Expose' -U. S. Bread Fails to Meet Nutrition Standards

RORTY, N. PHILIP NORMAN, M.D., end JAMES

Expose' —U. S. Bread Fails to Meet Nutrition Standards Adv. Drive Sells "World's Worst And Most Expensive Bread" By N. PHILIP NORMAN, M.D., end JAMES RORTY LIKE so many other professional and...

...Next month well examine this record in somewhat more detail...
...Wilder was director of the civilian food requirements branch of the Food Distribution Administration and chief sponsor of the enriched flour and bread program...
...In England, a smaller enrichment program was abandoned after British medical authorities raised a storm of protest...
...The f$oi Field Reporter in its issue of October 4th remarked that now> "you can expect leas erastasis on high falutin' nutrition ideas'* because Dr...
...Norman snd Mr...
...Nor do we denounce industry as a whole because some .wire corporation supplied the government with inferior wire...
...Com manner of the American Legion, deerrihed th...
...s . « • ¦ AND, Mr...
...At the July 21st conference, Dr...
...They won't eat the so-called "whole wheat" bread offered them by die big corporations that dominate the industry, and they can scarcely be blamed because it tastes worse, if anything, than the standardized white loaf, and is, moreover, sophisticated and devitalized by bleaching and other processing...
...This is a typical and unfounded misrepresentation, and 4s as contemptible so- it is untrue...
...The best that may I he hoped from the whole effort is that it . ; will bring about ultimately enough education of the millers and bakers on the one > hand snd the public on the other to make possible a nutritional policy with respect j to bread and other cereal products which is st once intelligent, honest, and effective...
...Commander, what has been the record* Examine it...
...But other experiments yield conflicting results...
...Minded snd sewn areas...
...1A survey.this spring by the Food and Drug Administration of the New York area indicated that from 12 to 16 per cent of the white broad labeled "enriched" wasn't enriched at mil, and that a third of it was substantially below the required standard...
...ANE of the favorite targets for attack of the Daily Worker is David Dubinsky, leader of the ILGWU...
...It is s well-known fact among the many thousands of Negro members of the ILGWU and in the circle cf white and Negro labor leaders, that Dubinsky • ILGWU has a long and creditable record not only of fair play with the Negro worker but of aggressive concern for and interest in the organization of Negroes into the trade ever which the International Ladies Garment Workers Union holds jurisdiction...
...Green's words.] IT appears to me that I can with perfect * propriety point out to the commander that those who seek perfection in an imperfect world are* doomed to disappointment, but ht who follows the pathway of logic and reason looking above and beyond the inconsequential faults of a small minority, will realize that after all we are making a fine record in a most imperfect world...
...Coasts were ravage eV whole lands were named and looted ' Murder was rife—"every priest was hong up before hi* own nltsr...
...All this and more is right in the record— one- doesn't have to enrich it...
...The Rod Army recaptured the town of Perieeiav...
...before this column is printed, it is expected that it will provide merely for the enrichment of flour sold to housewives, but permit the bakers to do their own enrichment as...
...I have often spoken in the A.F.L...
...looses resulting fross strikes and also nooni and then called upon the Federation to *xxnt with the Legion...
...in its ugliest form...
...But the American Communist movement cannot be permitted, whatever its allegiance may be with a foteign country, to cos trol and shape the life of the American labor movement...
...And thai pledge was kept by imperfect men...
...they are in fact among the dumbest and orner,est of our food industry's numerous problem children...
...an attempt is made to create prejudice against this trade-union in the minds of its Negro members and the Negro people, by indicating that David Dubinaky and his associates at the Toronto, A.F.L...
...His trfnmphsi entry into Kiev was marked by "the committal of aenpesaahU atrocities on the Jews and . Bssasn Catholics...
...That, perhaps, was just the trouble from the point of ricw of the baking industry, which breathed a foUsctire sigh of relief when he departed...
