When soluble starches are thoroughly mixed with saliva, their
digestion continues for a length of time after the food enters the
stomach. The acid from the glands of the stomach penetrates the
mass of food, only gradually; but when the contents of the stomach
have become acidified, starch digestion ceases there. This empha-
sizes the need of thorough mouth treatment of all starchy foods, in
order that they may be properly acted upon by the ptyalin of saliva
before the stomach is made too acid for their proper digestion.
FRUITS AND VEGETABLES
To mix fruits and vegetables (especially the coarser vegetables,
such as beets, turnips, onions, boiled cabbage, etc.) at the same
meal is never advisable; not only with respect to the blending of
acids with starchy vegetables, but because of the differing periods
of time required for their digestion. Fruits, as a rule, are very
quickly digested, a sweet apple requiring but a little more than
an hour, while a heavy vegetable, such as boiled cabbage, requires
from four to six hours. When these are mixed together in the
stomach, the lengthy process of vegetable digestion serves to de-
tain the fruit mixture beyond its normal limit, until fermentation
naturally results.
"It is better to have the fruit at one meal, and vegetables at
another." — White.
75
SCIENCE of FOOD and COOKERY
SUGAR AND MILK IN EXCESS
"Large quantities of milk and sugar eaten together are in-
jurious." "Sugar clogs the system. It hinders the working of
the living machine." — White.
Sugar as eaten in beets or in sugar cane is a natural food, and
wholesome; but when taken in the concentrated form of our mod-
ern white sugar of commerce, it is an artificial product, and its
free use is a positive injury to the system. It favors fermentation,
and is an intestinal irritant. Until about the eighteenth century,
this sugar was sold only in drug stores, being used principally in
the making of medicine. Now an average of about eighty-five
pounds per capita is used in the United States annually.
The free use of refined sugar is said to be the cause of an
excessive secretion of hydrochloric acid. Intestinal catarrh, which
often leads to appendicitis, is traceable to the free use of white
sugar, sometimes spoken of by well-known physicians as "solid
alcohol." During the great sugar shortage of 1918, pellagra is
said to have dropped off throughout the South, to such an extent
that the free use of sugar was shown to have been a contributing
cause of the disease. The adding of much sugar to mushes, with
milk, or its too free use in puddings and cakes, makes them un-
wholesome in proportion to the excess added.
As to the evil effects following the use of a combination of
milk and sugar, some very practical tests carried out in an up-to-
date physiology laboratory, brought to light the following inter-
esting facts:
1. That sugar is a distinct intestinal irritant; and the stomach,
in an effort to protect itself from injury, produces large amounts
of mucus. The amount of mucus produced varies with the sugar
concentration in the stomach.
2. That this mucus combines readily with the hydrochloric acid
of the gastric juice, and thus prevents the normal activity of
gastric juice upon substances requiring gastric digestion when
they are present in the stomach.
76
SCIENCE gf FOOD <z*< COOKERY
Page 41
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
When soluble starches are thoroughly mixed with saliva, their digestion continues for a length of time after the food enters the stomach. The acid from the glands of the stomach penetrates the mass of food, only gradually; but when the contents of the stomach have become acidified, starch digestion ceases there. This emphasizes the need of thorough mouth treatment of all starchy foods, in order that they may be properly acted upon by the ptyalin of saliva before the stomach is made too acid for their proper digestion.
FRUITS AND VEGETABLES
To mix fruits and vegetables (especially the coarser vegetables, such as beets, turnips, onions, boiled cabbage, etc.) at the same meal is never advisable; not only with respect to the blending of acids with starchy vegetables, but because of the differing periods of time required for their digestion. Fruits, as a rule, are very quickly digested, a sweet apple requiring but a little more than an hour, while a heavy vegetable, such as boiled cabbage, requires from four to six hours. When these are mixed together in the stomach, the lengthy process of vegetable digestion serves to detain the fruit mixture beyond its normal limit, until fermentation naturally results.
"It is better to have the fruit at one meal, and vegetables at another." — White.
SUGAR AND MILK IN EXCESS
"Large quantities of milk and sugar eaten together are injurious." "Sugar clogs the system. It hinders the working of the living machine." — White.
Sugar as eaten in beets or in sugar cane is a natural food, and wholesome; but when taken in the concentrated form of our modern white sugar of commerce, it is an artificial product, and its free use is a positive injury to the system. It favors fermentation, and is an intestinal irritant. Until about the eighteenth century, this sugar was sold only in drug stores, being used principally in the making of medicine. Now an average of about eighty-five pounds per capita is used in the United States annually.
The free use of refined sugar is said to be the cause of an excessive secretion of hydrochloric acid. Intestinal catarrh, which often leads to appendicitis, is traceable to the free use of white sugar, sometimes spoken of by well-known physicians as "solid alcohol." During the great sugar shortage of 1918, pellagra is said to have dropped off throughout the South, to such an extent that the free use of sugar was shown to have been a contributing cause of the disease. The adding of much sugar to mushes, with milk, or its too free use in puddings and cakes, makes them unwholesome in proportion to the excess added.
As to the evil effects following the use of a combination of milk and sugar, some very practical tests carried out in an up-todate physiology laboratory, brought to light the following interesting facts:
1. That sugar is a distinct intestinal irritant; and the stomach, in an effort to protect itself from injury, produces large amounts of mucus. The amount of mucus produced varies with the sugar concentration in the stomach.
2. That this mucus combines readily with the hydrochloric acid of the gastric juice, and thus prevents the normal activity of gastric juice upon substances requiring gastric digestion when they are present in the stomach.