Science Siftings

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 46, 2 December 1925, Page 62

Science Siftings

(By Volt)

A Few Words About Vitamines. What do vitamines do? How do they protect us against enemy bacilli? How promote , growth? Science, convinced of the use of vitamines, is now seeking reasons. The present trend of opinion is that our life-processes are guarded by the secretions of the so-called ductless glands— thyroid, adrenals, the spleen, the pituitary body in the brain— that vitamines help these glands to function. This . help is best supplied through diet. Seek proof in an instance. A man went for the Red Cross to Roumania. The Austrians had driven off all the cows; the national diet was a sparse ration of oatmeal and a thin soup made of bran and vegetables. Eye-diseases were common among the children; many were blind. The. , man heard that up in Archangel they had docked a vessel laden with evaporated milk. He bought the entire cargo; its vitamines saved the Roumanian babies. ' We must eat to —but if we eat carelessly we may eat to die. What must we eat to live? The Magic Power of Milk.—The fat soluble life-guand is widely distributed in Nature. Spinach alone, even after drying, gave rats enough to live on. But it perishes if kept an hour at water's boiling-point and is sensitive to that heating which is important in preserving. As for the water-soluble life- . guard, it also is present in nearly all leaf vegetables. But can one get enough of these vitamines in green foods to ensure all that is necessary to physical well-being and advancement ? No. Therefore, Time's revised food-creed begins: "Drink more pure milk!" The human stomach cannot accommodate as much green food as the cow's seven, and she passes' her store on to you in milk. Earth's 1 little peoples, like the Japanese, are dwarfed, the scientists declare, because they do not get enough milk and milk's fat-soluble vitamines. No other food so completely supplies the deficiencies of a diet of seeds and their products. And, unless one wants to continue to suffer from malnutrition,' there is this to remember about grains: : Flour that has 1 been bolted and sifted is like the rice that has been polished. Its vitamines have been "refined" away forcattle fodder. Countries which were free from deficiency diseases like scurvy and pellagra before the introduction of refined flours : have been known to develop such diseases . since highly-refined flours were introduced. In grain, the vitamines lie close to the husk's outer layer, and this outer layer is what the modern milling processes' tear away. ( That does not ban bread. Bread made • from properly prepared flour—that is, flour in which all or a large proportion of the • entire kernel has been preserved—is a vita- ; mine necessity. It has been proved that the • diet choice of the human family is, in many ; instances, based on a sort of subconscious • sense of what the human system needs, and breaid has long been the chief among these instinctive choices. "

As Appetite Promoters.—Ever since the j ' discovery of -vitamines, scientists and dietitians have noted loss of appetite among the symptoms indicative, of vitamine deficiency in, ; - $ the human body. And now, thanks to care- ] ful checking up on the part of tireless in- ,?J-j« vestigators, it is well established that ? invisible actually play a large*) ; part in promoting appetite. ' ,}. ' It has been found that animals fed on a ..';.'•*» diet deficient in them have invariably suffered loss of appetite, even to the point of absolute refusal of food. Yet as soon as vita- -: mines were added to the daily food portion, appetite began to return, and so long as , these elements were present, remained at J normal. ' "''•'" ' ' "'-.