...Medical science has correlated deficiencies in these elements with nervous instability (low morale), loss of working efficiency, functional iisturbances of the heart and gastro-intestinal canal,.-with pellagra, nutritional anemia, rickets, tfe.-' But there is no one-to-one correlation...
...We have kept the faith and we are keeping the faith...
...This is the vital story of "nutrition...
...Nutrition Review remarks in its August, 1943, issue that,"It is a curious fact that the enrichment of white flour and white bread1 was promulgated with little direct experimental evidence to demonstrate the value of such a proposal for the human being...
...fire are supposedly restored ty the successive formulae of the enrich lent program, which waa at first adopted voluntarily by the bakers, snd Isst January I Was made compulsory for all white bread...
...Then we shall serve in s like capacity in trying to find the way by which every man who enlisted in the service of the nation may find an opportunity to resume his normal life, to live in the American way, working and serving his family and society and the nation aa well...
...Wilder, and your high falutin' nutritional ideas...
...Rorty on problems "close to home...
...We are opposed to the exploitation of women workers and children during normal times...
...Some evidence aa to bow much good, if any, the enrichment program has done us should be available in about eighteen toonths from now in the form of public health statistics showing the incidence of pellagra and other deficiency diseases affecting the low income groups which' are the heaviest consumers of bread...
...In 1928 it took the Federal Food Commtasion three big volumes to detail the sorry tale, composed about equally of chicanery and...
...convention against discrimination and I have never seen David Dubinaky and members of the ILGWU walk out or found that all of them were absent during my speech...
...In addition it has applied the "creative psychiatry" of advertising to such good effect that it has imposed the consumption of this tasteless, devitalized product upon the people...
...fas ether day the memory of Boo dan Kkmelmteky...
...IT'S a great industry...
...We say, "You hare sinned against the Government,** oul industry as'a whole does not approve of it and we bold them in high regard...
...The Negro people are definitely disillusioned with she grandiose promises ef the American Communist Party...
...by no means established that enriched bread* does''the dietary job which it is supposed '0 do and which whole wheat bread is known tpdo...
...Nor do we denounce industry as a whole because some greedy employers of labor hoes' sought to make" profits that are unreasonable out of this war emergency...
...Negroes are noW bitter in their resentment against the bankrupt and defunct Communists, who have deserted and dropped the Negro like a "hot potato" on the grounds that racial discrimination, segrogatien and jimerowism can run rampant while the wnr goes on and the* fight against it must be halted until Hitler's troops are out of Russia...
...He conenered La Mm: Petes were "heated news, layed and burnt alive...
...The first contribution was a general analysis of the American diet...
...along with a Jew and a hog...
...The silly and unsubstantial charge is made that this progressive labor leader and his union raise the color bar and deny Negro workers opportunity to enter certain crafts and to advance in the trade and union...
...Most notorious product of Russis's Moody seventeenth centnry.' Khmelnitsky led the Casaarhs of the Ukraine hi a series of "wars of liberation...
...This contention is aa false as it is sinister...
...But what is the truth to the elders of the American Communist church ? William Green Answers Legion's Attack on Labors, War Record [At the Boston convention of the Americas Federation ef Labor, Warren Atherton...
...Above the charge and shock of the eontending armies rise the weefal cries of tbeessnds of innocent victims ssH'tfiasd hp this horrible carnage . . T* Begdss won msay greet victories...
...I maintain that it ia an amazing record made good in an imperfect world, • * ' * * 'TLfB hold business management and those f " connected with business, Mr...
...Chairman, March on Washington Movement...
...This assumes, however, that the baking industry actually produces bread and other . cereal products which are enriched up to the minimum requirements of the program...
...Long before the Daily Worker was ever heard of, before the Communist started disrupting labor unions, the...
...This article is from th« stenographic copy of Mr...
...Commander, there are 2.000,000 members of the American Federation of Labor in the armed services of the nation...
...will you please...
...The Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor met at the same time and there, after solemnly, seriously and carefully considering the whole situation, we announced our pledge to 'the President of the United States of cooperation and support...
