Is that correct? White bread vs. wholemeal--again-Washington Post

As I wrote in this week of "eat, drink and be healthy" column, the new dietary guidelines for Americans, 2010 suggest that we get our intake of whole grains increase because more healthy grains to elbow out the refined grains--such as white bread--we consume in abundance.

It appears that that concept is hardly a new one.One of my favorite features under the medical journals that I peruse is JAMA from "100 years ago" section, which, as the name suggests, archived articles that the journal printed a century ago. This week, JAMA offered a missive (from 100 years ago today) of an unnamed London correspondent spelling out the bad effects of white bread was on British society.

The author notes that white bread, made from grains, stripped of their "germ and inner husk," had originally offered as a luxury item for the rich but the bread of choice for all classes had become. In particular, the author complains, the ubiquity of white bread, exhausted from the diet virtues that the whole grain are passed, caused an epidemic of caries, even if the medical community remained unmoved no action:

From time to time an occasional article appeared in medical journals pointing out the flaws of white bread, but it has no more effect than the periodic wail on the cessation of the blood-letting. The only people who have proved to be the situation are vegetarians, in most waiver of animal foods have shown a sharp desire to as much as possible from their vegetable food; they've always whole-meal bread consumed. But outside of their own sect they have no influence.

The correspondence ends on a hopeful note, but that the prospect of the intervention of the Government does:

In the lay press a movement in favor of the old cream-coloured loaf that is named "default bread", and defined as "bread made from wheat and unadulterated by at least 80% of the whole wheat, including the germ and meal" has such an effect in a few days that the result must be described, not as a reform, but as a revolution in bread. Prominent doctors support health officials and traffic. It is proposed that a Bill in Parliament for the standardization of bread and the proposal has received the support of

members of all parties.Today we worry more about obesity than Cavities when we think of everything refined grain-based white bread that we eat. But what of this idea of introducing legislation to standardize bread? That gives me the willies.var entrycat = ' diet guidelines, Is that right?, nutrition and Fitness'By Jennifer LaRue Huget | February 25, 2011; 7: 00 AM ET
Categories: dietary guidelines, Is that right?, diet and Fitness

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