Vitamin Bi
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saved. This has been a boon to the rice-eating millions in the
Orient. Children in Indian institutions still suffer from ribo-
flavine deficiency but they no longer have beri-beri. Pure
sugars and starches are entirely lacking in thiamin, and no
fats, even butter, contain important amounts of it. Beer,
although sometimes advertised as containing vitamin B1, has
a negligible amount.
According to Dr. Sherman of Columbia, one of our lead-
ing vitamin investigators, if half the needed food calories
are taken as fruits, vegetables, milk, and eggs, and if half of
whatever breadstuffs and cereals are used are taken in the
whole-grain or “dark” forms, there will almost certainly be
provided an ample supply of thiamin—and incidentally other
nutritional factors as well. It is doubtful, however, whether
this criterion is reached in many American homes.
The solubility of thiamin in water results in considerable
loss when fruits or vegetables containing it are soaked or
cooked in large amounts of water which is afterwards dis-
carded. Crushed fruits or vegetables lose more than those
in which the cells are largely unbroken. Thiamin keeps well
in the presence of acids, even when heated, but is destroyed
by excessive or prolonged heating in the presence of alkalis
like baking soda. It is a pity that so many cooks insist upon
adding soda to water in which vegetables are cooked to help
preserve their color, for in so doing they not only lose much
valuable thiamin, but even larger amounts of vitamin C,
which can often be still less afforded. In milk thiamin is
particularly stable, possibly because it is accompanied by
calcium, which somehow facilitates its utilization. It is not
appreciably injured by ordinary boiling.
Tomato juice at its natural acidity, heated for an hour to
the boiling point of water, loses only about 10 per cent of its
thiamin and a moderate amount of vitamin C, whereas if it