There is a digestive element existing in the saliva and in the fluid called the “pancreatic juice,” which bears the name of “diastase.” This diastase exists nowhere outside of the animal economy, except in seeds during the process of germination, or sprouting. When the seed, or cereal, or vegetable, is exposed to proper influences of moisture and warmth, such, for example, as are supplied by the earth in spring-time, the process of germination begins, and from the germ diastase is liberated. The function of the diastase thus set free is the conversion of the food elements in the seed into assimilative nutriment for the young and tender plant. It is the digestant of food, whether the thing fed be plant or animal. Now, while physiologists have long been ready to concede that when, as is common in diseased conditions, this important digestant is absent from the saliva and pancreatic juice, the conversion of all starchy foods is suspended, it has not been supposed that diastase has any marked influence upon the emulsification and digestion of food-substances not containing starch, nor had any food-chemist availed himself of the diastase in cereals, if I except the development and possible subsequent retention, to some extent, of diastase in some of the preparations of malt. The Health Food Company develops and employs the cereal diastase in a most effective way. It removes the germinal molecules from wheat and barley, reduces them to powder, forms the powder into a dough, encloses it in a steam-tight vessel and subjects the vessel and contents for a protracted period to a temperature of 150ºF. The latent diastase is thus brought into being, while the low temperature and the close vessel completely prevent its volatilization and loss. The diastatic dough is subsequently dried and powdered, and is then packed and labeled, ready for use, demanding no cooking, and no other preparation than simple moistening with milk or water. Used with milk it is found to prevent that tough and curdy coagulation which renders milk so oppressive, “bilious” and indigestible in many cases. The name given to this diastatic food which I have mentioned, is “The Universal Food,” a name suggested by a leading physician, who believed it to be universally applicable to enfeebled conditions in which better nourishment was needed. It is admirably adapted to the nourishment of infants, as diastase is almost entirely lacking during the first years of life, and may wisely be supplied from exterior sources.
The Company’s great work for the multitude, however, is in the preparation of wheat, oats, barley, rye, corn, peas, beans, and other seeds. These are perfectly cleansed from all impurities, the outer bran-coats, husks, and pellicles are removed, and the interior, soluble, digestible food-portion is admirably prepared for ready cooking. Persons who have a distaste for Graham and crushed wheat, and oat-meal and other cereals, find in the Fine Granulated Wheat, the Coarse Granulated Wheat, the Pearled Wheat, Pearled Oats, Granulated Oats, Granulated Barley, Rye, Corn, etc., manufactured by this Company, delicious foods, which, once adopted, are continued from choice.
I leave this important subject with my readers, again urging them to seek to learn more concerning it. To be placed in possession of information which I do not assume to be competent to impart, it is only necessary that you address a postal card to the Health Food Company, No. 74 Fourth Ave., cor. 10th street, New York, N. Y., asking for all its Health Food literature, and appending your address, and you will be quite certain to receive the entertaining pamphlets by due course of mail. The agents of the company, also, cordially respond to calls for circulars and orders for the Health Foods.
Let me ask my readers not to content themselves with sending for and perusing, however carefully, the instructive pamphlets of the Health Food Company. If you are sick you will do well to describe your condition by letter to the company, and its medical head will write you which of the foods are adapted to your case; you can then order a supply of such as he advises. If you are in good health and merely seek to supply yourself with delicate and nutritive substances which will have the effect to keep you strong and well, you will be able to select from their list, without special advice. Advice from the medical man of the organization costs nothing, however, and should be asked in all doubtful or diseased states. J. F. C.
[Health Food Company’s]
LIST OF AGENTS:
| Main Office, 74 Fourth Avenue | New York City. |
| 7 Clinton Street | Brooklyn, N. Y. |
| 199 Tremont Street | Boston, Mass. |
| 632 Arch Street | Philadelphia, Pa. |
| 2227 Walnut Street | St. Louis, Mo. |
| 4934 Main Street | Germantown. Pa. |
| 965 Grand Street | New Haven, Ct. |
| 17 Central Row | Hartford, Ct. |
| 217 Ross Street | Brooklyn, E. D., N. Y. |
| 191 Genesee Street | Utica, N. Y. |
| 1436 Wabash Avenue | Chicago, Ill. |
| 1325 F. Street | Washington, D. C. |
| 214 Main Street | Elizabeth, N. J. |
| 132 East Main Street | Rochester, N. Y. |
| 217 Sutter Street | San Francisco, Cal. |
| 426 Pine Street | San Francisco, Cal. |
| 951 Broadway | Oakland, Cal. |
| 306 Lexington Street | Baltimore, Md. |
| 34 Washington Avenue S. | Minneapolis, Minn. |
| 273 W 5th Street | St. Paul, Minn. |
| No. 1 North Bruntsfield Place | Edinburgh, Scotland. |