Nutritive value of selected variety breads and pastas.

Nine types of commercially produced variety breads, plain bagels, corn tortillas, and three types of pasta products were obtained from each of four cities, New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Kansas City. Proximate components and 12 minerals and vitamins were determined in these and in cooked pasta products. Available carbohydrate and energy values were calculated. On the average, French, Italian, and pita breads were lower in moisture than other breads. Protein in bread products averaged between 7.6% and 10.4% and in cooked pastas and tortillas between 4.4% and 5.3%. Bagels averaged 10.2% protein. Insoluble dietary fiber in whole wheat bread averaged 5.6%; for most products, dietary fiber values were five- to eightfold higher than crude fiber values. Pasta products and tortillas were virtually free of sodium. Sodium in bread products averaged between 379 and 689 mg/100 gm. Although all pasta products and most bread products were enriched, calcium was often not included. Iron averaged from 2.16 to 3.29 mg/100 gm in bread products and 3.10 to 4.24 mg/100 gm in dry pasta products. Products made with unrefined or less-refined flours and/or containing germ and bran tended to be high in phosphorus, magnesium, zinc, and manganese, and, to a lesser extent, in copper. A good portion of potassium, thiamin, riboflavin, and niacin in pasta products was lost during cooking.

Comment on the rotational state dependence of indirect photodissociation of a polyatomic molecule.

The rotational state dependence of indirect photodissociation has been examined in the light of some recent developments in the theory of radiationless transitions in rotating molecules. A simple argument based on projection operators leads to the prediction of sequential kinetics from an initial singlet state through an intermediate triplet bound state and on to a final dissociative state. The results indicate that as long as the geometry of the molecule in the triplet state is not very different from that of the singlet state, only a very small rotational dependence will show up in the singlet state radiationless lifetime, in spite of the fact that the overall dissociation constitutes a large geometry change.