LIQUID BREAD

White Ribbon, Volume 18, Issue 4, 1 May 1946, Page 5

LIQUID BREAD

Helen B. Montgomery, in “Rochester ( \ Y.) Democrat and Chronicle. ’ ‘•J am often reminded, when I hear the plea frequently advanced tor the (return of light wines and beer, ot an article that I read in an English paper under the caption, ‘Liquid Bread.’ The phrase was used in the advertisement of a well-known brewing company in England, and one day a man saw a »ign o\er a public-house door which read: ‘Good Ale is Liquid Bread.’ His story follows: “1 went into the house and said, ‘Get me a quart of liquid bread.’ “The landlord said, ‘Ah, first-rate sign, isn’t it ?’ “‘Yes,’ said I, ‘if it’s true.’ ‘“Oh, it’s true enough, my beer is all light.' “‘Well, give me a bottle to take home.’ He gave me a bottle of this liquid bread. 1 took it to Dr. Samuelson, an analytical chemist, and I said to him, ‘1 want you to tell me how much bread there is in this bottle.’ He smelled it and exclaimed, ‘lt’s beer!’

‘‘‘Well,’ he said, ‘if you come again in a week, I'll tell you all about it.’ He charged me three guineas. In a week’s time I went to know all alxnit the liquid bread. The first thing about it was that there was 93 per cent of water.

“‘lt’s liquid, anyhow,’ I said, ‘well pass that. Now let’s pet onto the bread.” “ ‘Alcohol, 5 per cent.’ ‘“What’s alcohol?’ I asked. “‘There’s a dictionary, you cm hunt it up for yourself.’ “I hunted it up and found alcohol described as a ‘powerful poison.’ “Then he gave me a number of small percentages of curious things, which lie had put carefully down, on each corner of a white piece of paper and which amounted to about a quarter of a thimbleful of dirty-looking powder. 1 hat was the bread—2 per cent. \nd there would not be so much as that,’ said Doctor Samuelson, ‘if it were Bass’s or Allsops’. This is had beer.’ ” I bis is the simple, scientific truth with regard to beer, and the case is stronger with regard to wine and spirits. I here is practically no nourishment in them at all.

I Hunk he has a rather low percentage of alcohol in his ale, but let it go at that—the point is that ale or beer is not a food, but a powerful narcotic poison.’ To hear people talk, you would think that wine and beer were harmless beverages, hardly to he called intoxicating liquors. Have people forgotten so soon that 90 per cent, of all the liquid sold over the bar before the coming of the Eighteenth Amendment was beer ?

** s you begin to study into the matter you find that all the drunkenness ( , t the ancient world was beer and wine drunkenness. It was wine that

destroyed Greece and Rome. All the horrid accounts of the drunken banquets of the Roman Emperors are written about the use of wine The same is true of Babylon and Assyria. All these nations were destroyed not by distilled alcoholic liquors like* gin and rum, whisky and brandy, hut by wine and beer. For it must never be forgotten that the process of distillation was not known for a thousand years after Christ. All the drunkards of the ancient world from Father Noah down were wine or beer drunkards. How terrible was the curse oi fermented liquor in this ancient world, may he seen from the fact tha; Buddha forbade drink to Ids followers in the Sixth Century 8.C.,-and Mohammed t<< those who embraced his new religion in the Sixth Century of the present

era. “The liquor of Mexico and South America is fermented; so is the liquor of japan and Siam. In ail those countries there is rising a strong movement against their own form of strong drink.

“l feel that people should he informed so that they may withstand the real menace of the pica that America allow these ‘innocent beverages’ back again. There ncxer was a truer word said in the Bible than that V'iiich declares, ‘Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging and whoso is deceived thereby is not wise.’ ”

Apropos of the above one feels some wonder, not untouched by indignant horror, on learning that 39,000 tons of bar!cy have been set aside for the brewers in Germany, according to an announcement made on January 31st in a Frankfurt dispatch. The terrible stories of the sufferings of people in Germany due to the lack of food have moved the hearts of their late enemies to pity; and sacrifice is being asked, and even demanded, on their behalf. When it is remembered that people in England are suffering actual privation in order that the situation may be relieved, and this statement is made, the wonder is that so little is heard by way of protest. For the assistance of any who may meet with the argument that beer provides nourishment, we republish the following extract from an Editorial in the issue of April 18th, 1942, which gives very helpful information:—

A Contrast Barley-Malt, “Pint of Beer,” grains. grains. 210.4 Body-building material 37.6 1019.0 Energy-yielding material ,143.8 27.0 Fat 0.0 184.7 Cellulose 0.0 35.7 Mineral Ash 26.6 0.0 Acids 35.8 105.2 Water 8090.0 0.0 Alcohol 328.1 Rich Vitamins Nil

(Verdict of Dr. C. Chapman, Chemist to Brewers’ Society, in evidence before the Royal Commission —British.)

To take nourishing barley and convert it into a narcotic poison is decidedly no service to the community. But alcohol is also a racial poison. The late Dr. Saleeby, the world’s greatest eueenist, wrote: “The poisoning of the race, of the germ plasm, is the worst thing alcohol does against mankind.”

The facts given below were read also at Dominion Convention, and arc w T ortli studying (Ed ).