The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

30 The Health Bulletin September, 1927
and eggs. Self-raising biscuits are
easily prepared, present a most attractive
appearance, and are especially
palatable to all classes. This biscuit
is comparatively soft, and therefore
pleasing to the aged and those with
the usual dental defects as well as to
the children. After eating such biscuit
I find great difficulty in persuading
people to eat "beaten biscuit," or
Maryland biscuit, which contains no
chemical raising agent, but is made
sufficiently light or porous by kneading
or beating. Such bread has been
used in our older eastern settlements
for over a century, and can be made
by a little cooking skill far more delicious
than any commercially mixed
product. In our cotton mill settlements
the less time and labor consumed
in the preparation of the family
food, it has been pointed out, the
larger will be the week's pay envelope.
One member of the family, usually the
one whose hourly earnings are smallest,
is withdrawn for an hour, or for
as short a time as possible, and sent
ahead to prepare the meal. To make
a pan of biscuits with self-raising
flour is the easiest and quickest procedure.
Added to this the vegetables
must be cooked quickly, and yet be
tender enougl) to be eaten so cooking
soda is added to the boiling pot,
thereby destroying the precious vitamine
which is present in large amount
in all leaf food. So the family sits
down to a satisfying meal of hot,
beautifully brown biscuit "as light as
a feather," calling for no real mastication,
but slipping down easily even
when the old people are toothless;
and to this are added a dish of tenderly
cooked collards or cabbage and
a bit of fat meat. Each of these dishes
is deficient, indeed totally so from the
vita mine point of view, and yet the
children and young people can grow
fat on it. Tlie large cup of strong
coffee would be a real advantage if a
I'easonable amount of cream or milk
were taken with it, but usually only
sugar is added. People of this type in
North Carolina in many instances
have a perfect disgust for milk, cream
and butter, and in spite of our pleadings
they will not abandon the prejudice
or the actual dislilte. With the
above mentioned diet no known harm
would occur (certainly no pellagra)
if each member of the household
would eat butter at each meal and
drink a pint of milk a day. One wise
physician recently writing about the
great increase of pellagra in his section,
said that whenever be found a
cow in the back lot he did not find
pellagra. No intricate knowledge of
the various views of how pellagra is
a deficiency condition would be needed
if all our people would drink milk and
eat butter. Unfortunately those people
whom we have come to designate
the pellagra class will not or cannot
be induced to invest in a cow, so if the
problem is to be practically met they
must be safeguarded in another way.
In a study of the milling of flour in
one of America's greatest mills it was
found that in each run of the mill
seventeen flours of different grade
were produced. It will be recalled
that the vitamine which I regard as
vital in the protection against pellagra
(water-soluble B) is found in the
cortex of the grain. The patent portion
occupies the center of the grain,
and therefore is farthest removed
from the vitamine source, and yet this
is the flour our housekeepers would
insist on, because of its pure whiteness.
Nearer the surface of the grain
the flours have a yellowish tinge which
the uninformed object to, not knowing
that in the very yellow is the most
vitally precious portion of the whole
range of foods. Dr. Wiley has added
to this objection that of the process of
bleaching, which I have yet to study.
It is obvious that we need the grain
as Nature provides it without any removal
of any sort, that in this respect
the refinements of modern milling, like
so many modern innovations, are actually
taking toll of the life and health
of our people, that the cheaper and
less attractively appearing is our flour
the safer we are, that whole wheat
flour has tremendous advantages over
any other. All of this virtue found in
the surface portions of the grain can
be lost, however, by the use of chemical
raising agents. One of the greatest
authorities on food and nutrition
intimates to me in a personal communication
that one of the greatest,
if not the greatest, source of physical
handicap at this time in the South is