Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1874 — The Nutriment of Wheat. [ARTICLE]

The Nutriment of Wheat.

It is probably a fact—-whether possessing any special significance or not—that the nations which subfiist most largely upon bread made from wheat flour'Brfe the most refined, enlightened, enterprising and intellectual. A. scientific journal-carries this analysis of the influence of food upon human development still farther, and declares that in any given community the class who. eat the most wheat bread are the most liberally endowed with brains. It argues that wheat is a great promoter of intellectual vigor, and maintains it to be a wellestablished fact that “the great breadeaters are the great thinkers, or that the phosphorus which wheat contains in the outer kernel, immediately beneath the husk, is the feeder of brains, and the material substance which provokes to thought, study, reason and alb the forms of nervous energy.” We are not prepared to dispute the soundness of this theory, which has doubtless a valid foundation in the laws of physical science, and moreover agrees with common observation, sip far as it goes. Neither would we discourage the adoption of wheat bread as a leading article of diet, and in fact as the “ staff of life,” of which title there is no danger of its being dispossessed in any civilized country. But the Scriptural injunction that “ man shall not live by bread, alone” is not only a spiritual but a plain physiological law. As we have remarked in former discussions of this topic, there must be bulk as well as nutriment in any properly-constituted system of diet. Vegetables, fruit, and the coarse and wholesome dishes which the poor would gladly yet mistakenly exchange for the indigestible luxuries of the rich are imperatively demanded by the stomach as a part of its daily supplies; it cannot perform its duties and keep its associated and dependent organs in proper condition upon concentrated forms of food alone, such as the bread made from finely-ground wheat flour. And whatever special virtue such food may have in nourishing the brain, there will be no effective brain-work done except in brief and spasmodic efforts, unless the body also is healthfully fed. Let no one, therefore, try the Experiment of nourishing the brain at the expense of the other less esteemed but not less essential organs, by adopting exclusively a diet “ which provokes to thought, study, reason, and all the forms of nervous energy.” That way dyspepsia lies. Balance the feeding of the brain with the nourishment of the flesh and bear in mind that the faculty of thinking can only be sustained in permanent vigor by an equally faithful culture of the faculties of sleeping, of physical labor and exercise, of recreation and of ali the functions, the result of whose harmonious activity is “ a sound mind in a sound body.” —Mechanical News.