The importance of the stomach as an organ of digestion has been overestimated in modern times. From the discussions in the average text-book and physiology, one would be led to believe that the stomach is the only organ of digestion, when, as a matter of fact, the chief purpose of the stomach is that of a receptacle for the storage of food for digestion further on. I do not mean by this statement that there is no digestive action in the stomach, but I do mean to say that there are no digestive processes completed in the stomach, and that all foods which are acted on by the gastric juice can also be acted on by the digestive juices in the intestines. This has been proved by the fact that surgeons have successfully removed the entire stomach from both animals and men without seriously interfering with the nutrition of the body. They merely had to eat more often, as the depot or storage receptacle had been removed.

Chief function of the stomach.

The stomach should be considered as a preliminary organ of digestion. The tables published in the physiologies giving the digestibility of various foods as so many hours, refer entirely to the length of time it takes for the food to pass out of the stomach. According to these tables boiled rice is given as one of the most digestible of foods. As a matter of fact, the chief reason why rice passes out of the stomach more quickly than other grains, is because it contains practically nothing but starch, and as starch is not digested in the stomach, the rice is passed on to the next station where it can be acted on by an alkali.

Inaccuracy of digestive tables.

In this connection it becomes necessary to refer to the interpretation of the experimental results obtained by investigators at the Battle Creek Sanitarium. In these experiments cereal products which had been put through various processes of predigestion were compared with uncooked whole wheat, the contents being removed from the stomach after a given period. The results of this experiment showed a greater amount of starch digestion in the case of the dextrinized or super-cooked foods. These results were published as proof that starchy foods should be put through a process of super-cooking, dextrinization or predigestion. To those who are not familiar with food chemistry, such results would appear very convincing, but to a well-informed food scientist they only illustrate how misinterpretation of scientific facts may indicate conclusions opposed to the truth. Starchy foods are not intended by Nature to be digested in the stomach, but in the intestines, and the processes of partial digestion of these foods, by artificial means, before entering the stomach, serve only to interfere with Nature's plan, and to deprive both the stomach and the intestines of their natural functions.

Comparison of predigested and uncooked cereals?.