THE proper digestion of starch is very important, for it is the fermentation of starch that produces a large share of our digestive disturbances. Insufficiently cooked starches, such as the common mushes, are extremely liable to fermentation in the stomach, and in this way mush-eating directly paves the way for meat-eating, as the victims of acid fermentation soon discover that meat will not ferment. They do not so soon discover that it does putrefy later on in the intestinal canal, giving rise to those poisons which produce sick headache and other troublesome symptoms.
Starch is the body's fuel; together with sugar and fat it constitutes a great source of heat to keep the body warm and energy to move its many muscles. The slight cooking of starch, while it does not render the starch easy of digestion, does render it much more liable to fermentation. The products of fermentation are exceedingly damaging to the body. In many respects they have the same effects on the arteries, liver, and other internal organs as alcohol; in fact, alcohol itself may be produced in the human digestive tract during the process of fermentation.
The gases formed in the process of fermentation tend to produce dilatation and distention of the stomach, and just as it is possible to take a spiral spring and stretch it so far that it will not rebound, so if the stomach is stretched too much day after day its muscles lose the power to contract. The stomach is in one sense dislocated, and a dislocated stomach is a harder thing to remedy than a dislocated shoulder. Such a stomach invariably retains the food too long, during which fermentation takes place, as a result of which the man is constantly irritated—in fact, goes thru life alternately anesthetized and stimulated by these fermentation and putrefactive poisons.
Another word concerning the substitution of meat for those grains and other foods like potatoes which have a tendency to ferment if kept too long in the stomach: While the meat-eating gives immediate relief from the troublesome symptoms of gastric fermentation, it must be borne in mind that there are certain remote results of this excessive or exclusive meat diet which are bound to appear sooner or later. Cancer seems to be increasing in the exact proportion with our increased consumption of flesh foods. Bright's disease is another disease in the cause of which meat-eating plays an important factor, and even diabetes, a condition of general cell poisoning and perversion, may include the excessive consumption of flesh foods among its original causes.
What Can Be Done?
What can we do to help in the digestion of starch? And it must be remembered that starch forms about three-fourths of the food of all who are not heavy eaters of flesh or other proteids. The thing of first importance to the proper digestion of starch is its proper cooking, which we have previously considered; that is, it must be toasted, thoroly baked, dextrinized. Next it must be thoroly masticated. It must remain in the mouth long enough to be mixed with the saliva, and then when it is swallowed in the stomach, starch digestion continues for twenty to thirty minutes.
What are the hindrances to starch digestion—those things which favor souring of the stomach?—First, eating of insufficiently cooked starch. Second, hasty eating, insufficient mastication. Third, drinking of large quantities of liquids at meals. Fourth, partaking of certain acids. Experiments have shown that a teaspoonful of strong vinegar is enough to spoil the digestion of a whole dinner as far as starch is concerned. How absurd, then, it is to use pickles, a starchy vegetable saturated with vinegar, or to put vinegar upon our vegetables which contain starch. Some of the stronger acids natural to foods also interfere with starch digestion when taken in full strength, such as the oxalic acid of the rhubarb and the citric acid of the lemon.
Table showing the per cent. of starch found in various food substances:
LEGUMES.
Peas, small .....52.6
" African ......57.8
" Green, shelled .57.7
Beans, field ....48.3
" French or Kidney .55.6
" White .......48.8
" Lima ........60.6
Lentils .........53.
