BREADFRUIT 



911 



BREADFRUIT 



lib. plain bread 



1220 food units 



lib. eggs 



720 food units 



lib. potatoes 



385 food units 



llbmilK 



325 food units 



1 Ib. beans 



lib. fish 



Ub. mutton leg 



lib. round steaK 



1500 food units 



450 food units 



950 food units 



745 food units 



A COMPARISON OF FOOD VALUES 



Meat is sixty per cent water and costs from twenty to thirty cents per pound. Bread is nearly 

 forty per cent water and costs five cents per pound. There is more energy stored in a pound of 

 bread than in a pound of meat or in any other foods illustrated above, except beans. 



contains the bran as well as the flour is the 

 better, but the weight of opinion is now in 

 favor of the latter. Physicians are advising 

 that everyone eat some bread every day in 

 which bran is included. Bread should be very 

 well chewed, however, because it is a starch 

 food and the saliva helps to digest the starch. 

 The only harm that hot breads, long looked 

 upon as extremely unwholesome, can do, arises 

 from the fact that the inside, or "crumb," is 

 easily compressed into a solid mass and swal- 

 lowed before the saliva has a chance to mix 

 with it. Crusty breads or rolls are better 

 than softer breads, because they call for more 

 chewing. Breads become stale by losing water, 

 about fourteen per cent being lost in the course 

 of a week. Stale bread can be refreshened by 

 heating to about 300 F. All in all, no other 

 food probably returns better value for money 

 expended than does bread, and Benjamin 

 Franklin, on his first arrival in Philadelphia, 

 acted with characteristic wisdom when he spent 

 his last penny for "three wheaten rolls." See 

 FOOD, subhead Chemistry of Foods. J.F.S. 



BREADFRUIT, bred' jrute, one of the most 

 important food staples of tropical islands in 

 the Pacific Ocean. The tree that produces it 

 grows about forty feet high, often limbless half 

 its height, with large, spreading upper branches 

 and glossy dark-green leaves over a foot in 

 length. The fruit, usually seedless, is green at 

 first, later brown, and lastly yellow. Six or 

 eight inches in diameter, the fruit hangs singly 

 by short, thick stems, or in clusters of two or 

 three. There is almost a constant supply 

 throughout the year. 



The fruit is generally eaten immediately after 

 being gathered. It is also often prepared to 

 keep for some time, either by baking it whole 



in close, underground pits, or by beating it into 

 paste and storing it underground, where a slight 

 fermentation takes place. The eatable part 

 lies between the skin and the core and is 

 somewhat of the consistency of new bread. 

 Mixed with cocoanut milk it makes an excel- 

 lent pudding. The inner bark of the tree is 



BREADFRUIT 

 Stalk, fruit, leaves and flower. 



made into a kind of cloth. The wood, when 

 seasoned, closely resembles mahogany, and is 

 used for the building of boats and for furniture. 

 The breadfruit tree has been cultivated in 

 Southern Florida, but the fruits are not seen 

 in Northern markets as they do not bear ship- 

 ment well. 



