Correspondence

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 26, 16 August 1890, Page 3

Correspondence

'\We are not responsible for the opinions ■ of our correspondents.] "WHEAT CEUSHING. TO THE RDTTOK OF THE STAR. Sib, — Will you kindly allow me, through the columns of your valuable paper, to say a few words respecting the qualities of flour and wheat meal, as I think there are a great many people in Feildiner under the impression that white roller flour is more nutritious and wholesome than stone flour or wheat meal, for they would certainly not send their money out of the place for an article if they did not think it superior to that which could be obtained locally. Now, with regard to the different kinds of flour and wheat meal, I should place wheat meal at the head, as being the most nutritious and wholesome, and in every •way more suitable as food for man . Stone . flour would range second, and roller flour third. It is well known to medical men and to all who have taken the trouble to gtudy the matter, that the finer flour is ground and dressed the more difficult of digestion it becomes, because it is thereby robbed of many of its best digestive properties. Miller's go to a deal of trouble in getting up a white flour for the market, bus most of them have too much sense to use it themselves; they consume that which is the most wholesome, yiz., wheat meal. I will quote what one of the leading physicians of the United States of America say 3 concerning flour : — " 1. Flour is the only impoverished food used by mankind, impoverished by the withdrawal of tiie tet.umintary portion of the wheat, leaving the internal, starchy or white portion. In 1000 parts of substance wheat has an ash of 17*7 parts, flour has an ash of 4'l parts parts — an impoverishment of oyer threefourths. Wheat has B*2 parts phosphoric acid, flour has 2*l parts phosphoric acid*an impoverishment of about three-fourths. Wheat has o'6 lime and 06 soda, flour has o*l lime and o*l soda — an impoverishment of five-sixths each. Wheat has I*s sulpher, flour has no sulpher. Wheat has silica o*3, flour has no silica. 2. Flour is mostly Btarch — 687 per cent. Its formula, chemical composition, is C lO, 11 12, O 12, three elements — carbon, hydrogen, oxygen. The human body contains at least twelve elements besides those of starch. How, then, can flour be nutritious with about three elements when it should contain fifteen elements in order to properly nourish and sustain the human body. 3. Flour has less giutten than wheat. Gluten is the albuminvoid principle j corresponding to the albumen, fibrine I and gelatine in the human body. 4. Do"s fed by Magendie on flour bread, died in forty days, other dogs fed on bread from whole wheat nieal flourished and throve. Thc^iree-fourths impoverishment of the JtnirflK ingredients proved fatal to the Why should not mankind suffer in tha same manner from living on impover-

food ? 5. There is every probability that the present prevalence of late erupting and easily decaying teeth is due, for one (wisp, fo the use of flour as food. A florv to be food must contain in proper quanii ues all ingredients found in the tissues, l : a : r, teeth, etc. If it does not, then impairment of vigor, decay, and falling off must be expected as a natural rouses quence. 6. Flour for half a century _liabeen regarded as one cause of constipation. It has been proved that whole wheat meal regulates the bowels by giving the system nerve food to ' run,' so to speak, the digestive functions, and promote healthy peristaltic motions. Nearly all our function* are sustained by nerve force, hence the importance of having the nerves receive their full amount of phosphoric acid, which is the great pabulum of the nerve ti ;sue. Why should mankind, then, use white Hour and render themselves liable to disease, because such flour is impoverished food? Remember Magendie's dogs which died from eating white-flour bread exclusively. How can parents expect their children to grow up with strong teeth, nerves, eyes, hair, etc., on flour ? In children every tissue and organ is growing, increasing in size, and developing. Every element which belongs to these tissues and organs should be contained in the food or alimentary substances, and in normal proportions, as provided by the Creator, in the natural substances designed and proved by history to be perfect food. Wheat is such an article, but white flour made from it is a substance weakened and deteriorated and impoverished ; and history shows that people eating it are more subject to tissue wasting disease (consumption, etc.,) than ever before. What principle of aesthetics is it that confers such a pre-eminent place upon the color of white ? Why not bronze ? What is more grateful to the senses than the complimentary colors of landscape ? If it were all white it would be both repulsive and injurious. This preference of white over yellow or brown or any other color is not based upon the truth of existing facts, else it would be inferred that a pure white statue is preferable to a bronze. The fact is the elevation of white bread into the highest place of prefeiment is altogether unwarrantable. The white color comes from starch, and the whiter the bread the more starch it contains, and of course the less nutrition, as starch has only carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen to make tissue, which would contain fifteen elements. The whiteness of the flour is, in fact, the outward sign of the starvation and death within. Indeed the present universal use of white flour is one of the most remarkable facts in the history of civilisation. Remarkable because it is the only impoverished food on the diet lint. Over-boiled meats and vegetables are the only approach to impoverished food. People know enough not to eat them. But that they should love to eat white flour is certainly very remarkable indeed, and almost an evidence of a fallen nature, as there is nothing like it in the whole history of food consumption. — I am, &c, Investigator.