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Primary Source 12.1

JOHN HARVEY KELLOGG, THE LIVING TEMPLE (1903)1

Gains in scientific and technological knowledge in the West led not only to increases in the amount of food produced, but also led to improvements in knowledge of the nutritional values of food and the physiological effects various foods have on people. Such advances were made possible by industrious work by scientists, farmers, scholars, entrepreneurs, and inventors. The following excerpt is taken from a book on human physiology and health written by John Harvey Kellogg (1852–1943), a medical doctor, the director of a health clinic (sanitarium) in Battle Creek, Michigan, and a staunch advocate of vegetarianism and holistic medicine. Together with his brother Will, he invented several dry breakfast cereals, including Corn Flakes. The excerpt discusses the harmful effects on digestion of consuming refined sugar and the proper methods of preparing readily digestible cereal. The excerpt, along with the full text, can be found here.

Cane Sugar a Cause of Disease

Cane sugar,2 while properly classed as a food, and digestible in the small intestine, is nevertheless hardly to be considered a natural food substance, for it is never found in nature in the condition in which it appears upon our tables. The acid of fruits3 is not neutralized by the addition of cane sugar. The use of cane sugar with acid fruits is objectionable. It is better to combine acid with sweet fruits, or if necessary, to avoid acid fruits. Dried fruits, such as figs, are rendered very digestible by steaming. Cane sugar is not digested in the stomach; it gives rise to fermentation and acidity, and is often a source of irritation. Its use is unnecessary, as starch, which constitutes a large per cent of all foods of vegetable origin, is wholly converted into sugar by the process of digestion. Brandel, an eminent German chemist, observed, in his experiments upon a dog, that a solution of cane sugar having a strength of less than six per cent, caused irritation, with reddening of the mucous membrane. A ten-per-cent solution produced a dark red color with great irritation; and a twenty-per-cent solution gave rise to still greater irritation, and produced such distress that the experiment was terminated. The author has met many cases of grave stomach disorder in which evidently the chief cause was the free use of sugar cither in the form of candy, or in connection with the use of coffee, oatmeal mush, or other so-called “breakfast foods.” According to these observations, three ounces of sugar taken in connection with a full meal would produce a solution in the stomach of sufficient strength to give rise to a decided gastric irritation. Ogata, in experimenting upon dogs for the purpose of determining the effects of cane sugar upon digestion, observed that the addition of one third of an ounce of cane sugar to a meal of meat reduced digestion one fourth.

1 John Harvey Kellogg, The Living Temple (Battle Creek: Good Health Publishing Company, 1903), 203-10. 2 Sugar refined from stalks of the sugar cane plant. 3 Such as in citrus fruits. 2

Cane sugar is derived from roots and grasses and other coarse vegetable growths.4 One of the four stomachs of the cow digests cane sugar readily, but cane sugar is not digestible in the human stomach, and hence is not adapted to human nutrition. The sugars to which the stomach is naturally adapted are, milk sugar, or the sugar which is normally found in milk; malt sugar, which is produced by the action of the saliva upon the starch; and fruit sugar, or levulose,5 the sweet element of fruits, also found in honey. Fruit sugar in the form of sweet fruits,—as raisins, figs, prunes,—and malt sugar, which may be produced artificially by digesting starch with diastase (malt honey or maltose), should be used in place of cane sugar. In the process of digestion, starch is converted into fruit sugar, passing through some thirty different stages. Ordinary cooking or boiling starch converts it into paste; this renders its digestion in the stomach possible, if it is retained there for a sufficient length of time. The saliva cannot act upon raw starch. A more prolonged cooking at a higher temperature produces a higher form, of dextrin, which is soluble, and which is more easily acted upon by the saliva. Cooking at a temperature of about 300° F. produces acroodextrin, which is rapidly converted into malt sugar when brought in contact with the saliva. Recent experiments show that maltose is much more easily digested and utilized by adult persons than are cane and milk sugar, and hence is much more wholesome and less likely to cause fermentation. Fruit sugar and levulose are still more easily assimilated, requiring no digestive change. Lactose or milk sugar is easily assimilated by young infants, but experiments have shown that the digestion and appropriation of milk sugar rapidly diminishes after the age of two years, being four times greater in an infant than in an adult. Cane sugar is the least digestible of all sugars, and is the least easily appropriated by the system. This fact is shown by the prompt appearance of cane sugar in the urine when it is freely eaten in the form of syrup, confectionery, or otherwise. A liberal use of sugar thus becomes the cause of diabetes, a rapidly increasing malady. The free use of cane sugar at the table and in cooking, in the form of preserves, syrups, and molasses, and sweet beverages, is unquestionably a most prolific source of injury to the stomach. It is no longer difficult to dispense with this toothsome but mischief- making substance, since most excellent and wholesome substitutes are provided at a price which renders them accessible to all who are not able to supply themselves with an abundance of sweet fruits, especially raisins and figs. Dates are not altogether to be commended, for the reason that they are prepared by soaking in molasses or by a liberal addition of cheap sugar. This is not true of the finest variety of Tunis dates, but is practically universally true of Turkish and Egyptian dates, the common date of commerce, which are in their native state very dry and quite unpalatable. The natives prepare them by stewing, as apples and other dry fruits are prepared in this country. Sorghum,6 maple sugar, and maple syrup are essentially the same as cane sugar and molasses, the sweet element being the same under another name. The sugar of honey is less likely to produce indigestion than cane sugar, but because of the admixture of various foreign substances which are gathered by the bees in the collection of sweets from many different sources, honey disagrees with many persons when freely used.

