866 
VITAMIN'ES IN HONEY 
honey upon gastric digestion. He was first 
given 40 grams of whole wheat bread alone. 
The contents of the stomach were analyzed 
for acid and pepsin at 15-minute intervals 
and an accurate and detailed record was 
kept. The experiment was then repeated, 
adding to the bread half its weight in hon¬ 
ey (20 grams). 
The following quotation tells the results 
in Prof. Hawk’s own words: “An examina¬ 
tion of the chart will show that the bread 
with honey was digested and left the stom¬ 
ach as quickly as the bread alone. Sim¬ 
ilar pepsin values were obtained, and while 
there was a slight depression of acidity 
such as always follows the ingestion of 
foods containing much sugar, digestion 
was completed as soon as with the bread 
alone, altho the addition of the honey had 
practically doubled the food value of the 
product from the energy standpoint. 
“The use of honey with bread and in 
similar ways would, therefore, appear to 
be generally preferable in the case of chil¬ 
dren to the eating of candies. Honey serves 
to make the highly nutritious bread far more 
palatable, leading to a greater consumption 
of body-building foods instead of depress¬ 
ing the appetite, as is likely to be the case 
with candies which are eaten between meals. 
At the same time honey furnishes the body 
very considerable amounts of energy in the 
most available form. The high place given 
to it in the diet is therefore well deserved.” 
In quoting the above from Prof. Hawk 
the reader should always couple it with his 
statement that comb honey contains distinct 
amounts of the fat-soluble vitamine, and 
where he said that honey added to the diet 
of white rats, which were being starved of 
the fat-soluble vitamine, produced the same 
effects as 5 per cent of butter fat, the lat¬ 
ter being the richest known source of fat- 
soluble A. Remember also that his experi¬ 
ments indicated that there are small 
amounts of the water-soluble B vitamine in 
extracted honey. Therefore when we give 
a child bread spread with comb honey we 
are not only increasing the energy value by 
a large percentage, but are providing ap¬ 
preciable amounts of the fat-soluble vita¬ 
mine so essential to growth, especially in 
the diet of the young. And, in addition, 
honey contains in minute quantities practic¬ 
ally all the soluble minerals found in the 
human body. 
At the beginning of this article allusion 
was made to the fact that Prof. Hawk’s 
