HEALTH OF CHILDREN

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 96, 17 January 1921, Page 7

HEALTH OF CHILDREN

INFERIORITY OF WHITE DREAD

COMPARED WITH WHEAT MEAL ■ (Published Under the Authority of the Education Department.) From the point of view of nutrition, white flour'compares very unfavourably with wheatmeal. It is wholly deficient in the substances known as vitamines, which are so essential for the proper nourishment and growth of the human body, more particularly in the case of growing children. In the process of manufacture white flour has been deprived of those mineral necessary for the efficient'- development of the bones and teeth, and for the maintenance of the blood at its normal composition and vital activity. In support of the above statements it is advisable to refer to the published writings of eminent physiologists who have devoted much time to research upon this question. Professor Starling, the eminent physiologist, of England, says: “Animals fed upon demineralised or refined food rapidly show distaste for such food, become ill, and die sooner than if they received no food at all. It is therefore evident that the mineral constituents of food, although yielding no energy in themselves, are as necessary to the maintenance of life as the energy-yield-ing foodstuffs." Dr. Frederick Gowland Hopkins, of the Department of Chemical Physiology, University of Cambridge, who is a leading authority and experimenter in .nutrition, says: —“The superior value of whole wheatmeal lies in the fact that it retains certain food substances whose presence allows our systems to make full use of fhe tissue-build-ing elemente of the grain. These substances are removed from the fine white flour in the milling.” Superior Value of Wheatmeal. “All my work to date,” says Professor Hopkins, “confirms my belief in the superior food value of whole wheat bread. After definitely proving that! young animals grow with very much greater rapidity on brown flour than on white flour. I have been able to improve the tissuebuilding rata of the white flour animals by adding to their white flour an extract made from the. brown flour. To make the best use of any food material, such as the proteins, for instance, certain other food substances, and- possibly variety of them, must also be present in definite proportions. If one essential food constituent which ought to make up at least 1 per cent, of the total food is present! in only half its normal amount, the body will then only be .able to make use of half of the other food elements oven if these other food elements make up the main bulk of the food. The absolute amount of any mineral element employeel in growth is very small compared with the other food constituent's, but any deficiency in its limits growth as surely as a. deficiency in the. more important elementa. The substances of unknown nature (vitamines) may need to be present in very small amount, but if the necessary minimum is not available the utilisation of other constituents in tissue growth or repair is infallibly deficient. ■ In the process of converting the wheat grain to fine white flour t'hefle elements are lost or destroyed. It follows that no matter how much nourishment they might otherwise contain, our systems cannot make the best use of such nourishment, owing to the absence of those elements necessary to their assimilation.” Indisputable Facts. Dr. Benjamin Moore, chief of the biochemical department of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, says -.— “Groups of .pigeons have been fed on fine white bread,made from white flour, while similar groups of pigeons have been given an ordinary quantity of whole wheat bread. The white bread pigeons have all speedily developed marked symptoms of malnutrition and serious nerve derangements. Besides losing weight, they sit listless and shivering, lose power in their legs, suggesting nerve paralysis, while many develop convulsions. The whole wheat bread pigeons, on (Tie other hand, continue healthy and up to normal weight. In another series of experiments pigeons which had developed grave nervous symptoms on a white bread diet recovered completely and rapidly when placed on an exclusive whole wheat bread diet.” Prevalent Disease Due to Defective Nutrition. The significance of these facts is apparent. .If the bread in a child’s diea is exclusively white breSd, that diet is almost certain to be Jo a certain extent deficient in important: constituents. In the majority of cases it is practically certain that the deficiencies of white bread are not completely made good by other foods. These deficiencies in nutrition are reflected in the dental disease, the high susceptibility to infection, and other defects prevalent in children. So long as parents are satisfied to allow white bread to occupy a prominent place in the diet of children, those diseases and the liability to them will almost certainly continue.