TOAST.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20743, 14 June 1929, Page 14

TOAST.

Toast invariably forms an important item in the carefully planned diets of those who wish to become slim. Nowadays stoutness is recognised as being generally due to a faulty digestion and time aie two reasons - why toast is chosen with such remarkable unanimity by dictists to overcome this trouble. U,he fiitit is well known; bread on toastmg becomes dry and crisp. Thus toast requires move chewing than uutoasted bread, and a thorough mastication is the hrst step toward the proper assimilation ot tood. But there is another reason for the inclusion of toast in slimming diets which is not so well known and is still move important.

Before starch—and broad is largely composed of starch—-can bo digested it must first be converted by the gastric juices into glucose. Starch, however, can also be converted into glucose by the action of heat. The temperature at which this tabes place is about 370 degrees F. When exposed to this degree ol heat, the composition' of glucose, which is a kind of sugar, is also altered. Sonic of it is changed into caramel. And the beautiful golden-brown colour, and. incidentally, the delightful flavour, of a well-toasted slice of bread is duo to this surface covering of caramel.

Obviously, the gastric juices experience little difficulty in digesting toast, because their work has' already been martially done for them. The thincr the slice of bread toasted the greater distance the heat can penetrate proportionately, and therefore the more of the starch is converted into glucose. •It is for this reason Hint thin slices oi toast figure so largely in special thinning diets.