A few years ago the ‘farmers’ friends’ were very sanguine on the subject of using malt as cattle food. At agricultural meetings throughout the country the iniquitous malt-tax was eloquently denounced because it stood in the way of this great fodder reform. Then the malt-tax was repealed, and forthwith the subject fell out of hearing. Why was this?

The idea of malt feeding was theoretically sound. By the malting of barley or other grain its diastase is made to act upon its insoluble starch, and to convert this more or less completely into soluble dextrin, a change which is absolutely necessary as a part of the business of digestion. Therefore, if you feed cattle on malted grain instead of raw grain, you supply them with a food so prepared that a part of the business of digestion is already done for them, and their nutrition is thereby advanced.

From what I am able to learn, the reason why this hopeful theory has not been carried out is simply that it does not ‘pay.’ The advantage in fattening the cattle is not sufficient to remunerate the farmers for the extra cost of the malted food.

This may be the case with oxen, but it does not follow that it should be the same with human beings. Cattle feed on grass, mangold-wurzels, &c., in their raw state, but we cannot; and, as I have already shown, we are not graminivorous in the manner they are; we cannot digest raw wheat, barley, oats, or maize.

We cannot do this because we are not supplied with such effective natural grinding apparatus as they have in their mouths, and, further, because we have a much smaller supply of saliva and a shorter alimentary canal.

We can easily supply our natural deficiencies in the matter of grinding, and do so by means of our flour mills, but at first thought the idea of finding an artificial representative of the saliva of oxen does not recommend itself. When, however, it is understood that the chief active principle of the saliva so closely resembles the diastase of malt that it has received the name of ‘animal diastase,’ and is probably the same compound, the aspect of the problem changes.

Not only is this the case with the secretion from the glands surrounding the mouth, but the pancreas which is concerned in a later stage of digestion is a gland so similar to the salivary glands that in ordinary cookery both are dressed and served as ‘sweetbreads;’ the ‘pancreatic juice’ is a liquid closely resembling saliva, and contains a similar diastase, or substance that converts starch into dextrin, and from dextrin to sugar. Lehmann says, ‘It is now indubitably established that the pancreatic juice possesses this sugar-forming power in a far higher degree than the saliva.’

Besides this, there is another sugar-forming secretion, the ‘intestinal juice,’ which operates on the starch of the food as it passes along the intestinal canal.

This being the case, we should, in exercising our privilege as cooking animals, be able to assist the digestive functions of the saliva, the pancreatic and intestinal secretions, just as we help our teeth by the flour mill, and the means of doing this is offered by the diastase of malt.

In accordance with this reasoning I have made some experiments on a variety of our common vegetable foods, by simply raising them—in contact with water—to the temperature most favourable to the converting action of diastase (140° to 150° Fahrenheit), and then adding a little malt extract or malt flour.

This extract may be purchased ready made, or prepared by soaking crushed or ground malt in warm water, leaving it for an hour or two or longer, and then pressing out the liquid.

I find that oatmeal-porridge when thus treated is thinned by the conversion of the bulk of its insoluble starch into soluble dextrin; that boiled rice is similarly thinned; that a stiff jelly of arrowroot is at once rendered watery, and its conversion into dextrin is demonstrated by its altered action when a solution of iodine is added to it. It no longer becomes suddenly of a deep blue colour as when it was starch.

Sago and tapioca are similarly changed, but not so completely as arrowroot. This is evidently because they contain a little nitrogenous matter and cellulose, which, when stirred, give a milkiness to the otherwise clear and limpid solution of dextrin.

Pease-pudding when thus treated behaves very instructively. Instead of remaining as a fairly uniform paste, it partially separates into paste and clear liquid, the paste being the cellulose and vegetable casein, the liquid a solution of the dextrin or converted starch.

Mashed turnips, carrots, potatoes, &c., behave similarly, the general results showing that so far as starch is concerned there is no practical difficulty in obtaining a conversion of the starch into dextrin by means of a very small quantity of maltose.

Hasty pudding made of boiled flour is similarly altered. Generally speaking, the degree of visible alteration is proportionate to the amount of starch, but the more intimately it is mixed with the cellulose, the more slowly the change occurs.

I have made malt-porridge by using malt flour instead of oatmeal. I found it rather too sweet, but on mixing about one part of malt flour with four to eight parts of oatmeal, an excellent and easily digestible porridge is obtained, and one which I strongly recommend as a most valuable food for strong people and invalids, children and adults.

Further details of these experiments would be tedious, and are not necessary, as they display no chemical changes that are new to science, and the practical results may be briefly stated without such details, as follows.

