N N Notes for WWI research: Louis Sheehan 11

N N Notes for WWI research: Louis Sheehan  11

The protein of food is used to build the body if we are young, and to restore the daily wear and tear if we are older. The mineral salts are also necessary for this purpose. Protein will be discussed further in the chapter on meat and meat substitutes, but it should be realized here that the protein we eat comes [pg 12]not only from these foods, but also from the cereals. Cereals supply a full half of the protein of many diets.

Cereals are therefore important for their fuel since they are rich in starch, and for their protein, and, if we eat the entire kernel, for their mineral matter and vitamines. They also have the pleasant flavor and texture which we have grown to like.

Wheat is no better than any of the other cereals. It possesses absolutely no nutritional advantage for man or beast over oats, corn, and rye. It has no more protein, and no better protein. It has no more fat and no better fat. It has no better mineral salts and in no larger amounts. It has no more fuel or better fuel. It is just one of the cereals, and there is not the slightest evidence that it is the best one. It has merely become one of our habits.

Corn and wheat and the other cereals are just as well digested if equally well prepared. A soggy piece of wheat bread may, of course, be less readily digestible than a well-made piece of corn-bread, but that is a question of skill in cooking, not of difference in cereals. Complaints have been heard in England about the war bread. It is true that it may be hard on those of frail digestive powers to change their food habits in any way, but Hutchison, an eminent London physician, in tracing down complaints, found that frequently people laid to the new bread ailments from which they had suffered before the war. "When in doubt, blame the war bread," seemed to be the motto.

THE SOCIAL IMPORTANCE OF CEREALS, ESPECIALLY WHEAT

The world eats more cereals than any other kind of food. They are so widely available, so cheap and nutritious, that they are a [pg 13]main reliance of the human race. A shortage is always extremely serious.

Not only is an abundance important, but an abundance of the accustomed kind. In parts of India, the inhabitants use rice as almost the only cereal. When the rice-crop failed some years ago, thousands of people died of starvation with a supply of wheat available. They did not know the use of wheat as food.

Countries like France, which use their cereals chiefly for bread, are the most dependent on wheat, since wheat is the most easily made into bread.

In the United States cereals make up almost one-third of our food. Although wheat in most parts of the country has been the main dependence, we have used a much greater variety of cereals than most people, so that it is comparatively simple for the majority to make increased use of them.

The very poor must depend largely upon cereals because they can get more for their money from them than from other foods. Cereals, to most of them, mean bread. It is such a large part of their diet that doing without it means a far more fundamental and difficult change in their food habits than for the well-to-do with greater freedom of choice. Besides, the already overburdened working woman must get her bread in the easiest possible way—a ready-made loaf from the baker. The burden of scarcity or high prices falls on those least able to bear it.

Europeans eat even larger amounts of wheat than we. Over half the food of the French is bread, so if the wheat shortage were near the danger-line, it might lead to a serious weakening of the marvellous courage of the French people.

[pg 14]

WHEAT FLOUR IN WAR-TIME

To use this country's share of the short supply of wheat to the greatest advantage the Food Administration has changed the making of flour to include more of the wheat-kernel. The difference between peace and war time flour is easily understood if the structure of grains is considered. Wheat and other cereals have kernels much alike; all have three principal parts:

The outer covering, called bran, is made up of several layers. This is rich in important mineral salts, and the rest is largely cellulose, or woody fibre.

The germ is the small part from which the new plant will develop. Here the small amount of fat in the kernel is stored.

The largest part of the kernel, called the endosperm, contains the nourishment to be used by the plant as it begins to develop. This is mostly starch, with some protein. It is the part of the wheat, for instance, which is chiefly used to make our white flour.

The kind of flour made depends on how much and what parts of the kernel are used. Graham flour is manufactured by grinding practically all of the wheat-kernel—a 100-per-cent use of the grain, called 100-per-cent extraction. Some people still fail to realize that Graham flour and Graham bread are wheat, perhaps because of the different name and brown color. The so-called "whole-wheat" flour is often 95 per cent of the kernel only, but may be as little as 85 per cent, depending on the amount of the bran and germ removed in the making.

