It is believed by some persons that the Anglo-American race in this
country is tending rapidly to extinction. Both the birth-rate and the
mother's power to nurse her children seem to be steadily diminishing.
Many persons refer the cause to our climate; others to the overaction of
the brain and nerves in childhood and youth by our schools, and by the
exhaustive excitements of social and fashionable life.
We have no doubt that the latter cause, especially, has much to do with
it. But, besides this, we are inclined to attribute it, to a large
extent, to a lack of proper nourishment.
We are the only nation that prides itself on the whitest of white bread.
Our housekeeping is based on this, and our tastes and the tastes of our
children have become conformed to it.
The fine white bread we use is far enough from being "the staff of
life." The elements that feed the brain, and nerves, and bones, and even
the muscles, have been almost wholly eliminated from it. What is left is
little more than starch, which only supplies heat. It should be
remembered that on pure starch a man can starve to death as truly as on
pure water. And it is this slow starving process that, as a people, we
seem to be undergoing.
Our only alternative is to return to the bread which nature has
provided,--that made from the unbolted grain,--in which there are about
twenty different elements, and each element is essential to the vigor
and health of our physical system.
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