90 ALIMENTATION. 



been considered with sufficient minuteness. It remains 

 now to treat of the composition and properties of some 

 of the more important vegetables and the articles which are 

 made from them, particularly the different kinds of bread. 

 The various fruits, many of which are mere articles of luxury, 

 demand only a passing mention. 



Cereal Grains. The cereal grains commonly used as 

 food are wheat, Indian corn, rye, buckwheat, oats, barley, 

 and rice. Wheat, corn, rye, buckwheat, and oats, are gen- 

 erally ground, freed from the bran, and the flour or meal is 

 made into bread, cakes, gruel, or porridge. Barley, rice, 

 and green corn, are frequently taken after simple boiling. 

 The articles made from these different grains possess differ- 

 ent nutritive properties, though they are all more or less 

 important, Wheaten flour is the only preparation of the 

 cereals capable of making that most important of all aliment- 

 ary articles, good bread. The mechanical properties of moist 

 gluten enable us to form from flour, by the process known 

 as raising, a light, porous bread, which is entirely different 

 from articles manufactured from meal of any other kind. 



Wheat must be considered as by far the most nutritious 

 of all grains. It contains, after desiccation, from fifty to 

 seventy-five per cent, of starch, from ten to twenty per cent, 

 of nitrogenized matters, about two per cent, of fatty matter, 

 six to ten per cent, of dextrine and sugar, two to three per 

 cent, of inorganic salts, and a certain quantity of cellulose. 

 It is distinguished from all other grains by its large propor- 

 tion of glutine. When we come to consider the composition 

 and properties of bread, we will see the great importance of 

 this principle. 



Corn is distinguished from other grains by its large pro- 

 portion of oily matter (between eight and ten per cent.), 

 by a peculiar odorous principle, and by its small propor- 

 tion of nitrogenized matter. It contains a larger propor- 

 tion of indigestible vegetable tissue than any of the grains, 



