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CEREAL FOODS* 
he Century Dictionary defines the word cereal as pertaining 
or relating to edible grain, or any graminaceous plant cultivated 
for the use of its farinaceous food; any one of the annual grain 
plants, as wheat, rye, barley, oats, rice, millet, and maize. This 
definition would indicate that the word cereal can be properly 
applied only to the fruits of grasses. This word was derived 
om the Roman goddess Ceres, in whose honor was celebrated 
the festival of the Cerealia. 
The principal cereals of temperate climes are wheat, rye, oats, 
and barley; of warm temperate and tropical regions, rice and 
Indian corn or maize 
Do we fully realize what it would mean to mankind to have 
the cereals destroyed? Think of the bread we eat and of the 
many breakfast foods, such as oatmeal, cornmeal, wheatlet, 
hominy, and many others, if we wish to have a realizing sense 
of what it would mean to be deprived of the cereals. 
Of the temperate cereals, wheat is the most valuable. Its 
origin is veiled in uncertainty, but probably traceable to Egypt. 
It is found in old Egyptian monuments, and grains of it were 
discovered in the bricks of a pyramid dating back to 3359 B. C. 
was cultivated by the lake dwellers of western Switzerland, 
was known to cultivation in China 2700 B. C. 
s the principal bread-stuff among civilized nations, being 
ee converted into flour. The proteids in wheat, which feed 
the nerves and brain, reside, together with the fat and mineral 
facture of white flour. ese elements thus removed are 
essential to the welfare of the human body, and so the great 
e of whole wheat flour may be appreciated. The ordinary 
white flour of commerce practically contains nothing but starch. 
e production of wheat is enormous. As an example, the 
wheat crop in the United States for 1910 was 635,121,000 bushels, 
the product of 45,681,000 acres; while the world crop for the 
same year was 3,572,084,000 bushels. Oats, while extensively used 
* Abstract of a lecture delivered at the New York Botanical Garden on October 
18, 1913. 
