FoodNet

A practical cook and text book for general use

1896

Page 31

Presented as published in 1896. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
bones, soft fat, and imperfect teeth are the product of white bread, the finer and whiter it is, the more disastrous the result to the young. In spite of teaching, the foolish and fanciful custom grown into life long habit is still in the ascendent and places the snow white loaf upon the table, instead of the softly tinted brown, which is far more nutritious, and would be prefered if its real merits were better understood. It is a fact that we must pay for and consume three or four times as much white bread, and white flour to obtain the same value in phosphates, salts, etc., that are found in the flour or meal of the entire grain. And yet more than two-thirds of our people pur- chase, make and feed their families on white bread, and make white flour the basis of nearly every article pre- pared in the pantry. It need be no longer a matter of surprise that nervous, restless men, women and children are always ready to indulge in a " bite of something " at home or abroad, or that they are also prepared to drink any and everything that tastes good, and indulge in chewing tobacco and gum, smoking cigars and cigarettes. Even " tea cigar- ettes " having now appeared in market, there can be no better evidence of the stimulating eifects of tea. In the impoverished food supply of the world, that fails to properly nourish, we shall discover why we have saloons and ten thousand ills, and men and women created devoid of will to resist temptations daily before them. " By their fruits ye shall know them.'' By their food ye shall determine the quality of their fruits whether war- like or peaceful, healthy or diseased. Home is the starting point of these "fruits." From the moment the teeth appear and even earlier good bread BREAD. 8 1 is the foundation for a perfect physical structure. When the world recognizes this truth with sufficient clearness to practically illustrate it in " our daily bread," we shall be no longer dependent upon patent nostrums advertised as brain foods, nerve renovators, predigested foods, flesh formers, blood makers, fat destroyers and phosphates. All these desirable articles that are lacking in the body, through improper food, will be found in Nature's labora- tory, produced from earth, air and sunlight, and vitalized by natural electricity. That intelligence of the highest order may be developed in the race, that will lead us out and away from vice and crime, from social and moral sins and establish us upon a higher plane of thought and act, we must build and sustain our bodies upon the best and purest material. Graham Meal. It was a recognition of this fact, namely, that in the effort to make flour fine and white, millers had discarded all but its starchy properties, that led Dr. Graham to protest, and to furnish a half starved nation with flour which should contain all the properties of the wheat grain. Its success proved a temptation to dishonest millers, hence the market is often supplied with inferior wheat mixed with coarse bran and refuse including dirt, and labelled Graham flour. When physicians advise their patients to eat Graham bread, the abovfe is the flour they usually obtain, unless they investigate for themselves. No wonder the senses of an invalid loathe the sight of the coarse, dark mixture, and insist upon sifting it, which process wastes nearly half. Then a serious mistake is made by the cook when she adds to this a quantity of 7nolasses, sugar, salt, lard or 82 THE FAT OF THE LAND. butter and yeasty producing what is sometimes known as "bread for dyspeptics." Such bread never cured a dys- peptic, but it has doubtless assisted in creating many of them.