I recommend, first, the production of malt flour by grinding and sifting malted wheat, malted barley, or malted oats, or all of these, and the retailing of this at its fair value as a staple article of food. Every shopkeeper who sells flour or meal of any kind should sell this.

Secondly, that this malted flour, or the extract made from it as above described, be mixed with the ordinary flour used in making pastry, biscuits, bread, &c.,[22] and with all kinds of porridge, pastry, pea-soup, and other farinaceous preparations, and that when these are

cooked they should be slowly heated at first, in order that the maltose may act upon the starch at its most favourable temperature (140° to 150° Fahr.).

Thirdly, when practicable, such preparations as porridge, pea-soup, pastry, &c., should be prepared by first cooking them in the usual manner, then stirring the malt meal or malt extract into them, and allowing the mixture to remain for some time. This time may vary from a few minutes to several hours or days—the longer the better. I have proved by experiments on boiled rice, oatmeal-porridge, pease-pudding, &c., that complete conversion may thus be effected. When the temperature of 140° to 150° is carefully obtained, the work of conversion is done in half an hour or less. At 212° it is arrested. At temperatures below 140°, it proceeds with a slowness varying with the depression of temperature. The most rapid result is obtained by first cooking the food as above, then reducing the temperature to 150°, and adding the malt flour or malt extract, and maintaining the temperature for a short time. The advantage of previous cooking is due to the preliminary breaking-up and hydration of the starch granules.

Fourthly, besides the malt meal or malt flour, I recommend the manufacture of what I may call ‘pearl malt,’ that is, malt treated as barley is treated in the manufacture of pearl barley. This pearl malt may be largely used in soups, puddings, and for other purposes evident to the practical cook. It may be found preferable to the malt flour for some of the above-named purposes, especially for making a purÉe like Rumford’s soup.

I strongly recommend such a soup to vegetarians—i.e. the Rumford soup No. 1, already described, but with the admixture of a little pearl malt with the pearl barley (or malt flour failing the pearl malt). A small proportion of malt (one-twentieth, for example) has a considerable effect, but a larger amount is desirable. In all cases this quantity may be regulated by experience and according to whether a decided malt flavour is or is not preferred.

I have not yet met with any malted maize commercially prepared, but my experiments on a small scale show that it is a very desirable product.

As regards the action of vegetable diastase on cellulose, whether it is capable of breaking it up or effecting its hydration and conversion into digestible sugar, I am not yet able to speak positively, but the following facts are promising.

I treated sago, tapioca, and rice with the maltose as above, and found that at a temperature of 140° to 150° all the starch disappears in about half an hour, as proved by the iodine test. Still the liquid was not clear: flocculi of cellulose, &c., were suspended in it. I kept this on the top of a stove several days, where the temperature of the liquid varied from 100° to 180° while the fire was burning, but fell to that of the atmosphere during the night. The quantity of the insoluble matter considerably diminished, but it was not entirely removed.

This led me to make further experiments, still in progress, on the ensilage of human food with the aid of diastase. These experiments are on a small scale, and are sufficiently satisfactory to justify more effective trials on a larger scale. It is well known that ordinary ensilage succeeds much better on a large than on a small scale, and I have no doubt that such will be the case with my diastase ensilage of oatmeal, pease-pudding, mashed roots, &c.

I am also treating such vegetable food material with various acids for the same purpose.

When by these or other means we convert vegetable tissue into dextrin and sugar, as it is naturally converted in the ripening pear, and as it has been artificially converted in our laboratories, we shall extend our food supplies in an incalculable degree. Swedes, turnips, mangold-wurzels, &c., will become delicate diet for invalids; horse beans, far more nutritious than beef; delicate biscuits and fancy pastry, as well as ordinary bread, will be produced from sawdust and wood shavings, plus a little leguminous flour to supplement the nitrogenous requirement.

This may even be done now. Long ago I converted an old pocket-handkerchief and part of an old shirt into sugar, but not profitably as a commercial transaction. Other chemists have done the like in their laboratories. It is yet to be done in the kitchen.

I should add that the sugar referred to in all the above is not cane sugar, but the sugar corresponding to that in the grape and in honey. It is less sweet than cane or beet sugar, but is a better food.

I have already spoken of the difficulty presented by the opposite nature of the solvents demanded by the casein and the cellulose in my experiments on the ensilage of pease-pudding. The action of diastase indicates a possible solution of this difficulty. Let us suppose that a sufficient amount of potash is used to dissolve the casein, its solution separated as described (pages 218-219), the insoluble fibrous remainder treated with maltose or malt flour, and its action allowed to proceed to fermentation and effecting the formation of acetic acid. Will this acid, by means of ensilage, act upon the cellulose as the acid of the unripe pear acts upon its cellulose?

