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Cereal and Bread Nutrition; Modernity Threat to Health
Contents in in this issue:
- “On Cereal and Bread Nutrition, Part II,”
- “Modernity a Threat to Health.”
The following is a transcription of the March 1967 issue of Dr. Royal Lee’s Applied Trophology newsletter, originally published by Standard Process Laboratories.
On Cereal and Bread Nutrition, Part II
(See Part I in the February 1967 issue of Applied Nutrition.)
Wholesomeness
Not all foodstuffs made of whole meal guarantee all the valuable ingredient substances and wholesomeness, although they are presented under this label. Whole meal consumption would only fulfil its purpose if the raw material is of optimal quality, above all unaffected by damages resulting from harvesting or storage and carefully treated during processing.
The objection that whole meal bread would be unwholesome to modern man, who has become sensitive in many respects, has been refuted by leading internists, gastrologists, and labor physicians. A change to whole cereals may, in the initial stages, lead to interferences in the wholesomeness in people not used to it. However, this can be dispelled if special attention is paid to optimal qualitative requirements, suitable composition of supplementary food (avoidance of sugar and with very sensible persons avoidance as well of cooked fruit and juice during the time of familiarization). Clinical experience revealed that an irreproachable quality of both raw material and final product is required to guarantee for wholesomeness of whole cereals in normal and clinical diets, particularly in the diet for gastric-intestinal diseases.
In order to avoid unwholesomeness of loaf bread, it is important that the baker sees to a dry, light, unsticky crumb.
The objection that several nutrients, like proteins and fat, are utilized less effectively in whole cereals, can be confronted with the fact that, in spite of this, the effective quantities of these substances are higher in whole meal than in grain where the bran has been removed.
Scientific Findings
Reputed scientists and physicians like Bircher-Benner, Ragnar Berg, Bruker, Drummond, Eckstein, Fleisch, Franke, Heupke, Hindhede, Hopkins, Kollath, McCay, McCollum, Proll, Scheunert, Schweigart, Stepp, Thomas, Virtanen, Wirths, etc., have already pointed out the excellent salubrious qualities of a whole cereal consumption in people. This influence is mainly due to the abundant supply with known and probably still unknown vital substances in the whole grain, and to intensified stimulation of various important digestive functions as compared to products not containing bran (chewing, secretion of saliva, intestinal motility, intestinal flora, etc.), which functioning inefficiency have reached an unexpectedly high incidence in civilized countries.
At the hand of more recent investigations in widely differing fields of clinical and experimental therapy, the value of whole cereals has been additionally recognized by the fact that the whole wheat grain contains dynamically effective water- and fat-soluble nutrient groups, which, among others, support oxygen utilization in an economical way and help maintain the biological efficiency of the caloric carriers.
According to various inquiries, whole cereal consumption was found effective in lowering the blood cholesterol level and forestalling vascular diseases, nervous disorders, various metabolic diseases, etc., which is not the case with the consumption of products not containing bran.
In addition, it is specially referred to the preventive effect of whole cereals and whole meal bread on the occurrence and development of caries, with special emphasis on a specialized, highly valuable whole diet for expecting and nursing mothers.
Recommendations
On the basis of experience and the results of research, the Scientific Council of the International Society for Research on Nutrition and Vital Substances comes to the following conclusion: a high consumption of whole meal products rich in vital substances does not only contribute effectively to the prevention of qualitative and quantitative malnutrition, but also gives considerable protection against nutritional disorders.
This conclusion is based on the following facts: whole cereals are relatively concentrated sources of vital substances (vitamins as well as main and trace substances); they stimulate or start important digestive functions; they contribute to an economic oxygen utilization and are active against a series of civilization diseases, such as metabolic diseases, nervous disorders, vascular diseases and dental caries; they even contribute to the normalization of the plasma cholesterol level.
Therefore, the Scientific Council urgently recommends a higher intake of whole cereals and products based on the whole grain, especially whole meal bread and whole meal dishes, as basic food of high biological value and appeals to the public authorities responsible for a healthy nutrition to do their best to educate all the peoples of the world so that they adopt the whole cereals as a basis for their diet.
Supplement: Notes on Conceptions
In order to establish a better knowledge of and relation to cereals, the committee “Cereals-Bread” and the “Whole Meal Committee” of the International Society for Vital Substances, supported by the definitions by Thomas (The Nutritive and Ballast Substances of Cereal Flours and Their Significance for Bread Sustenance, Scientific Publishing House, Stuttgart, 1964), present the following conceptions for proposal.
Whole Meal Cereal
I.e. cereal suitable for whole meal foodstuffs is a healthy cereal with maximum germination capacity and unobjectionable quality. It may not contain any impurities, which are hard to remove, and may not have undergone chemical or radiation treatment before harvesting or during storage, for the purpose of warding off pests.
Whole Meal Groats
Whole meal groats are produced by grinding whole meal cereals and may have an optional degree of granulation. Being either ground or milled, they should contain all the components of the moistly cleaned, unflayed, unpeeled, or the outer bran layers (ligneous fiber layers) having been removed, whole grain, including its seed.
Ground products, which correspond in the ash content with the prescribed types of whole meal groats, to which, however, by way of simultaneous production, other flour types have been added (united millery), do not contain all the components of the grain in their natural quantitative proportions and can therefore not be considered as whole meal groats.
Whole Meal Bread
Made of fresh whole meal groats of various degrees of fineness, water, salt, yeast respectively biological sour method, if necessary with the addition of natural bread spices. The addition of flour of a lower degree of fineness to improve the baking qualities is permissible up to 10 percent.
Additives of preservatives, coloring, and sweetening substances are not allowed. “Whole meal bread, fine” is made of whole meal flour or whole meal groats. “Whole meal bread, coarse” is made of whole meal flour and whole meal coarse groats, eventually with the addition of whole grains.
Breads made of whole meal, containing limited quantities of additives such as milk, dairy products, germs, linseed, etc., fall into the category “whole meal special breads.”
Artificial vitamination, a synthetic compensation in flours of lower grades of fineness for vital substances removed during technical processing (vitamins, main and trace elements), is an insufficient measure, since only part of the substances lost is replaced.
Modernity a Threat to Health
Prize-winning environmental research scientist Dr. Rene Jules Dubos recently stated, “We are constantly exposed to factors in our daily lives which we only partially understand. Knowledge is incredibly primitive with regard to the biological effects on the threat to health created by the new ways of life, crowding, environmental pollution, indirect and delayed effects of drugs and food additives and alienation from natural biological rhythms. In fact, we might say we have no knowledge at all of the ultimate effects.”
