A good deal has been said, during the past few years, as to the
respective merits of entire wheat and white flour breads. Entire
wheat flour is simply the whole grain ground up ; white, or so-
called refined flour, is obtained by removing the germ and most
of the outer covering of the grain. The ordinary "Graham" bread
sold by most bakers is merely white flour mixed with bran, and
usually a small amount of molasses✪ White and Entire Wheat Bread or malt, to give color and
flavor. This is not the same as entire wheat bread, because white
flour and bran are only two out of several products of the mill,
middlings, shorts, etc., also belonging to the bread.
The analysis of entire wheat and white flour, as given on page
32, shows the removal of the greater part of combined mineral
from wheat, in the manufacture of modern white flour; and the
same is true of the commercially ground corn meal. This is sig-
nificant indeed, when so much is heard about "deficiency" diseases,
and the association of deficiency of mineral and vitamine with
nervous collapse, rickets, etc. The natural result of living on a
more or less exclusive diet of white bread, white rice, refined
sugars, demineralized breakfast foods, and vegetables that have
been depleted of their mineral salts by improper cooking, is a
condition of saline starvation; and it often manifests itself in
nervous irritability, neuralgia, sciatica, and other complaints of a
nervous origin. As one writer (Broadbent) has said, "A whole
page could easily be filled with a list of protean maladies due to
this condition."
Thus we may say positively that what is craved by the normal
appetite, and fills so important a place in the vital economy, is not
the white sugar of commerce, but the saccharine elements in fruits
and succulent vegetables. It is not the starch of refined white
flour, or polished rice, or degerminated corn meal, that is needed
to nourish the body and develop strength, but it is the amylaceous
(starchy) matter and oily constituents contained in foods proper,
which, when combined in the food entire, give honest, all-round
building material.
35
SCIENCE of FOOD and COOKERY
Nearly one hundred years ago, Sylvester Graham led out in a
great health movement in America, in which multitudes who had
been considered incurable were restored to health by adopting his
dietetic ideas. He advised his followers 'to eat entire wheat bread
(it became known as Graham bread, after his name), which other
people despised, just as the nations of the East were despising
natural brown rice, and were suffering physical disorders in con-
sequence. Graham taught the people the importance of the whole
grain, including its outer coverings,, and of the fresh green foods
in all their strength. He advocated the use of the very foods that
contain vitamine, and we are now in possession of evidence as to
the scientific reasons for the results he obtained.
Page 18 · 1 recipe record on this page
Presented as published in 1921. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
A good deal has been said, during the past few years, as to the respective merits of entire wheat and white flour breads. Entire wheat flour is simply the whole grain ground up ; white, or socalled refined flour, is obtained by removing the germ and most of the outer covering of the grain. The ordinary "Graham" bread sold by most bakers is merely white flour mixed with bran, and usually a small amount of molasses or malt, to give color and flavor. This is not the same as entire wheat bread, because white flour and bran are only two out of several products of the mill, middlings, shorts, etc., also belonging to the bread.
The analysis of entire wheat and white flour, as given on page 32, shows the removal of the greater part of combined mineral from wheat, in the manufacture of modern white flour; and the same is true of the commercially ground corn meal. This is significant indeed, when so much is heard about "deficiency" diseases, and the association of deficiency of mineral and vitamine with nervous collapse, rickets, etc. The natural result of living on a more or less exclusive diet of white bread, white rice, refined sugars, demineralized breakfast foods, and vegetables that have been depleted of their mineral salts by improper cooking, is a condition of saline starvation; and it often manifests itself in nervous irritability, neuralgia, sciatica, and other complaints of a nervous origin. As one writer (Broadbent) has said, "A whole page could easily be filled with a list of protean maladies due to this condition."
Thus we may say positively that what is craved by the normal appetite, and fills so important a place in the vital economy, is not the white sugar of commerce, but the saccharine elements in fruits and succulent vegetables. It is not the starch of refined white flour, or polished rice, or degerminated corn meal, that is needed to nourish the body and develop strength, but it is the amylaceous (starchy) matter and oily constituents contained in foods proper, which, when combined in the food entire, give honest, all-round building material.
Nearly one hundred years ago, Sylvester Graham led out in a great health movement in America, in which multitudes who had been considered incurable were restored to health by adopting his dietetic ideas. He advised his followers 'to eat entire wheat bread (it became known as Graham bread, after his name), which other people despised, just as the nations of the East were despising natural brown rice, and were suffering physical disorders in consequence. Graham taught the people the importance of the whole grain, including its outer coverings, and of the fresh green foods in all their strength. He advocated the use of the very foods that contain vitamine, and we are now in possession of evidence as to the scientific reasons for the results he obtained.
Records on this page
White and Entire Wheat Bread