...PHE present enrichment formula requires the "addition to white bread of minimum amounts an" thiamin, niacin, riboflavin, iron and calcium, sufficient to approach the whole wheat standard...
...it could and should be...
...and especially if, they chose to" do it...
...We have supported the regimentation of workers during this war in a very large way, because the wianing of the war stands over and above every other consideration...
...that the Ceossek despot of the Ukraine hi' IoM douses the King of Poland and the Sultan of Turkey sad the Khan of the Crimea and prsfMllsd allegiance to ths Empire of Rossis ^ It wss also at Perisstsv that Bogdaa Khnmnmishj esndustod his aafsf is...
...I have repeatedly referred to that fact—we„ buried them—S0.900—kUleo—killed srhtie serving as 5 soldiers of production" ia the raffta, the mines and the factories of these United States...
...Wilder's exit from the FDA, where he now nerves only as a part-time technical consultant...
...The enriched hour and bread program was a kind of Hobson's choice into which the government nutritionists were pushed by the unwillingness of the millers and bakers to adept the whole wheat or long extraction ileaf, which alone sould assure the correction of the principal defciency in the Aseerj can diet...
...ILGWU was seeking to organise Negro wcrkers along with white workers in the industry and lending its support to all progressive movements designed to advance the cause of the oppressed and exploited minorities regardless of race, creed, color or national crigin...
...Wilder buttered up the bakers with even more, than the usual hat-in-hand flattery and cajolement which government officials feel obliged to use when dealing with major rested interests...
...President William Green, speakisg extern poraneenaly, gave Labor's reply to the American Legion proposal...
...We will stand with you in carrying out that program Then...
...The American Federation of Labor did not hesitate or wait a moment...
...Finally, the Daily Worker article, which is a sort of omnibus bill of particulars against the leader of ILGWU...
...THE least that can be said is that the I raison d'etre of the enrichment program ; was politico-economic rather than scientific, that the research base of so far-reaching a development in public health policy has never been properly hud...
...It plays into the hands of the bosses and follows the dangerous pattern ef racism, the bausnnsnhhnU of facism...
...That was made voluntarily, and you mast understand As real value of the use of the strike woanon in order to unddrstand the pledge that American labor made to the Commander-in-Chief of the Army ^u^Ser words, the mobilization of oar economic strength and its use, after all, is the f hut resort, the protection of labor, the means that it uses to lift its standard of life and living and to protect its own interests...
...But agpody has questioned Dr...
...It is...
...The nutritionally dangerous devitalization of white bread was a scientifically demonstrated fact even before the word "vitamin" was coined...
...Wilder, though highly, respected in the yDA as a technician, "sometimes scared the bays with his nutrition suggestions...
...Of these lost nutrients, ordij sartly fed to pigs and chickens in the form of middlings...
...Seven million have been injured...
...IsomnTthnnsacTes...
...The rbtUere of Eos tern stnrrse still ramsmhsrs him as s* ' •anti-Chrnrt...
...Unfortunately, no such assumption is justified by the erideuce^to date...
...They make much out of the claim that Negroes are not admitted to certain locals of the ILGWU on the grounds of national crigin when they know that it is a language local composed of Italians, one which English-speaking workers in the trade don't join...
...Drive Sells "World's Worst And Most Expensive Bread" By N. PHILIP NORMAN, M.D., end JAMES RORTY LIKE so many other professional and academic conscripts who have been trying to serve their country in Washington, &¦*" SusseU M. Wilder ha* Hgone k*ck where he came from," which* in his case is the Mayo Clinic...
...J Now...
...Science and social science collaborate here to point up the underlying medical and economic factors involved in America's consumer difficulties...
...Here, just for fun is something for the boys about the latest chapter of this 'amenable record...
...Meanwhile We are fighting the war, both inline armed forces and bit the civHiaii front with 8 staff of life which is certainly not as strong as...
...and it was his attempt to deal with this situation that, one suspects, lad to Dr...
