wheat or oats. These materials, while fairly satisfactory to persons of 

 robust health, doing outdoor labor, were often found to so irritate the 

 intestines as to cause increased peristaltic action. This may be an ad- 

 vantage to persons doing sedentary work, but it may be a positive injury 

 to others. With the development of machinery capable of removing the 

 coarse branny parts of the grain, this fault has been largely overcome. 

 More recently there has been a demand for more tasty food of a nature 

 that may be quickly prepared for the table, and a great variety of break- 

 fast cereals of the ready-to-serve type have been placed on the market. 

 These products are, in general, attractive and palatable, and afford a 

 pleasing variety in the diet ; and because of special treatment in the pro- 

 cess of manufacture, the amount of labor entailed in their preparation for 

 the table is materially reduced. This is doubtless one reason why they 

 have become so popular; but, on the other hand, no class of foods has 

 been so extensively advertised ; and such an endless variety of wonderful 

 virtues have been claimed for them that people were led out of curiosity 

 to try them. Some of the breakfast foods are stated to contain several 

 times as much nourishment as the same weight of beef; others are lauded 

 as especially valuable as brain food, or nerve tonics, and very many are 

 claimed to be particularly well suited for persons of weak digestion. There 

 may be some truth in the last statement, but it is evident that many of 

 the claims are utterly groundless. Yet these very fanciful statements have 

 served the purpose of attracting attention, and have, without a doubt, 

 increased the sales of these foods. 



The grains commonly used in preparing the breakfast foods in this 

 country are oats, wheat, and corn, and, to some extent, barley and rice. 

 The foods prepared from these may be roughly divided into four classes : 

 (first) the uncooked, (second) the partially cooked, (third) the cooked, and 

 (fourth) the malted and cooked foods. 



First. The Uncooked. In the first class we have the granulated 

 forms of oatmeal, the wheat farinas, cornmeal, and rice. The oatmeals 

 are of three grades. The best grade is that known as granulated or pin 

 head. In preparing it the kiln-dried and hulled grain is cut with cutters 

 and the fine meal, or low grade materials, taken from it. The second 

 grade, known as the standard or mid-cut, is prepared by a gradual reduc- 

 tion of the oat kernels by cutters and grinders and more of the germ of 

 the grain is left in the food. What is called coarse cut, or the third 

 grade, is the whole meal prepared without gradual reduction. In every 

 case the grain is kiln-dried. This makes the grain more brittle, and gives 

 it the desired flavor. 



The wheat farinas are sold under a great variety of names, as Cream 

 of Wheat, Meat of Wheat, Wheat Crystals, etc. They are usually pre- 

 pared from the hard granulated particles of the wheat got from 

 the first and second breaks in the manufacture of flour— the part 

 of the wheat from which the patent' flour is made. As the soft winter 

 wheats tend to break down too fine, the hard spring wheats are ordinarily 



