On food : Being lectures delivered at the South Kensington Museum / by E. Lankester.

  • Lankester, E. Ray (Edwin Ray), Sir, 1847-1929.
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On food : Being lectures delivered at the South Kensington Museum / by E. Lankester. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

    155/408 (page 145)
    but to our Scotch neighbours^, who, many of them, never eat wheat bread, but unfermented oatmeal, and there can be no doubt that they flourish on this diet. I think, therefore, this argument in favour of fermented bread must fall to the ground. Then we may argue the matter as a question of taste. Well, if you like fermented bread best, there is an end of the question, and fermented bread has pro- bably a sweeter flavour. During the fermenting pro- cess the starch has had a tendency given to it to change into glucose. In the aerated process there is no fer- mentation or change of the starch further than in the baking, and consequently fermented bread tastes sweeter in the mouth. The question is, is that an advantage ? In some cases it is a disadvantage ; as the fermented bread passes into a change further than glucose. There are many persons who cannot eat sugar, apples, pears, grapes, or anything containing glucose. They can eat a little cane-sugar, and that is all. Why? Because the stomach produces compounds which hasten the breaking up of the glucose and its conversion into acids. Thus it is that on some persons fermented bread acts as a poison. Many people can take dry toast who cannot take new or soft bread, and persons under these circumstances prefer biscuits that have not been fermented at all, and it is in these cases that unfermented aerated bread acts favourably. I must, however, leave the question now with you to determine for yourselves. I will merely say that there is not that attention paid to the process of baking among bakers, and certainly not among people who bake at home, that there might be. The consequence Ij