HOME HEALTH GUIDE

Chronicle (Levin), 10 July 1946, Page 7

HOME HEALTH GUIDE

THE BREAD PROBLEM ( By the Departnient of Health.) People coiiipliiin about the suileuess of bread at the week-oiuls. In trying to keep bread fresh, alauulon the oldl'ashioned titi, with its tightly elosed lid. The best \v:iy to keep a Ioaf fresh is to wrap it in a clean, dry cloth and store in a weil ventilated place in a cu[)bo;u'd. If you liavc a built-iu bread bin,- it sliould be weil ventilated. If you use a box or tin-, there should not only be ventilation ltoles, but the lid sliould be prevented from shutting tightly, and be kept tilted. Any bread storage plaee should be washed out once a week and dried thoroughly. The point is, if you want to keep bread fresh, the loaf must liave air. As a matter of fact, on medical grounds there is no point in liaving | bread fresh. It is more digestible when stale. New bread, unless vcry thoroughly cliewed indeed, forms dougliy lumps in the stomach. Tliese doughy liinsses put up considerably more light' against digestion than does stale lnead. .The story liegins in the mouth. There Ino saliva starts olf the digestion of bread by t'urning the starch into sugars. The more the bread is cliewed the more tlie saliva gets mixed in, and more and ; more of the starch is turned to sugars that are soluble and tlierefore digestible. The moistuess of new bread is j the trouble. It is not so easv.to chew land because it is so moist alreadv, it can 't take up so inuch saliva. Stale bread is broken down more Jinely by the teetli and is .nore easily saturated with saliva. That is whv toast and crusts are more easily digested. There are folk who can eut fresh i bVead with iinpuiiity, but that docs not prove that it is as digestible ' as stale bread. A test sliowed that newly1 baked bread can pass the whole of the small intestine Avitliout becoming di- , gested. i