...Bat the industry has used its research subsidies to mollify academic criticism, and has kept both the lay and the medical press in line by the use of the tscitly understood benevolences of national advertising...
...But we intend to work with all like-minded people in bringing about a reconversion and a readjustment when the war ends...
...Using a smoke screen to hide ulterior motives, as usual, the Daily Worker in the noble pose of championing the cause of the downtrodden Negro, sallies forth with a vicious diatribe against Dubinsky and the ILGWU...
...So long as every baker is in a position to chisel on his competitors by skimping or omitting the enrichment of his mix, strict enforcement of the standard is next to impossible...
...That came from the honest hearts, frank consciences of thong,men, representing as they did the heart and conscience of American labor...
...yon see...
...Because the'CooSnnnist Party itself was accustomed to use the eld Tammany Hall trick of "moping Negroes on tils payroll as "window dressing" and a "decoy" for the deception of the people, the DaUy Worker points an accusing finger at the ILGWU...
...Usually David Dubinsky and the ILGWU delegation were all present...
...Now, the Daily Worker knows as weli as the members of the ILGW that this is the highest paying section of the dress industry...
...We hare planned and are planning for their return, as well as for the return of others who are serving on the battlefields...
...The production of the * world's worst= and most expensive bread is only one of its accomplishments...
...Wader's scientific gsd personal integrity and earnestness...
...Nutritionists ia and oat of government are well awsre of these facts...
...helpless ineptitude, of the baking industry's chronic failure to' give us, this day or any day, anything resembling a decent loaf of bread at i reasonable price...
...Yet as late as 1934 when the Bureau of Home Emonomics ventured to urge whole "wheat bread in its recommended diets for low income families, the industry insolently attempted to cut off the Bureau's appropriation and almost succeeded...
...The Attacks on,Dubinsky The Communists and the Negroes ¦y A. PHIUP RANDOLPH President Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, AFL...
...Moreover, these deficiencies involve minerals and known and unknown members of the vitamin B complex which are not restored to the diet by the present enrichment formula...
...It was in vairi...
...We do not deInouncs industry as a whole at any time because of the sins committed by some manager Jor some directors of a corporation or the owners of some industry or a minority of industry t Consequently, we do not denounce industry as a whole because some steal corporation hi America supplied our Government during this emergency with defective armorplate...
...But it admits that there are Negroes in dress-pressing departments...
...the next Food Order is issued, which may be...
...On the contrary, most, if not all, manifestations of nutritional deficiency diseases and disorders are ¦he result of multiple deficiencies and/or excesses of all nutritional factors...
...convention Inst October purposely absented themselves during my speech to the convention on racial discrimination to avoid embarrasment because of discrkninaticn 4a the ILGWU...
...The children must go back to the homes and to the schools The wife aad the mother mutt take her place in ths home as a wife sad mother...
...The American Federation of Labor has never officially ordered or approved a strike of one, five, or ten men, or a hundred men sinee the dastardly attack was made upon us at Pearl Harbor...
...One chronicle reveals: "Ovei the whole Ukraine hangs a rod saint, the • relit smoke rising from hamlet.sad chateau...
...Commander, it might be of inter" est to tell you that since Pearl Harborsince Pearl Harbor—while the soldiers of production represented here in this convention have been giving their skill, their lives, their training, their genius, and their American service in the production of materials in order to make ths war a .success, 80,000 of them have been killed and we have buried them, many of them in unknown graves...
...An experiment with dogs reported by Alice Fay Morgan of the Unir Sersity of California, showed that the unfori„ lunate canines died faster oh'enriched breads: than on ordinary white bread...
...At the conference, and later in the trade press, the bakers and especially the blenders of self-raising flours used largely in the South, said in effect: "Nuts to you, Dr...
...T*H E Daily Worker continues with its pastime of smearing labor men who insist upon up- ¦ holding democratic ideals, with the lie that Negroes are only permitted to work in trades of low paying brackets...
...T"HE vile attack is a gratuitous insult to * the Negro members, who certainly do not need a political cult to come to their rescue even were they beset with discrimination, and especially a political party whose policies are subject to the unpredictable and varying climate of a foreign country such as Soviet Russia...
