NOVKMBER, 1920 



(> r, K A X r X G s I X 



!■; K C r LTU R E 



689 



HEN I 

 p e n e (1 



c 



CDNSIANCE 



Sialic 



lUr 



the Octo- 

 ber iiuiiibor ot" 



Gleanings a ii il 



rcail t h first 



]> a r a tr rapli i n 



y\r. Crane's ilc 



]> :i r t ii: cut 1 



■ui'iit rifjlit u ]> 



in tlio air, as my Inisbaiid cxini'ssos it. Lot 

 iMO iiastiMi to I'Xiilaiu tliat I was not in tlie 

 least annoyed at Mr. Crane's j)erfeetly nat- 

 ural surmise tluit the reason tlie fat-sohible 

 vitamiue was not found in extracted honey 

 as well as comb was because lieateil honey 

 had been used for the test. Mr. Crane was 

 and is and probably will continue to be all 

 right, but the editorial st-aff was — not, de- 

 cidedly not ill my opinion. They should 

 have given me a chance to reply briefly on 

 the same page. One would think their food 

 writer lived iu Hong Kong instead of in the 

 same town and within a block of the edi- 

 torial sanctum. Being of an impatient 

 nature I always dislike to wait a month 

 for a reply, and I will venture to assert 

 there are others who feel the same. There 

 is always the chance too that many will 

 read the question and not the tardy answ'er. 

 Let me quote a sentence from Mr. Crane's 

 article to enable you to understand the re- 

 ply: "But I have been wondering since 

 reading ilrs. Puerden 's account of vita- 

 mines whether the clear honey used in these 

 investigations was not bottled honey that 

 had been sterilized to prevent granulation. 

 which might be the cause of finding few 

 or no vitauiines in honey without the 

 comb. ' ' 



Xo, one sample was white clover ex- 

 tracted honey, unheated. The other sample 

 was the blend wliich is used for filling 

 bottles, heated, not sterilized, only to the 

 point found by long exj>erience to be suffi 

 cient to prevent granulation under ordin- 

 ary circumstances, a point wliicli is no- 

 where near the boiling jioint. Boiling lioii 

 ey ruins the delicate flavor. The fi'cding 

 experiments with the rats showed both of 

 these samples of honey, the unheated ami 

 that subjected to a moderate heat, to be 

 deficient in the growth factor known as 

 fat -soluble A. 



Alt ho not neccessary in answering the 

 question I might a<ld that recent develoji- 

 ments show that the vitamines fat-soluble 

 A and water-soluble B, the vitamine which 

 is found in minute quantities in extracted 

 honey, are (•om])arativeIy little injured hy 

 heat, but the anti - scorbutic vitamine. 

 known as w.-itcr snliible C. is (|ui(klv injur 

 ed V»y heat. 



BUT even tiio il seems to be a lact that 

 the fat-soluble vitamines are in comb 

 honey only 1 am in<lined to agree with 

 Mr. Craiie that it is douLtful if they are 

 in the wax itself. In writing tin- article 

 it seemed best for mc to rej-nrt Prof. 



OURFOOD PAGE 



1 



ROOT BOVDEN 



I' Puerden 



%J 



Hawk ' s bind- 

 ings without 

 comment, but I 

 c a n n 't h e li p 

 feeling that na- 

 ture, our inade- 

 quate word for 

 the su])renie In- 

 telligence AV h o 

 directs the uni- 

 verse, would not waste those vitamines on 

 the wax, which is not a food for the bees 

 but contains their food. It is probably pre- 

 sumptuous for me to say so, but I wonder 

 if the vitamines in comb honey may not be 

 so volatile that they are lost in the process 

 of extracting. We are told that they are 

 jirobably ferments, and isn't it reasonable 

 to suppose that they might speedily evapor- 

 ate when removed from the comb and ex- 

 posed to the air? 



If some of you recall the story, told on 

 this page, of the general manager of a 

 chain of theaters who recovered his health 

 on an almost exclusive honey dieit, you 

 niay remember too that he stated that he 

 had to eat comb honey, that he did not 

 receive the same benefit from extracted. 

 But he also said he rejected a large part of 

 the comb. 



APTEE the above was written and set up 

 in type, information came to me that a 

 certain famous sanitarium, which effects 

 its cures entirely by means of diet, sanitation 

 and exercise — no medicine w'hatever — serves 

 no sweets to its patients except honey. I hope 

 to be able to tell more about this in a later 

 issue. 



BEFORE I leave the subject of vita- 

 mines, and please remember that Mr. 

 Crane and not I introduced it this time, 

 I wish to call your attention to an inter- 

 esting article on the subject in the issue of 

 the Youths' Comjianion for 8ept. 2.S. It 

 was written by Dr. C. W. Saleeby, F. R. S. 

 Kdin. F. Z. S. (my typewriter fairly choked 

 o\er all those fine sounding letters). Every 

 liit of it is valuable to mothers or others 

 who jijan food for their families, and yet 

 it is written in a style easy to understand. 

 The })aragra|>Ii which I am going to quote 

 might be termed a concentrated argument 

 in fa\or of the eighteenth amendment: 



"Beer is remarkable l)ecaus.e, tho it is 

 derived from materials rich in various vita- 

 mines, no vestige of any vitamine survives 

 in it. Indeed, for us in many parts of 

 Europe beer must be reckoned the most 

 common and nationally important example 

 of a jtreserved, artificial, and — because de- 

 prived of vitamines — devitalized 'food.' 

 Tills I must insist iqion liecause the con- 

 trary lijis heen asserted by some writers, 

 not men of science, who have heard that 

 malt and yeast are rich in vitamines, but 

 who have not thought it desirable to ask 

 tlieTnselves what is Iikel\- to happen to those 

 delicate agents when treatnl ;is the brewer 

 treats them."' 



