DENTAL ILL-HEALTH
Sut,—It is not surprising that the Inter-departmental Committee on Dentiitry should have come to the conclusion that a comprehensive dental health service should be provided to deal with the bad state of dental health ; but what is surprising is that they appear to have spent so little space in investigating why so many of the last generation or two carried most of their teeth to the grave, in spite of the fact that they had not nearly the opportunities on the educational side which we have today. Why? What has happened in recent years to account for this deplorable deterioration in human teeth?
One change, at least, synchronises with this deterioration, viz., the use of " white " wheat flour instead of " whole " wheat flour. It is well known that " white " flour clogs the teeth, that it causes acidity of the stomach and constipation, the resulting acidity dissolving the teeth and causing rapid deterioration. After all, prevention is much more important than cure, although the latter may be necessary now as a policy of desperation. Why should our education be so bad as to allure
us to view our food from a " whiteness " standard, rather than from a "nutrition and health" standard? It is difficult to avoid the inference, if one has tried to secure " whole " wheat flour for the last 30 or 40 years, that the roller-plant millers are "dictating" the kind of bread we should eat so as to secure increased dividends. We are entitled to know in any case.
Is it or is it not because the separation of wheat into its constituents and the packeting of certain parts" as Bemax, Hovis bread flour, digestive biscuit flour, &c., pays better, aye much better, than allowing folks to have a straight ground whole-meal flour, where all these things would be included as a more or less balanced food?
Further, under controlled prices, would it not be possible to provide whole-meal flour at a lower price to the public, than would be possible where the various extractives are juggled at will and allowed extra for under the designation of a manufactured article of food? If so, we are entitled to the benefit, and we should persist in our demand.
We know that roller-mill flour manufacturers lay great stress on the lack of keeping-quality when the germ is included in the flour. Is this an excuse or a reason? In any case, the difficulty, if it be one, was over- come in the past, and why should not education in this respect be directed to overcoming this alleged tendency? White flour may not be the only cause of dental ill-health ; but it is assuredly One that should receive very serious attention.—Yours faithfully, JOHN PORTER.
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