CEREALS.

The literary fabric of the ancient world has been woven from a warp of fiction and a woof of fact. When we turn to it we find the beautiful, the poetic, the absurd and the true so mixed together that scholars of every nation regard their separation as worthy of their most profound thought.

It was from this confusion that the word “cereal” came. Ceres was a goddess worshipped by the ancient Romans. She occupies a most conspicuous place in the beautiful myths that adorn the classic literature of those ancient peoples. She was considered the head of the Agricultural Department. Her special duty was to sit on fleecy clouds and pour from the hollow of her mythical hand floods of sunshine and showers of rain over the grainfields of the Cæsars. Therefore, all grains grouped together were called cereals.

These articles were first used only when in a green or soft state—that is, from the time the grains began to form in a milky condition until they ripened and become so hard as to hazard the integrity of the teeth. Later they were soaked in water to soften them, and then in warm water, which saved time and facilitated the work of preparation. This custom evolved into the use of hot water, then hotter water, until boiling or the present method of cooking resulted.

In order to facilitate and lighten the labor in the preparation of cereals, they were pounded, crushed and broken, which custom very naturally evolved into the modern grinding and bolting mill. When cereals are in a milky state before they become hardened, before nature throws around them an envelope of cellulose for their protection, they are easy of digestion, and are excellent food. But when they have become thoroughly ripened and hardened, each molecule of starch, of which they are so largely composed, is enclosed in another envelope which is almost impervious to the digestive fluids.

It has been shown by modern research that cooking does not break up this covering. The modern methods of grinding and cooking cereals render mastication unnecessary as far as pulverizing them is concerned. Therefore, they pass the taste-buds under false pretenses; they deprive them of their rights; they do not have time to perform their duties, hence they do not pour into the mouth the amount of saliva necessary to perform the first step in digestion.

Soft, mushy foods are also responsible for the woeful decay of teeth, which is such a conspicuous mark of civilized man. Nature will not keep alive or produce, generation after generation, any part of the anatomy that is not used. Her system of economy is perfect.

When cereals are taken in their natural state, or not too completely pulverized, so that the teeth may be employed in their final and complete grinding, they constitute a valuable food for a normal, healthy person. This would also be better for the teeth, and make cereal substances much easier to digest and more thoroughly convertible into energy. Under the present dietetic régime, in which cereals are regarded as the staff of life, it is safe to say that more than fifty per cent. of all stomach disorders are caused by undigested cereal starch.