More from the 1880 Scribner's...

[misstia]

those tubs look WEIRD!! and 'diabetic flour'??? sorry the ghetto scan isn't that good for the top ones!

Comments

[shortsweetcynic.livejournal.com]

actually, i think i can explain the diabetic flour...i eliminated grains and sugar from my diet about six months ago and have had to learn how to live and breathe this stuff.

diabetic flour has a much lower net carbohydrate content, and therefore has a much smaller effect on blood sugar when consumed. coconut and almond flour are good examples of this.

so...

1/4 cup of white flour: 22g carbs, 3 g fiber, 19 net carbs
1/4 cup of wheat flour: 22 g carbs, 4 g fiber, 18 net carbs

- vs -

1/4 cup of coconut flour: 16 g carbs, 10 g fiber, 6 net carbs
1/4 cup of almond flour: 6 g carbs, 3 g fiber, 3 net carbs

make sense? :)

[jocelmeow.livejournal.com]

The fact that it's listed along with "gluten flour," gluten being the main protein in wheat, makes me prima facia agree with shortsweetcynic that it was meant to be a higher protein, lower starch flour that would raise blood sugar less. However, going a little further afield, it seems that so-called diabetic flour was not always what it was represented to be. I found a number of references to this problem; a representative one is this from the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1903 (http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=453621). They tell us:

It has long been known from the analyses of Woods, Atwater and others that a number of so-called diabetic flours are not what they are claimed to be, and are only misleading and often injurious substitutes for the ordinary bread-making materials. It seems that some German and French manufacturers have succeeded in producing a gluten flour suitable for bread making, and similarly certain British makers have also approximately succeeded. It would appear that we have been less fortunate in this country; the New Hampshire State Board of Health has recently collected specimens of all the diabetic and gluten flours so advertised that were obtainable, and publish in their October report the results of an analysis of these samples. Out of 13 samples 7 had very little less than the average amount of starch, and only 2 samples were comparatively free from it.

It seems to have been cracked down on during the era following the Pure Food and Drug Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Food_and_Drug_Act).
See this 1912 judgment against Acme Diabetic Flour, which was found to contain the same amount of starch as ordinary wheat flour (http://books.google.com/books?id=uic9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA579&lpg=PA579&dq=%22diabetic+flour%22&source=bl&ots=8uE6b7kkD7&sig=weYKHHkLOjxy2mejkhcPsDTMScg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=YsvQUdj3O4fe4APdzoGICw&ved=0CDMQ6AEwATge#v=onepage&q=%22diabetic%20flour%22&f=false), or this 1915 newspaper article (http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=19151228&id=UbBXAAAAIBAJ&sjid=rfMDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6832,8174028), also revealing that the tested "diabetic flour" was nothing but whole wheat flour.

[shortsweetcynic.livejournal.com]

awesome info. thank you. :)