AN IDEAL BAKERY WITH LIGHT, AIR, AND CLEANLINESS
Neither sour milk and soda nor baking-powder will make as thoroughly light and spongy and digestible bread as will yeast. If, however, baking-powders are made of pure and harmless materials, used in proper proportions so as just to neutralize each other, and thus leave no excess of acid or alkali, and if the bread is baked very thoroughly, they make a wholesome and nutritious bread, which has the advantage of being very quickly and easily made. The chief objection to soda or baking-powder bread is that, being often made in a hurry, the acid and the alkali do not get thoroughly mixed all through the flour, and consequently do not raise or lighten the dough properly, and the loaf or biscuit is likely to be heavy and soggy in the centre. This heavy, soggy stuff can be neither properly chewed in the mouth, nor mixed with the digestive juices, and hence is difficult to digest. If, however, soda biscuits are made thin and baked thoroughly so as to make them at least half or two-thirds crust, they are perfectly digestible and wholesome, and furnish a valuable and appetizing variety for our breakfast and supper tables.
A BASEMENT BAKERY—A MENACE TO THE PUBLIC HEALTH
Disease germs multiply in the dark and damp of the basement. The clothing hanging up in this bakery is a very probable source of infection.
Bran or Brown Bread. Flour made by grinding the wheat-berry without sifting the husks, or bran, out of it is called "whole-wheat" meal; and bread made from it is the brown "bran bread" or "Graham bread." It was at one time supposed that because brown bread contained more nitrogen than white bread, it was more wholesome and nutritious, but this has been found to be a mistake, because the extra nitrogen in the brown bread is in the form of husks and fibres, which the stomach is quite unable to digest. Weight for weight, white bread is more nutritious than brown. The husks and fibres, however, which will not digest, pass on through the bowels unchanged and stir up the walls of the intestines to contract; hence they are useful in small quantities in helping to keep the bowels regular. But, like any other stimulus, too much of it will irritate and disturb the digestion, and cause diarrhea; so that it is not best to eat more than one-fifth of our total bread in the form of brown bread. Dyspeptics who live on brown bread, or on so-called "health foods," are simply feeding their dyspepsia.
"Breakfast Foods." The same defect exists in most of the breakfast cereals which flood our tables and decorate our bill-boards. Some of these are made of the waste of flouring mills, known as "middlings," "shorts," or bran, which were formerly used for cow-feed. The claims of many of them are greatly exaggerated, for they contain no more nourishment, or in no more digestible form, than the same weight of bread; and they cost from two to five times as much. As they come on our tables, they are nearly seven-eighths water; and the cream and sugar taken with them are of higher food value than they are. They should never be relied upon as the main part of a meal.
Corn Meal. Corn meal is one of the richest meals in nutritive value for its price, as it has an abundance of starch and a small amount of fat. It is, however, poor in nitrogen, and like the other grains, in countries where wheat will grow, it is chiefly valuable for furnishing cakes, fritters, and mushes to give variety to the diet, and help to regulate the bowels.
Oatmeal. Oatmeal comes the nearest to wheat in the amount of nitrogen or protein, but the digestible part of this is much smaller than in wheat, and the indigestible portion is decidedly irritating to the bowels, so that if used in excess of about one-fifth of our total starch-food required, it is likely to upset the digestion.