p. 635 | “NUTRITIOUS” COFFEE

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 1, 1901

“NUTRITIOUS” COFFEE.

Owing to a growing realization of the fact that coffee is injurious, there has appeared on the market, during the last few years, a large number of substitutes for coffee.

Some of these the manufacturers “modestly” claim to be:—

“Healthful and nutritious.” “In every sense a pure health food.” “A perfect food, in liquid form.” “A pure food drink.” “It’s nourishing and strengthening.” “A palatable, nutritious, and wholesome beverage.” “It tones the blood, and by its daily use will impart the healthful glow of youth.” “It nourishes, strengthens, and vitalizes.” “A natural food drink.” “Contains the phosphorus besides other nourishment of the grain in a concentrated form.” “Recommended by the medical profession for its nutritious and healthful properties,” etc.

Because of the extravagant claims for the nutritive value of the decoctions prepared from these coffee substitutes, the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station made careful analysis of a number of samples, and in Bulletin 65, in commenting on the figures obtained, says:—

“Skimmed milk is generally considered a pretty thin beverage, but it contains from three to twenty times as much solids as these so-called nutritious drinks. . . . Viewed from the nutritive standpoint alone, . . . these coffee substitutes, like coffee itself, depend more for their food value upon the cream and sugar used than upon their own soluble constituents.”

The only honest claim that can be made for cereal coffees is that they furnish a palatable hot drink, free from the injurious substances present in coffee; and such a cereal coffee, if in itself free from objectionable substances, serves a useful purpose.—Pacific Health Journal for September.