Starching

“ Next to the enveloping tissue, the most abundant constituent of the vegetables we use as food is starch. Laundry associations may render the Latin name ‘fecula’, or ‘farina’, more agreeable when applied to food. We feed very largely on starch, and take it in a multitude of forms. Excluding water, it constitutes above three-fourths of our ‘staff of life,’ a still larger proportion of rice, which is the staff of Oriental life, and nearly the whole of arrowroot, sago, and tapioca, which may be described as composed of starch and water. ”

“ The seeds, roots, leaves, and fruits of plants, constitute the greatest part of the food of mankind; the respective quantities of nourishment, which these contain, may perhaps be estimated from the quantity of starch, or of sugar, they can be made to produce: in farinaceous seeds, the mucilage seems gradually to be converted into starch, while they remain in our granaries; and the starch by the germination of the young plant, as in making malt from barley, or by animal digestion, is converted into sugar. Hence old wheat and beans contain more starch than new ”

“ The conventional American diet contains such an abnormal quantity of grain-starch, and the methods of preparation are so unnatural, that the Food Scientist, in practise, will find many people whose digestive organs have become so deranged that he may deem it necessary to prohibit grain-starch almost entirely. ”

“ Starch-Making and its Relation to Human Welfare.—Leaves which have been in darkness show starch to be present soon after exposure to light. A corn plant sends 10 to 15 grams of reserve material into the ears in a single day. The formation of fruit, and especially the growth of the grain fields, show the economic importance of this fact. Not only do plants make their own food and store it away, but they make food for animals as well. ”

“ How different is the case with us moderns. Since the opening of the era of agriculture and cooking, man has enormously multiplied his supplies of saccharide, and he now consumes large quantities of starch which has been freed from its cellulose framework by cooking, milling, grinding, and the like, and reduced [Pg 143] to a soft or pappy form, such as milk puddings, porridge, boiled potatoes, and new bread, all of which can be swallowed with little or no preliminary chewing; and when food can be swallowed easily, without mastication, few will take the trouble to masticate it. ”

“ In the economy of the body starch is eminently a heat producer. Pound for pound it does not give as much heat as fat, but owing to its great abundance and extensive use it, in the aggregate, produces more. (Atwater.)
Starch is an abundant and easily digested form of vegetable food, but it is incapable of sustaining life. It contains none of the nitrogenous matter needed for the nutrition of the muscles, nerves, and tissues. Indeed, it is said on good authority that many an invalid has been slowly starved to death from being fed upon this material alone. ”

“ The digestion of starch—which is insoluble in cold water—really begins with the cooking, which by softening the outer coating or fibre of the grains, causes them to swell and burst, thereby preparing them for the chemical change which is caused by the action of the saliva in converting the starch into a species of sugar before it enters the stomach. Substances which are insoluble in cold water cannot be absorbed into the blood, therefore are not of any value as food until they have become changed, and made soluble, which overtaxes the digestive organs and causes trouble. ”

“ We have not now, thank Heaven! natural philosophers who propose starch for poor men’s diet, because starch comprehends such and such nutritious elements; nor mighty Dukes who come forward, brave in conscious humanity, to recommend a pinch of curry powder in cold water to warm the poor man’s stomach, aching with emptiness. We have not to blush for this kind of display of humanity; but neither have we as yet a Count Rumford who would ask of us only our money and our help, in order to ensure a full and comfortable support to every sufferer in Lancashire till the mills are going again. ”

“ We know about chlorophyll and the starch it makes, and how this starch is stored up in potatoes and wheat and corn and rice and all sorts of food grains and vegetables.
We know, too, how the roots suck up substances from the earth which we need in our bodies, and how they are stored away with the starch or sometimes by 169themselves. We know, in short, how all the food we eat is made first or last by the plants. Not only do we owe our food to the plants, but all animals do. ”

“ The temperature of the saliva is too low to dissolve the starch fibre unaided. Each of the digestive juices has its own work to do, and the saliva acts directly upon the starchy food; hence the importance of thoroughly masticating such food as bread, potatoes, rice, cereals, etc. The action of heat, in baking, which causes the vapor to rise, and forms the crust of starchy food, produces what is called dextrine, or partially digested starch. ”

“ OUR Brother the Sun gets up every morning to cook, cooks all day, and seems to enjoy cooking. The cooking processes which we engage in are many of them imitations of his. When we use water and heat to soften and break up starch cells, it is only a copy of the process by which the sun makes the dry starch laid up in a seed in the damp earth into food for the first little leaves of a plant. ”

“ Starch is the food supply of plant-life. Wherever we find buds that are intended to develop by themselves, wherever we find germs, there also we shall find a supply of starch serving as a sort of food reserve. Hence this peculiar provision is met with in tubers, bulbs, bulblets, seeds, and fleshy roots. Now when these buds and germs develop, the starch becomes, in the process of vegetation, a kind of sugar which, being soluble in water, can be sent to all parts of the young plant and serve it for food. ”

“ But by frying the starch before it is eaten, the housewife carefully takes each grain of the starch and protects it with a little covering of fat. Thus the digestive juices of the stomach cannot get at the starch, and the starch goes down into the small intestine a good part undigested. If some evil spirit, wishing to make trouble for the human organism, had charge of the laying out of our diet, he could hardly devise anything worse than that. And yet it would be no exaggeration to say that the average American, especially the average farmer, eats out of a frying-pan. ”

“ It may surprise some of our readers to be told that the starch of bread has not the slightest nutritive property. Its sole office is a heat producer; and, just like the coal of the engine, the starch or sugar is burned up inside us to keep up the temperature of the machine. ”

