Basic HTML Version
206
The Ministry of Health and Healing
the food eaten is not relished, the body will not be as well nourished.
The food should be carefully chosen and prepared with intelligence
and skill.
In breadmaking, superfine white flour is not the best. Its use is
neither healthful nor economical. Fine-flour bread lacks nutritive
elements to be found in bread made from the whole wheat. It is a
frequent cause of constipation and other unhealthful conditions.
The use of soda or baking powder in breadmaking is harmful and
unnecessary. Soda causes inflammation of the stomach and often
poisons the entire system. Many housewives think that they cannot
make good bread without soda, but this is an error. If they would
take the trouble to learn better methods, their bread would be more
wholesome, and, to a natural taste, it would be more palatable.
In the making of raised or yeast bread, use water instead of milk.
Milk is an additional expense and makes the bread less wholesome.
Milk bread does not keep sweet as long after baking as does that
made with water, and it ferments more readily in the stomach. Bread
[169]
should be light and sweet. Not the least taint of sourness should
be tolerated. The loaves should be small and so thoroughly baked
that, so far as possible, the yeast germs shall be destroyed. When
hot or new, raised bread of any kind is difficult to digest. It should
never appear on the table. This rule does not, however, apply to
unleavened bread. Fresh rolls made of wheaten meal without yeast
or leaven, and baked in a well-heated oven, are both wholesome and
palatable.
Grains used as cereal should be well cooked. But soft or liquid
foods are less wholesome than dry foods, which require thorough
chewing. Zwieback, or twice-baked bread, is one of the most easily
digested and most palatable of foods. Let ordinary raised bread be
cut in slices and dried in a warm oven till the last trace of moisture
disappears. Then let it be browned slightly all the way through. If
kept dry, this bread will be good much longer than ordinary bread,
and, if reheated before using, it will taste as fresh as when new.
Far too much sugar is ordinarily used in food. Cakes, sweet
puddings, pastries, jellies, jams, are active causes of indigestion.
Especially harmful are the custards and puddings in which milk,
eggs, and sugar are the chief ingredients. The free use of milk and
sugar taken together should be avoided.