Natural state of food once meant as it grew wild; it now means as food is cultivated. Many foods are now still further modified. Some are commonly used as food-ingredients, as are sugar, fats, grain flours.

Scientific examination of all foods and food-modifications is necessary. This is not simply to detect impurity. Effort to make food finer as a refinement of civilized life does not always produce a better food-product. Polishing rice has resulted in depriving it of some salts it naturally contains and the body needs. These withheld endanger health. What natural elements of food are left in, or what are taken out, affects significantly human health. What is taken out of food in manufacture is as important as what is put in. Law recognizes this less, but human health is no less affected by it, even when the cause is not known. Science finds facts; law directs acts.

Grains naturally contain some substances the body needs which are so arranged physically in grains that to keep them in food is to keep also coarse particles that the human body cannot digest. Even its opportunity to digest other food may be somewhat lessened by the presence of such particles, for these may quickly pass through the digestive tract and carry with them all food present in it, even that which needs to be retained for use. Bran in flour serves a health-purpose by aiding in freeing the body of food-waste. It is not itself nourishing. Food-scientists now doubt whether the salts associated with it are released for food-use in the body.

Science studies food and food-effects; what it finds it tells. Industry is more and more expected to do what human life needs done. Communities more and more select scientifically equipped persons to direct food-production in the interest of human well-being.