4 Many plants contain some sugar content. 5 Another name for fructose, the type of sugar found in fruit. 6 A group of grasses commonly used in the production of grain. 3

The glucose of commerce is manufactured from the starch of corn and other substances by boiling it with sulphuric acid. This form of sugar is quite unlike the sugar formed by the digestive processes. There is no doubt that the large use of glucose, or grape sugar, in the form of candy, syrups, adulterated honey, and various other sweets which are in common use, is responsible for a very large number of cases of diabetes, a disease which is rapidly increasing.

Dextrinized Cereals7

Insufficient cookery is an evil which is most of all conspicuous in our modem cuisine. Kettle-cooked cereals of farinaceous foods, such as preparations of wheat, oats, corn, etc., and starchy vegetables, are always imperfectly cooked, for the reason that a temperature of 212° F. is barely sufficient to convert the starch into paste. A temperature of about 300° is required to convert the starch into dextrin, which is necessary to render it easy of digestion. This thorough cooking also develops peptogenic properties8 which aid the stomach in the secretion of the gastric juice. Starch which has been thoroughly dextrinized by cooking in an oven until slightly brown is quickly converted into malt sugar by the action of the saliva. Malt sugar, being very soluble, passes readily into the intestines, where it is further changed and promptly absorbed. In the ordinary process of cooking, especially in the preparation of the so-called “breakfast cereals,”—“oatmeal, cracked wheat, etc.,”—-it is seldom that more than half the starch undergoes even the first stage of conversion, hence it cannot be acted upon at all by the saliva, which does not begin the process of digestion with raw starch, but can act only on soluble starch, or amylodextrin, which for oatmeal and cracked wheat requires several hours’ boiling. In baking, a portion of the starch is converted into erythrodextrin. In dry cooking, or toasting, the complete dextrinization of the starch, converting it into achroodextrin, is indicated by a distinctly brown color. The use of imperfectly cooked cereals is without doubt responsible for a great share of the prevailing dyspepsia9 among civilized people. Oatmeal porridge, cracked wheat, and similar preparations are not the most wholesome foods, and can be digested only by sound stomachs. When cream and sugar are added, we have a combination well calculated to create a magnificent dyspepsia. Cereals must be cooked dry in order to be thoroughly cooked. It is often necessary that they be first cooked moist, and afterward subjected to dry cooking. When prepared in this way, cereals are well adapted to the human stomach, are easily digested, and in combination with fruits and nuts constitute an ideal dietary. In fruits, digestion in the ripening process is carried still farther than in the most thoroughly cooked cereal; for the starch of the green fruit is in the ripening converted into levulose, the form of sugar into which starch is converted at the moment of absorption.