...To procure this consent...
...Many nutritionists, both in and out of government, are privately skeptical of this program, which at best is an inferior subaitute for the long extraction flour (g5<~( of the grain) and the National loaf adopted by England and Canada...
...Well, boys will be boys, especially the millers and bakers, whose nutritional ideas tor the most part antedate the Spanish-American War...
...sermon of ths Cases e|«, nmg'rsvived...
...After that, according to the C. P. line, the fight may be resumed against Bflbo of the Mississippi The Communists' attack on Dubinsky was intended to stir up racial distention within dm ranks of the membership of the ILGWTJ...
...But anyone familiar with the activities cf Prank R. Crosswaith as one of the International Organizers of the ILGWU knows that he is a hard working, hard hitting fighter for this great organization...
...And then in conformity with the program there developed, we pledged to the President of the United States a no-strike policy for the duration of this cruel tusr...
...Wilder tried to induce the bakers to consent to the enrichment of all white flour at the mill, thereby ensuring the addition of required elements to flour sold to housewives and to that used by bakers, hotels, restaurants, and institutions for the production not only of bread but of rolls and other baked goods...
...And Stalin decreed its new nsmf— PERIESLAV-KHMELSITSKY t ?^ It wss at Perieslsv...
...I have known Dubinsky for many years and this is the first time I have ever beard tt even intimated that he has racial prejudice...
...The Staff of Ute •THIS is the second hi s series of monthly •* articles by Dr...
...It is our firm determination to sos that the seniority rights of all those members of our great union are protected when they come back to America, and if necessary we will compel employers to give them their places back where they were before they went sway...
...Being without e solid issue to exploit against Dubinsky, the Daily Worker tarns to Frank R. Crosswaith in an attempt to destroy the faith of the members of this organisation in this able champion ef the Negro workers in particular and all workers in gsatisL It attempts*** make the public believe that he is in the ILGWU to divert sttujtjon of the Negro worharn from racial discrimination...
...Immediately after receiving over the radio, through, .the press and otherwise, information that the Japanese had treacherously attacked America at Pearl Harbor we stepped out and acted at once...
...Hidden by that pall, the forms of -gne contestants are bet dimly seen: peasant suets, wild Cossack troops...
...Be it known that the writer has no quarrel with Soviet Russia, He hails and applauds these noble warriors in their valiant attach upon, Hitlerism...
...The President of the United States, who keeps the record and studies it carefully day by day and month by month, has spoken to us in a convincing and eloquent way and said, "Men , you have kept that pledge 99.9 per cent in the United States of America...
...A conference of the representatives of this great movement was assembled to meet in the city of Washington...
...of a people and their food...
...This deficiency is in the minerals ' and B complex vitamin* largely removed from the wheat berry by modern milling processes...
...the Jews of Rnssia still have a holy day to saoorn a oarage...
...In this article the authors take up the specific Issues of bread, aad cast a sharp spotlight' oh the ballyhoo about "vitamins," "whole wheat," snd the like...
...Dees that count foe anything or does If moan anything...
...Portrait of the Hero as Butcher THE NAME ef Bogdaa Khmebiltakv has corns down the centuries as the classic image of Cossack brutality...
...It is the weapon it uses ia defense ef its interests, and when it agreed.to place that behind the door and leans It these until the war was over it honestly pledged itself to support the government to the bitter end...
...The public won't eat whole wheat bread, say the bakers, and it is true...
...Recently an experiment by Dr...
...So that when...
...Wilder and his associates at the Mayo clinic has appeared to justify the enrichment idea...
...Commander, j Jin high regard...
...Does that mean that we have measured up, or have we not...
...We feel .that business as a [whole has made a good record during the war I j—and in referring to business I moan the own' era and managers of industry...

Vol. 26 • November 1943 • No. 45


 
Developed by
Kanda Sofware
  Kanda Software, Inc.