WHOLE MEAL OR FLOUR STONE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXVI, Issue 13434, 22 July 1911, Page 11

WHOLE MEAL OR FLOUR STONE.

f SOME INTERESTING COMMENTS. "WHOLE MEAL OK STONE FLOUR. BY “HTGEIA.” I purposed continuing llic consideration of.large versus email families this week., but hare decided to postpone the subject in tike meantime in order to deal with a number of inquiries which have reached me concerning the relative nutritive values of “whole meal” or “stone-flour” as compared with the highlv-drcsKcd white flours in common use. IS WHITE FLOUR WRONG - During the present year very strong representations have been published at Home condemnatory of the general substitution of the more refined flours, which are held to have been deprived of some of their most essential nutriment elements, for th« simpler and coarser flours in use prior to the last half-century. Writing to me from Gosport, Hants, England, a mother says;— Has .the Standard Bread idea l>cen pushed in New Zealand? 1 suppwe the j Overseas Daily Mail has had articles. We'always use "Standard bread” now, and never have the ordinary white, so I hope it is good. It is supposed to contain 80 per cent, of the full wheat, with the samolina and “germ.” It sounds as though it must l>c more whole«ome than the very une white flour, and better for teeth and Lone. - Had 1 been questioned a year ago I should have been inclined to say "Fhc ' whichever is preferred"—indeed, I did i nay so in effect in this column, adding that the main thing was to give bread 1 in a form which would induce thorough y mastication—e.g., crusts; crisp, dry If toast; or pulled-bread dried and “buffed” in the oven, etc. That considerations of texture, toughness, dryness, ate., are of prime importance there can bo no doubt whatever, but recent investigations go a long way towards convincing one that in spite of the general verdict of scientific authorities in favour i of the greater digestibility of the finer I forms of flour, the earlier verdict of | Liebig and his school in favour of either j “whole meal" or “stone flour" was, aflc- 1 all, well-founded, had not the outcome ! of mere fancy or prejudice. |

' BREAD REFORM LEAGUE. The "Bread Reform League" of the last, century, though condemned by Dr. Robert Hutch won,, a leading English authority, in the latest edition of his book, "Food and Dietetics," seems likely now to have 'the principles which it advocated pustified, not merely by popular verdict, but br the results of scientific investigation also, ;...'. A. YEAR AGO. Last year, in reply to a correspondent, I said, in Our Babies -Cblu'nm: "It is true that chemical analysis 6howg a much higher percentage of proteid, fat, and mineral matter in whole-meal, but the proportions of each of these left undigested , and unabsorbed in the case of wholemeal is 60 much greater than in the case of refined flour, that the body derives Lorn white-flour as much as, or more than, it does, from whole-meal." Dr. Robert Hutchison sums up the position after an elaborate discussion by i-ay-iag:

There is therefore no justification for

recommending’ tho use of whole-meal bread by growing children or nursing v ' women. Ou the whole, we may fairly 1 regard the vexed question of whole-meal I versus white bread as finally settled, and settled in favour of the latter, and had due regard been paid to tbe behaviour of bread in the intestine instead of merely its cremical composition, the Bread Heform League would probably never have come into existence. "The matter cannot, however, be finally dismissed quite so definitely, especially in the case of children. The medical tendency was first to give undue weight to mere chemical composition, without considering the relative absorbability. Having found that the average civilised man absorbs the constituents of whole-meal breed very incompletely, the conclusion has been too'readily jumped at that in this form the nutritive constituents are intrinsic ill v less digestible—that they arc not ‘get-at-abl' . as if were, or that they nre jjuiried on too quickly, owing to tjie presence of inert bran. etc. Granted ♦flat this ; s true as regards those wlio muticate imperfectly, as is the case with most civilised people, there is no reason to suppose that the constituents of wholemeal would fail to be well absorbed if very thoroughly masticated. Further, the use of some whole-meal and oatmeal is often highly beneficial on account of the laxative tendency of such materials."

