126 Indianapolis Biochemical Meeting: Ahstracts [Sept. 



is progressing along several lines, especially with reference to 

 methods of isolation and purification, and to osmosis.^ 



Aging o£ Flour and its Effect on Digestion 



J. A. WESENER AND GEORGE L. TELLER 



(Columbiis Laboratories, No. Jj A^. State St., Chicago, IlL) 



The aging of flour by the use of oxides of nitrogen, and similar 

 agents artificially supplied, is simply a hastening of the process 

 which is continually going on in the storage of flour. Flours ex- 

 posed to the air for greater or less time, according to conditions, 

 take up nitrogen oxides from the air and lose their color just the 

 same as when treated with the bleaching gases. Alkali corn starch 

 exposed to the air, or even when packed in a paper carton and 

 sealed with paper wrapper, takes nitrites rapidly from the air. 

 Vaughan's experiments indicate that the product formed by the 

 Union of the coloring matter of flour with the bleaching gases is 

 not poisonous and that it gives the Liebermann nitroso test. 



The nitrite reaction in flour seems to be due entirely to direct 

 Union between the coloring matter and nitrogen oxid. 



Nitrites do not interfere with diastase in its action on starch, 

 even when present as sodium nitrite to the extent of one part in one 

 thousand. 



Nitrous and nitric acid do not inhibit the action of peptic 

 digestion, and may wholly replace hydrochloric acid in this essential 

 first stage of digestion. 



While pancreatic digestion will not take place in the presence of 

 free acids, it is not inhibited by the presence of relatively large 

 quantities of nitrites, nor is its action restrained on protein which 

 has been previously subjected to the action of appreciable quanti- 

 ties of nitrous and nitric acids. 



No experiments liave demonstrated the presence in commercially 

 bleached flour of either mineral nitrite, nitrous acid or nitric acid. 



^Rosenbloom and Gies : Proceedings of the American Society of Biological 

 Chemists, 191 1, ii, p. 8; Journal of Biological Chemistry, 1911, ix, p. xiv; Rosen- 

 bloom and Gies : Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and 

 Medicine, 1911, viii, p. 71; Gies: Ibid., p. y^,', Goodridge and Gies: Ibid., p. 74; 

 Sidbury and Gies: Ibid., p. 104; Boas and Rosenbloom: Ibid., p. 132. 



