Bread and other cereal foods ...
Bread and other cereal foods are truly the staff of life for some families and are used for all or part of the main dish for many of their meals. Griddlecakes, toast, or oatmeal is a favorite breakfast dish. And sandwiches, spaghetti, or macaroni may form the bulk of a noon or evening meal.
Bread and other cereal foods do not provide large amounts of protein in any one serving. But, because we eat bread and other cereals so often, grain foods contribute a fourth of the protein in diets in this country. The cereal foods also contribute to our diets more calories, more iron, and more thiamine than any other group of foods.
Grains cannot make an adequate main dish unless eaten in large quantities or combined with protein-rich foods.
A few figures on grain proteins may be helpful. A pound loaf of whole-wheat bread contains a little less than three-fourths as much protein as a pound of beef with a moderate amount of fat and bone. You would need to eat one-third of the loaf, seven or eight slices, for as much protein as you get in a fourth pound of the meat—an average serving.
A pound loaf of white bread contains somewhat less protein than a pound whole-wheat loaf. The use of nonfat dry milk solids in bread increases quantity and quality of proteins slightly.
Proteins from bread and other cereal foods are not of as high quality as proteins of animal products, although some are better than others. You can somewhat increase the protein values obtained from cereals by using whole-wheat bread and whole-grain breakfast cereals and by adding corn germ or wheat germ to other cereals. Milk, eggs, soy flour or grits, meat, or fish help to bring up the protein content and protein value of a cereal main dish.
Familiar examples of the cereal-extended main dishes are creamed chicken or fish—or meat in brown sauce—served with toast, noodles, spaghetti, rice, or hominy grits. Other popular combinations of cereals with high-protein foods are scrapple, macaroni or rice with cheese, eggs with toast, and meat loaf or patties with breadcrumbs. And we are also extending high-protein foods with cereals when we add biscuit to the meat stew, dumplings to stewed chicken, and waffles to the breakfast or supper sausages.