“ Hunger has been fancifully ascribed to the sides of the stomach rubbing against each other, and to the increased acidity of the gastric juice corroding the coats of it. If either of these were the cause of hunger, inflammation must occur, when they had continued some time; but, on the contrary, coldness and not heat are attendant on hunger; which evinces, that like thirst it is owing to the inactivity of the membrane, which is the seat of it ”

“ I suppose there is really no starch in the whole world that leaves have not made.”
“Oh,” exclaimed Mary Frances; “even the starch in our dresses—is that made by leaves?”
“Yes,” Bet smiled, “even that; and the starch in your bread and the——”
“Tell them the story, Bet,” said Jack, who was much interested.
“All right,” answered the little fairy, turning to pick a leaf from the magic tree. “Please do not interrupt, and I will tell you about—
The Leaf-Mill
Nothing can grow without the right kind of food. ”

“ By digestion the starch becomes sugar. Grain is a good food because it has starch or sugar. Animal foods have no sugar, so we eat grain food with them. The two together make the most nourishing food. Potatoes have a great deal of starch and only a little albumin. They also are good food with meat.
A healthy man needs as much food as this every day.
A person cannot live well upon plant food alone, for it has too much starch and sugar, and too little albumin and fat. We need nearly equal parts of albumin, fat, and sugar. A mixture of bread, meat, eggs, vegetables, and milk makes the best food. ”

“ Starch is the white material of the grains and tubers; the principal food element of bread and cereals, rice, potatoes, bananas, and many prepared substances such as corn-starch, tapioca, farina and macaroni. Starchy foods compose probably half the diet of the average human being. In my own case, they compose about one-sixth, so you see to what extent my beliefs differ from the common. Starch is not really necessary in the diet at all. I have a friend who is subject to headaches, and finds relief from them by a diet of meat, salads, and fresh fruits exclusively. ”

“ Physiologists tell us that this is so, and in particular that the secretions which in adult life are called saliva and pancreatic juice and which have the function of preparing starch for digestion, are at this time scanty in amount and deficient in chemical action. But these secretions are essential for the digestion of starchy foods, and chemists tell us that starch abounds in the vegetable kingdom from which most of the food of children is derived. ”

“ Starch must necessarily abound, because the wheat, barley, rice, potatoes, &c., which form everywhere the staple of man’s food, are abundant in starch; the grains are rubbed off, and scattered by the winds in all directions. ”

“ The cereals wheat, corn, rye, oats, and barley are the most prominent source of starch in an ordinary diet. Breakfast foods manufactured from grain are not only nutritious in themselves, but their value is increased by the milk or cream used with them. Bread is the staple starch-containing food in this country, and starch is our main source of energy, but it is necessary to eat only a small quantity of bread, if the diet includes a relatively large amount of vegetables. ”

“ Cooking of Starchy Foods.—Nothing in the whole art and science of preparing food for the human being is of so much importance as the proper cooking of starches. As a result of the heat employed, certain chemical changes are induced in the starch-granules, as a consequence of which they are rendered digestible. ”

“ That dust, on being transferred to the stage of a microscope, was found to contain an enormous number of starch grains. You know that the materials of our food and the greater portion of plants are composed of starch, and we are constantly making use of it in a variety of ways, so that there is always a quantity of it suspended in the air. It is these starch grains which form many of those bright specks that we see dancing in a ray of light sometimes. ”

“ A single meal of salt herring excites merely thirst; common water is yet sufficient to dilute the ingesta and eliminate the salt. Vegetable substances that consist chiefly of starch and water supply the wants of our organism less completely than those that contain an admixture of gluten, albumen, and fat; and, if we restrict our diet to the first-named class of aliments, our system announces the deficit by means of our senses ”

“ When there is a shortage of starch in India, a distress follows that is felt through the bonds of sympathy, if in no other way, the whole world round. Let rice fail to mature its grain, which means, in short, not to store its starch in available form for man, and the dependent race is brought to the ghostly condition of starvation and thrown upon the charity of those people whose starch is in their grain elevators, sacks, and barrels almost without number.
Fig. 2.—Starch Granules of Corn. ”

“ When foods in complex combinations are presented to the stomach all together, like a meal with meat, potatoes, gravy, vegetables, bread, butter, a glass of milk, plus a starchy sweet desert, followed by coffee or tea, the stomach, pancreas, liver and small intestine are overwhelmed, resulting in the fermentation of the sugars and starches, and the putrefaction of the proteins, and poor digestion of the whole. It is little wonder that most people feel so tired after a large meal and need several cups of strong coffee to be able to even get up from the table. ”

“ Monotony of diet and of flavor lessens the appetite and fails to stimulate the digestive organs.
The chemical changes, produced by cooking food properly, aid digestion, beside destroying any germs which may be contained in the food. Nearly all foods—except fruit—require cooking. The digestibility of starch depends almost entirely upon the manner in which it is cooked, especially the cereal class. Gastric troubles are sure to follow the use of improperly cooked grains or starches. ”

“ I do not say that starch in the liquid and pappy form should find no place whatever in man’s dietary at the present day, for this would imply the prohibition of porridge, boiled potatoes, milk puddings, and the like. We cannot put back the hand of time and return to the food of our primitive ancestors, nor is it desirable that we should; but we can, at least, arrange matters so that a large proportion of the starch we consume shall be in a form inviting mastication, such as crusts, stale bread, stale cake, biscuits, and so forth. ”

“ There is one thing which will perhaps be found in every place, and in every pinch of dust, and you will be not a little surprised to learn what that is. It is starch. No object is more familiar to the microscopist than the grain of starch. It is sometimes oval, sometimes spherical, and varies in size. The addition of a little iodine gives it a blue colour, which disappears under the influence of light. There seems to be no difference between the starch grains found in the dust of Egyptian tombs and Roman temples, and that found in the breakfast-parlour of to-day. ”