OUR DAILY BREAD AND VITAMINS 

 BY WALTER H. EDDY, PH.D. 



Professor of Physiological Chemistry, Columbia University 



ONE of the outstanding events in nutrition of the 

 past decade has been the evolution of the 

 vitamin hypothesis. Unfortunately the appli- 

 cation of this hypothesis to the needs of the layman has 

 provided the food and nostrum purveyors with material 

 for advertising and exaggeration, and it is now essen- 

 tial that the cold facts in the case be presented to the 

 public if we are to avoid the evils that have arisen from 

 this quackery. In this chapter I wish to outline briefly 

 the significant steps that have led to our knowledge of 

 vitamins, the relation of this knowledge to our previous 

 conceptions of right feeding, the methods which are used 

 to evaluate the vitamin content of foodstuffs, and some 

 simple rules for guidance in food selection in view of the 

 new discovery. 



Previous to 1906 the study of nutrition by laboratory 

 methods has provided important basal principles for 

 guidance in food selection. These principles are as 

 fundamental and basic to-day as they were then, and 

 the first fact to emphasize is that the vitamin discover- 

 ies have merely provided knowledge with which to 

 supplement these facts, not to supersede or overthrow 

 them. 



