Appendicitis and White Bread.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue 246, 16 November 1903, Page 4

Appendicitis and White Bread.

Many theories are afloat as to tha cause of the seeipingly prevalent and latter-day complaint of appendicitis. But a very probable cause has apparently escaped notice. Does white wheat flour cause appendicitis ? Some doctors say so. They argue in this way : ''Years ago, when the whoje wheat used to 1 be ground into flour, people did not have appendicitis. Now, when the wheat is ground fine, and the coarser parts are fanned out, people are having appendicitis very frequently." Th«re may be some truth in this, and perhaps a great deal of truth in it. Most of the flour that is used for food today has had the life ground out of it. A little starch and a trace of gluten are left. The bran, which is so useful in stimulating the bowels to their normal vernicular move-, ments, is entirely blown out. The life-giving phosphates that reside near the outside of the husk and in the chit of the wheat are also eliminated. Ground to death—that is what is the matter with flour. WHAT WHITE BREAD DOES. Mix up such flour, and it becomes about as difficult to make bread out of as plaster of Paris. So it is that bakers to make light bread must use all sortß of chemicals alum, ammonia, and other strong mixtures to get the stufl to rise. If the whole wheat was ground as it ought to be, and then made into good, palatable, wholesome, big, brown loaves, much of the dyspepsia and bowel complaints, and appendictis would disappear. White bread makes bad breath, bad tempers, and bad digestion. For aesthetic people the white bread is preferred, because it looks better. Nice, spongy, and milk white ! Take a loaf of it as toi-g as your head, clasp it in two hands, and a goad strong man can reduce it to the size of a small stone, and it will be nearly as indigestible. It looks «icp on the table—so fluffy and light, A, hungry man can eat the stufl all day without appeasing his appetite, but he acquires a. first-class case of constipation. Whole wheat bread is not so nice for such purposes 1 . It crumbles. It is dark looking 1 . It is too soliid. When you eat it satisfies your hunger and does net give you constipation. Whole wheat bread does not make such a nice ornament for the sideboard as white bread, but it has got more sustenance in it. With a stomach full of white bread a man feels like an anarchist full of cheap whisky. No wonder our forefathers were so. heftHJiy, They Ate whole wheat breed ground at the neighbouring mill, bran and all. -No wonder we have so much bad temper and infelicity nowadays. Everybody is full of white wheat bread, and its dire consequences. For a while certain authorities tried to lay appendicitis tp grap<3 seeds, and kept right ou stuffing themselves wit'h white bread. Grape seeds will pot work any more. It is, says an eminent authority, those abominable wads of white flour and strong chemicals called bread that keep the surgeons all busy operating for appendicitis, WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR THE REMEDY*

The millers are beginning to appreciate this. They are recognising! the fact that they ought to have whole wheat flour. Mills are being constructed in England on purpose to serve this end. Get some whole wheat flour and make some bread once, and see how it ivill taste to eat the bread of your forefathers—the bread that made the brawn that hewed the homes out of the wilderness and wastes of a wild country. Get some of this kind of bread in you, and you will not need to take pepsin powders or constipation pills, and .your chances of getting into a hospital to undergo an operation for appendicitis will not be very good-—Science Sittings.