Bread-analysis : a practical treatise on the examination of flour and bread / by J. Alfred Wanklyn and W.J. Cooper.

  • Cooper W. J. (William John)
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Bread-analysis : a practical treatise on the examination of flour and bread / by J. Alfred Wanklyn and W.J. Cooper. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    76/96 (page 64)
    CARBOHYDRATES. food is the intact starch granule. ]u a former chapter we have carefully pointed out the peculiarities of the intact starch-granule, which is singularly inei t. It is not attacked by malt extract, and is no doubt fitted by this very inertness for the important place which it occupies in so many dietaries. Text books of Physiology are somewhat confused in their account of the digestion of starch. According to some authors the intact starch-granule is hardly digestible, and passes unchanged along the intestinal canal. But that cannot be accurate : and the truth is, that the digestion of the starch- granule is slow and deferred. Apparently, the digestion of starch begins in the mouth, is an-ested in the stomach, and recommences after the food travels along the intestinal tube. Inasmuch as nutrition does not take place until the food has passed through the walls of the stomach, or intestines, and has been absorbed, we can understand that the inertness of starch-granules renders them specially sustaining.' Such food becomes active several hours after it has been eaten, and thus continuous nutrition is compatible with intermittent feeding. One of the most striking differences between the food of the young infant and the food of the adult depends on starch. The infant cannot tolerate intact starch-graiuiles in its food ; but, in the dietary of the adult, intact starch- granules ])hy the important part which we have described. Most probably some delicate forms of cellulose have much the same dietetic properties as starch-granules. But the grosser forms of cellulose, such as woody fibre, are absolutely inert and useless as food. They pass aM-ay unchanged. When starch-granules are heated with water up to the l)oil- ing point of the water they gelatinize and form stai-ch paste.