'a valuable horse is better fed than the average man or boy. It is a question, perhaps, whether the hoise enjoys his feed as much as the man or Ihe boy, but undoubtedly the food of the former is more strengthening, and more in accordance with t.he natural laws of health.

A man may not eat exactly as a horse does, but in many ways he can adapt ■wholesome foods to the animal (requirements of his body. Crushed or cracked wheat, not deprived of its bran, cooked Eke rice and eaten with a little cream or milk, is, for example, an ideal food — cheap, wholesome, nourishing, and fairly pleasant to the palate. Indian corn meal also is very wholesome, especially during the winter season, as it contains more carton or fatty matter tihan the wheaten loaf. However, we do not expect the public to forsake its old habit of eating dainty, but less wholesome, bread. Here and there it may be possible to suggest to some old man who eats to live — rather than lives to eat — the idea that by a recourse to a more simple and nourishing natural food both health 'and money may be saved. Or it may be possible to draw the attention of some anxious parent to a natural means by which a rickety child may bo made strong and vigorous.