Diet in Illness and Convalescence (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1899. Excerpt: ... FOODS BREADS AND GRAIN PREPARATIONS Bread Bread of whole flour contains, in the correct proportions, all the elements necessary for growth in the bones, teeth, muscles, nerves, and brain. It should be freely used therefore in youth, but more sparingly in middle life and old age. It is very important to have wholesome, sweet, and well-made bread, especially for an invalid. The newprocess flours (see p. 58) are valuable for making nutritious white bread. As for yeast, Fleischman's yeast ensures always sweet bread. Brewer's yeast can also be relied upon. A gill of this yeast to three and a half pounds of flour is the proper proportion. In the country the homemade yeast is generally used. This is unreliable unless made by an expert. The fermentation of yeast is peculiarly favorable to the development of germs; and for this reason bread made without yeast or baking-powder is recommended by many authorities. Nevertheless, the fermentation of yeast aids, or is in line with, the processes of digestion, through the transformation of the starchy and albuminous substances and the other chemical changes which it effects. Baking-powder does not produce these changes, and it is perhaps for this reason that it is less wholesome, even when chemically pure. It is ostensibly composed of bicarbonate of soda and tartaric acid, whose union produces tartrate of soda (a substance believed to be harmless) and carbonic-acid gas, which mechanically lightens the bread. It is diffused through the dough and held in the form of bubbles by the tenacious gluten of the flour, which is hardened by baking. Tartaric acid is, however, comparatively expensive, and this fact has brought about the use in bakingpowder of alum with bicarbonate of soda. The chemical compound thus formed is distinc...