This is another of the questions that I can only suggest, not having had time and opportunity to supply experimental answer.

Do fruits contain diastase?

Two kinds of food are described by Pavy (‘Treatise on Food and Dietetics,’ page 227), in the preparation of which the conversion of starch into dextrin appears to be effected. As I have no acquaintance with these, never met with them either in Scotland or Wales, I will quote his description:

‘Sowans, seeds, or flummery, which constitutes a very popular article of diet in Scotland and South Wales, is made from the husks of the grain (oats). The husks, with the starchy particles adhering to them, are separated from the other parts of the grain and steeped in water for one or two days, until the mass ferments and becomes sourish. It is then skimmed and the liquid boiled down to the consistence of gruel. In Wales this food is called sucan. Budrum is prepared in the same manner, except that the liquid is boiled down to a sufficient consistency to form, when cold, a firm jelly. This resembles blancmange, and constitutes a light, demulcent, and nutritious article of food, which is well suited for the weak stomach.’

Here it is evident that solution takes place and a gummy substance is formed; this and the fermentation and sourish taste all indicate the action of the diastase of the seed converting the starch into dextrin and sugar, the latter passing at once into acetic fermentation. Having only just met with this passage, I am unable to supply any experimental evidence, but suggest to any of my readers who may be on the spot where either of these preparations are made, the simple experiment of adding a little diluted tincture of iodine to the sowans or budrum, preferably to the latter. If any of the starch remains as starch, a deep blue tint will be immediately struck; if this is not the case it is all converted.

I have just received a letter (while the proofs of this sheet are in course of correction) from a retired barrister in his seventy-third year, who, after a successful career in India, ‘retired in 1870 to enjoy the otium cum dig.’ Among other interesting particulars relating to animal and vegetable diet, he tells me that ‘somehow I did not, with a purely vegetable diet, excite saliva sufficient for digestion, and being constitutionally a gouty subject, I have suffered very much from gout until comparatively lately (say the last eight months), when an idea came into my head that by the use of potash I might get rid of the calcareous deposit accompanying gout, and have been taking 30 drops of liquor potassÆ in my tea with very good effect. But within the last ten days, thanks to your article in “Knowledge” of January 16, 1885, I have, as it were by magic, become young again. I was not aware that the diastase of malt had the same powers as the salivary secretions. When I read your article, I commenced the experiment on my morning food, namely, oatmeal-porridge, of which for several years I have cooked daily four ounces, of which I could never eat more than half without feeling distended for an hour or two, and then again feeling hungry and a craving for more food. Since I followed your directions I have been able to eat comfortably nearly the whole (five ounces with the malt). I feel no distension for the time nor craving afterwards; I am comfortably satisfied for hours; but what is more, the diastased porridge has had the effect of removing the tendency to costiveness, which was sore trouble, and it has rendered my joints supple, and destroyed the tendency of my finger and toe-nails to grow rapidly and brittle. All this seems to have changed, as if by magic. I, therefore, write to you as a public benefactor, to thank you for your seasonable hints.’

I quote this letter (with the permission of the writer, Mr. A. T. T. Petersen) the more willingly and confidently from the fact that I have lately adopted as a regular supper diet a porridge made of oatmeal, to which about one-sixth or one-eighth of malt flour is added. I find it in every respect advantageous, far better than ordinary simple oatmeal-porridge. The following from Pavy, p. 229, indicates further the desirability of assisting the salivary glands and pancreas in digesting this otherwise excellent food. Speaking of oatmeal-porridge, he says: ‘It is apt to disagree with some dyspeptics, having a tendency to produce acidity and pyrosis, and cases have been noticed among those who have been in the daily habit of consuming it, where dyspeptic symptoms have subsided upon temporarily abandoning its use.’

My readers should try the following experiment. It supplies a striking demonstration of the potency of the diastase of malt.

Make a portion of oatmeal-porridge in the usual manner, but unusually thick—a pudding rather than a porridge; then, while it is still hot (150° or thereabouts) in the saucepan, add some dry malt flour (equal to one-eighth to one-fourth of the oatmeal used). Stir this dry flour into it and a curious transformation will take place. The dry flour instead of thickening the mixture acts like the addition of water, and converts the thick pudding into a thin porridge. I find that this paradox greatly astonishes the practical cook.