R. E. Doolittle of the Federal Board of Food and Drug Inspection, declares that no question of harmfulness has been raised by this board with respect to the use of glucose in food products. Where glucose is substituted for sugar and used instead of natural sweetening agents, the ruling has been made that its presence should be plainly declared upon the label of the product. The reasons for this action are: (1) where a manufactured substance is substituted for a natural one it is believed that the purchaser is entitled to be informed of the substitution; (2) the cost of glucose is usually somewhat lower than that of sucrose; (3) glucose consists only in part of a sugar, dextrose, and is inferior to sucrose in sweetening power.
In this country commercial glucose is manufactured from the starch of the Indian corn. The starch is suspended in water, the whole placed into large steam tanks together with some hydrochloric acid, the steam is turned on to these tanks and the whole brought up to a heavy pressure. By this means the starch is partially converted into dextrose, a sugar, and dextrin, a gum. When the conversion has reached the proper point the pressure is removed, the hot liquid is neutralized with sodium carbonate, filtered and evaporated to a thick liquid. The resulting compound contains about 35 per cent. dextrose, about 45 per cent. dextrin, a small percentage of ash and the rest water.
A word of caution should be given concerning the time of eating sugar. Obviously if candy is consumed before meals it will destroy the appetite and interfere seriously with the meal. Obviously, also, it is unwise to eat heavily of candy before retiring. Notwithstanding her enthusiasm for vegetable candies the writer feels these cautions should be just as much observed with vegetable candy as with any other.
The whole question of the amount and form of sugar to be given to children, is one of utmost importance. Children lose more heat from the skin for every pound of body weight than do the adults, and because of this fact, require proportionately more heat. This heat can come only from food and sugar is the food which produces this heat most directly and most cheaply. This need for a heat producing food, it could be urged, could be readily met by the use of fat. The difficulty is that fat, and particularly fat meat, is generally disliked by the child. Because of this distaste, his desire for all sorts of sweet things has undoubtedly a physiological basis. It is necessary, however, to observe very carefully the digestibility of sugar and sweetened foods in order to decide to what extent sugar is to replace starch in the dietary. The effect of sugar upon the appetite for other foods must be given particular care. Mrs. Mary Hinman Abel, president of the American Home Economics Association, says that, until a child's stomach is capable of digesting starch, the needed carbohydrate is furnished in the sugar of milk. The child a year old who drinks two quarts of milk per day takes in this way about three ounces of sugar. "As the stomach becomes able to digest starch," Mrs. Abel continues, "the child is less and less dependent on the sugar of milk, replacing it with the carbohydrates of vegetable origin, while the proteids and fat found in eggs, meat, and cereals take the place of those constituents that were at first exclusively furnished in milk. Milk, however, remains through childhood a valuable source of all these food principles.
"The fact that sugar has a high food value is not the only point to be considered. The child will easily obtain the needed carbohydrates in other forms and will thrive if the digestion remains sound and its relish for wholesome food unimpaired. For instance, one often hears it said that a certain child does not relish milk. In such cases it might be found that the child's appetite, being sated by sugar in other foods, is no longer attracted by the mild sweetness of fresh milk, delicious as it is to the unspoiled palate. It would be well, perhaps, in this instance, to cut down the allowance of sugar in the hope of restoring the taste for so invaluable a food as milk. Dr. Rotch insists that the infant, even in its second year, should never be allowed to taste sweets. He says, 'When these articles are withheld it will continue to have a healthy appetite and taste for necessary and proper articles of food.' Even much later, for the same reasons, the introduction of large amounts of sugar into the daily food of children is to be carefully considered. Children do not require a variety of flavors to stimulate the appetite, but the taste is easily perverted and the backward step is difficult to take. Those who have studied the food habits of children seem to agree that sugar should from the very first be withheld from the dish that forms the staple food of the child—that is, the mush or porridge of oatmeal or some preparation of wheat or corn. This article of diet, eaten only with milk or cream, falls into the same class as bread and milk, and forms the simple, wholesome basis of a meal. The sugar given the child is better furnished in the occasional simple pudding, in the lump of sugar, or home-made candy, not that its food value is better utilized, but the whole food of the child is thus more wholesome."
Mrs. Mary Hinman Abel concludes her discussion with the statement: "Sugar is a useful and valuable food. It must, however, be remembered that it is a concentrated food and therefore should be eaten in moderate quantities. Further, like other concentrated foods, sugar seems best fitted for assimilation by the body when supplied with other materials which dilute it or give it the necessary bulk."
It is this fact, from the point of view of the dietitian, that commends vegetable candy so highly. The vegetable base gives the necessary bulk and dilution—in addition to adding other valuable food elements.