Ordinary white flour contains the endosperm alone, with practically none of the bran and germ. Some brands before the war used up as little as 56 per cent of the wheat, leaving the [pg 15]rest of it to be turned into lower-grade flours and cattle-feed. White flour thus uses less of the wheat for human food than Graham or whole-wheat flour.

Yet to convert all the country's wheat into Graham flour would not be a wheat-saving measure, because it is not so well suited to our trade conditions. Graham flour, for one thing, does not keep so well as flour of lower extractions, as the fat in the germ may become rancid in a comparatively short time. Flour in this country is often thirty days or longer in transit and may be months in warehouses, stores, and homes. A flour to be satisfactory under extreme conditions here or for shipment abroad must keep at least six months—too long to be sure that Graham flour will keep. In small countries like England, where flour is used up more promptly, a high extraction is more practicable than in the United States.

Moreover, while Graham and whole-wheat flours with their larger quantities of mineral salts are a more desirable food for some people than white flour, they are occasionally irritating to people with weak digestions, so that it would be unfortunate to have only these flours on the market.

The Food Administration, therefore, has considered that the most effective use of our wheat could be obtained by forbidding the manufacture of fancy flours of low extraction and making all flour contain at least 74 per cent of the wheat. This still gives a fine white flour that keeps well and is difficult to distinguish from that on the market before the war.

To help in the enforcement of its flour rulings, the Food Administration has licensed all mills and elevators which handle over 100 barrels of flour a day. If the rulings of the Food Administration are not obeyed the license may be taken away, and the business closed. The hoarding of flour has been stopped [pg 16]by prohibiting mills, elevators, and bakers from having more than 30 days' supply on hand.

THE 50-50 RULE. ANOTHER WAY TO CUT THE CONSUMPTION OF WHEAT

Not only must the miller manufacture flour in accordance with new regulations, but the individual consumer must buy it under restrictions. To many people the first realization that war and food difficulties are necessarily associated, came with the announcement in the spring of 1918 of the now familiar rules for the purchase of flour. With every pound of white wheat flour, the purchaser must buy a pound of some other cereal; with every pound of Graham flour, three-fifths of a pound of other cereal.

The purpose of this regulation is, of course, to lessen the use of wheat by increasing the use of the substitutes. The housekeeper who through lack of initiative or ingenuity fails to feed the family the substitutes and lets them accumulate on her shelf has just so far failed to co-operate with the Food Administration. Many a housewife has learned the value of these cereals and will continue to use them long after the war and the Food Administration have passed into history.

A little thought will show the absence of any real burden in the 50-50 rule. A housekeeper for her family of four buys five pounds of wheat flour and five pounds of other cereals. She may use 1¼ pounds of the substitutes with the 5 pounds of wheat flour to make about 8 pounds of Victory bread—sufficient to give each member of her family 2 pounds of bread during the week. She may serve an ounce of oatmeal as the breakfast cereal and an ounce of rice, hominy, or other cereal for each person [pg 17]daily and will then have used all the substitutes. These cereals can be made into an endless variety of quick breads, cakes, and pastry, or combined with other foods as the main dish of the meal.

SUBSTITUTES FOR WHEAT FLOUR

The cereals on the market are varied enough to suit any taste. Remember that as far as nutritional value is concerned, it makes practically no difference whether we eat wheat or oats, rye or barley. The quantities of starch, protein, mineral matter, and fat are so nearly the same that any one of them can take the place of another. Oatmeal has a slight advantage over wheat both in protein and fat, and since oats is an abundant crop in our country it is an excellent substitute. Rice has a very little more starch and less protein than the others.

There is just one advantage that wheat flour has over the other cereals—it can be made into lighter and more durable bread. The reason for this is given in the next chapter.

Corn, the most abundant substitute. Indian corn is native to the United States. Since it carried the Pilgrims through their year of famine, it has always been considered our national grain. Other countries have adopted it to some extent, but more than three quarters of the world's corn is grown here. In 1917 our corn crop was 3,000,000,000 bushels, four times as large as our wheat crop. Most of the crop has always been used as a feed-grain, with only a small percentage for human food. The South has always used much more corn than the North, actually eating more corn than wheat.

N N Notes for WWI research: Louis Sheehan  11