IN THE LIGHT OF TO-DAY. So- far so good, but I am inclined to think' in the light of a striking- article published in the current number of the British Medical Journal that what I adYianced a year ago in support of the use of the simpler forms of flour did not sjo far enough. It seems extremely probable that in the process of the higher refineA r*eht of flours, something veiy essential Jr to the nutrition of animals, which has hitherto escaped detection by analysis, is removed —that- something l>eing most likely contained in what is known as the "genu'' which' is" retained in "stone-flour*' but is j rejected-in the case of "cylinder flour." ! •DY. Leonard Hill, Lecturer on Physio- j logy at the London Hospital, a sound and ' unifcraally recognised authority on his subject, in a paper, given last month, on the NUTRITTYE VALUE OF WHITE AND STANDARD BREAD gays: Considering the public interest excited in this matter, aud the paucity of exact experimental evideuee, Mr Martin Flack and I have carried out a research on rats. We chose rats because they are carnivorous animals, and like man in this respect. We obtainrd as many young tame rats as wc could, and fed them for three weeks, some on white and some on Standard bread, and for a second three weeks on white and Standard flour respectively. Both the bread and flour were obtained in a countrr town, from ahops that supplied moat of the inhabitants. The rats were divided into two lots of 23 each, and -were kept under exactly the same conditions. The total weieiits of each lot were almost exactly the same at the etart.

The rats were given bread or flour and water, and no other food. At the end of three weeks wo changed from bread to flour, to see if the baking had anything to do with the result we were / obtaining, but found this made no difJL ference. ' /^*k The Result is Astonishing. From first to last th? rats fed on white bread or Ihiur luive done far the worse. Ten of them have died, and live of tlics-.-

were eaten by the others before we could remove their bodies. In the last fortnight we have prevented any further cannibalism. Five of those fed on Stand-

and bread or flour have died, and two have been eaten. The weather was very cold at first, and this partly explains the heavy morality. The white lot stood the cold worse. The tables show the great difference in the putting: on of weight in 15 rats of each lot. The Standard have increased 27.1 per cent., against .12 per cent, for the white in the last three weeks. At the end of the period the white 15 arc nearly all losing weight. The white-fed rats are far less lively and leas sleek in appearance. It seems clear tliat either our Stand-

ard flouts contained something essential to growth which was not in our white flours, or that the white Hours contained something 1 detrimental—for example, so called "improvers." We have tried another lot oil white Hour plus an amount of wheat genu about equal to that in Standard flour, and have found the results every bit as good as for .Standard flour. It is highly probable, that the germ, the growing part of the wheat grain, would contain ammo-acid groupings essential for growth, and possibly bodies which activate the enzymes engaged in the digestion of the proteins of wheat. Treatment of the white Hour may have destroyed these bodies. Y\ e arc now doing control experiments on further groups of rats—three groups of 23 each: (1) whole meal, (2) Standard, (3) white flour. The first week's weightings, jnet completed, show white Hour markedly inferior, and whole meal the best. The results given appear so striking that wo feel justified in publishing this preliminary note, 'ilie world will look with great interest lor the filial conclusions arrived at by Dr. Hill. Meantime, I may quote Dr. Oautier, the leading French authority on Dietetics, who, writing in his book, "Diet and Dietetics?" says:

A FRENCH OPINION. In large towns, fancy breads for both rich and poor have beeu manufactured from all time. In Paris, the breads spoken of as fancy hreads, being made from a flour which has been too much bolted, arc richer in starch and poorer in gluten than the broad spoken of as of second quality. They are better to look at", but less nourishing. On the contrary, in the country, the bread is coarser to look at, cither owing to the addition of a certain proportion of rye-flour, about an eighth, to prevent it drying and to give it more flavour, or because a part of the bran is left in it, or again hceauec it is bolted to 15 or 16 per cent, only, which causL's the flour to contain the'epispermic cells of the grain with their special forment cerealine. But this greyish bread, or brown bread, is more nutritive, save .y, richer in gluten, nitrogen, and phosphorus than white bread. Magendie, whilst studying bread from this point of view, noticed that a dog nourished solely with the best white bread, died at the end of $0 days, whereas another dog, exactfy similar, exclusively nourished on brown bread, lived indefinitely. The aooients ate only brown, bread, and the people who in* Europe hold to thie custom are very healthy. . Brown bread, especially when mixed with a little rye, is more nutritious and refreshing than white bread. . . It is seen that the yield by the millstone process is greater, and the weight of albuminoid matters higher than in the cas© of steel "cylinder flour." The exagorrated bolting of flours, since the departure made by the "cylindergrinding", i« substituting for ordinary broad ono which is whiter but less nutritive, less phosphorated, and less, nitrogenous, is certainly ono of the causes of the impairment of the geneTal health of Europe.