7 Cereals that contain dextrin, a carbohydrate .Dextrin is commonly used in food processing for enhancing crispness. 8 Properties which help digestion. 9 Indigestion. 4

This thorough dextrinization or predigestion of starch is the foundation of most of the valuable health foods prepared by the Battle Creek Sanitarium Health Food Co. and its branches. A brief description of these health foods may be in place. Zwieback consists of light bread, which, after thorough baking, has been cut in slices, and returned to the oven, where it is baked a second time at a slow heat until each slice is browned throughout the whole thickness. By this means the entire loaf is as thoroughly cooked as the outside crust, the superior sweetness and digestibility of which has long been recognized. Granola consists of a combination of grains which are first made into a biscuit, which is baked in a slow oven until slightly browned, then coarsely ground. Granose is a preparation in large, thin, toasted flakes, each flake representing a single grain of wheat. If freely used, it renders laxative pills and mineral waters unnecessary. It is a blood-, brain-, and bone-building food, containing all the elements of nutrition. It contains the whole wheat, yet the bran is perfectly subdivided, so as to be nonirritating. The starch is perfectly cooked and dextrinized, and ready to be instantly dissolved in the stomach and converted into sugar. It is the only dry food that can be perfectly masticated without teeth, hence is good for infants as soon as they began to cut teeth, and for old people who have lost their teeth. Browned Rice consists of rice which has been subjected to the prolonged action of heat at a high temperature until slightly browned. It is partially digested and readily assimilated, being quickly soluble in the digestive fluids. It makes a very delicious article of food, much superior to ordinary rice, and cannot be made heavy or pasty. Crystal Wheat is a cereal preparation consisting of wheat which has been thoroughly cooked, dried, and browned. It only requires soaking in order to prepare it for use as food. It is improved, however, by steaming, either in an ordinary steamer or by placing in an oven, after adding a sufficient quantity of water. Protose is a vegetable substitute for meat, consisting of the proteids10 obtained from vegetables, combined with nuts. It looks much like meat, tastes like meat, and has the chemical composition of meat; hence, it is a vegetable substitute for meat. A pound of protose contains twenty-five per cent more nourishment than does a pound of meat, and has the advantage that it is free from the uric acid contained in beef. Beef contains sixteen grains of uric acid to the pound. Malted Nuts is a preparation in which nuts are combined with cereals, the cereals having been perfectly digested through the action of vegetable diastase. In other words, it is a food containing practically no starch, the starch having been converted into maltose, and so prepared for prompt absorption, maltose being the most easily assimilable form of sugar. Toasted Wheat Flakes, Granose, and Corn Flakes are cereal preparations in which the grain is first thoroughly cooked, then partially dried and compressed into thin flakes, which are afterward baked until slightly brown, by which process they are thoroughly dextrinized and prepared for prompt digestion and assimilation. The list of scientifically prepared health foods includes several other carefully prepared articles. The above are the most commonly known. However, the attention of the

10 An archaic word for protein. 5 public should be called to the fact that there are at present numerous imitations in the market, some of which possess in part the merits of the original, while others are altogether unwholesome. Raw foods, with the exception of ripe raw fruits and nuts, are acted upon in the stomach only to a very slight extent. The starch is not changed at all, and on this account raw substances are very imperfectly broken up in the stomach, so that the gastric juice cannot gain ready access to the proteids or albuminst which are entangled with the starch. In experiments made in the laboratory of the American Medical Missionary College,11 it has been shown that raw wheat undergoes very little change in the stomach. The same is true of other grains and vegetables. The idea is sometimes advanced that raw foods are preferable to cooked foods. This is true only as relates to certain fruits and nuts, and then only in relation to soft fruits and nuts, which can be easily reduced by mastication to a creamy paste. Raw foods are certainly less likely to ferment in the stomach than cooked foods, at least when properly eaten, and there are doubtless certain cases in which the use of raw foods, particularly fresh fruits, may be, for a time at least, adopted with advantage. Meats of all sorts are rendered less digestible by the cooking process. The facts in relation to this question enable us to say that, on the whole, vegetable foods are improved by cooking, while animal foods are rendered less digestible; and hence the use of raw food is not, on the whole, to be commended, unless one intends to confine himself to a meat diet, and even then cooking become quite necessary as a precaution against infection with trichinae and other parasites.

11 A Seventh Day Adventist College in Battle Creek, Michigan, which Kellogg helped found in 1895.