The variety of grain produced in the various countries depends largely upon the climate and the habits of the people.
The predominant use of rice by the Asiatics, wheat by the Europeans, and maize by the aboriginal American, shows how people adapt themselves to the foods of prodigal growth. It also shows the effect different foods have upon the physical development of the various tribes that inhabit these remote countries.
Wheat
Wheat is said by some writers to be a complete food. This is not strictly true. Wheat contains a very small percentage of fat, and while fat can be made in the body from carbohydrates, it is more natural, and entails less work upon the digestive organs and the liver if the diet is balanced so as to contain the required amount of fat, and all other nutritive elements in the right or natural proportions.
Results of eating too much starch
A diet composed of wheat alone would contain 70 per cent of carbohydrates, chiefly in the form of starch. While this would be perfectly wholesome, it would give the body an excess of starch which would ultimately result in intestinal congestion, gout, rheumatism, hardening of the arteries, and premature old age. Wheat contains a larger quantity, and a greater variety of proteids than any other grain, but wheat proteids are more difficult to digest than the proteids of milk, eggs, or nuts.
Composition of wheat
Wheat varies greatly in composition, according to the soil and the climate in which it is produced. This fact is not recognized or considered by the average writer on dietetics, who eulogizes wheat as the wonderful "staff of life," because certain food tables show that wheat contains 13 per cent, while corn contains only 10 per cent of proteids. It is neither the proteid nor the carbohydrate content that determines the value of any grain as food, but rather the proportions of the different elements of nutrition it contains, that being the best which is more nearly balanced to meet the requirements of the human organism.
Rye
Rye may be considered in the same class as wheat. Chemically, the contents are very similar, and the effects upon the body are very much the same. It contains a larger per cent of cellulose, and less gluten than wheat, therefore as a remedial food it is superior to all other grains for exciting intestinal peristalsis, thereby removing the causes of constipation.