FASHIONS IN BREAD.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2574, 7 August 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

FASHIONS IN BREAD.

THE LOAF THAT DOES NOT NOURISH. (By W. Beach Thomas, in the “Daily Mail.”) , An eminent miller said recently in conversation that he was compelled at great expense to provide the public with food, from which half the value had been withdrawn. Fashion; he showeel, was not less supreme in regard to a staple food than to the shape of a hat. as the recent history of mi.ling flour and tho polishing of rice clearly illustrates. Incidently fashion makes bread very much more expensive than the price of the wheat grain warrants. Now the world, especially tho English world, regards bread as the symbol of all food. Occasionally an objector lias arisen and described bread as “the staff of death,” a food epecially designed , if taken in quantity, to hurry the approach of .old age. But broad lias held its own as a staple diet, and the change from black bread to white is regarded in many plates as, the conclusion of a progress to a more luxurious life.

A grain of corn is exactly similar to an egg—that is to say, the greater part of Tt lias tho same purpose of feeding tlio embryo, or germ. Roughly speaking. a wheat grain has three parts: the germ, the store of starchy food which the genii first feeds on, and certain outer husks that act as protection. • They are all more or less good food, and when mingled make a food that on the. whole answers well to theoretic tests, though the proportion of starch is excessive. But in choosing their food people arc influenced in these days by its appearance; they are apt to prefer a food that to their eye looks nice before a food that tastes or smells nice. Owing to this idiosyncrasy of modern man, a great commercial success was made some years ago by Hungarian millers, who turned out a flour of unsullied whiteness. It at once fetched a special price, and if our own millers, now the best in the world, had not shown special activity in answer-, ing tlio demand for this quality flour the imports of flour would have grown to huge proportions. The public insisted on white flour of the Hungarian type, just as they insisted on polished rice.

In ordei - to achieve this whiteness the most elaborate machinery had to be devised in order to get rid of the husk and of germ. The germ is wet or sticky, and so rather difficult to deal with in flour-making, it is also yellowish. So the first step is to get rid of the germ. The grain is delicately crushed so that tlie germinal nucleus, which is placed at the end of the grain, drops out and is sifted clear. The husks are all brownish, the inner coats becoming less brown ; and it has always been the custom to get rid of tlie most loosely attached parts. The modern miller merely went a step further, and provided more perfect macninery for ensuring the absolute exclusion of all color. What is lost in the way of food by these rejections? The germ, apart from the stuff of its composition, lias the f-.uproine virtue of flavor. My objection to most white bread is that it is flavorless, unless cooked with nulk : and to my view the great crime in rejecting the germ lies in the fact that people are given a food which does not please the palate, and the pleasure of the palate is one of the surest secrets of digestibility. The •germ, then, gives flavor and moisture. The case for the husks is different. The outer part of the grain is almost without nutritive value, and from one point of view, wholemeal bread is, weight for weight, less nutritive than loves made from Hungarian flour. All the white flour is theoretically convertible into nutrition, and many wholemeal enthusiasts argue absurdly on behalf of their food when they claim that it is richer in food than white bread. It is poorer. The busk, nevertheless, has a double vai.uo, which more than compensates for ‘‘huskiness.’ ’ It both contains certain valuable salts and gives to the food just that consistency which should ma'ko bread most easy to digest. Some years ago a man of science, especially interested professionally in the wheat grain, made’ a number of experiments on the effect of white and brown bread on himself. He was prevented from work by threats of a nervous breakdown ; and daily, during this period, devoted himself to the question of the value of the two foods. By ocular evidence, obtained through drastic treatment on himself, he proved to his complete satisfaction that the popular view of white bread was exactly the opposite of the truth. Most people will argue that-brown bread is more “sustaining,” hut more difficult to digest. The fact established in his case by unquestionable proof was that the brown bread was rendered easily digestible by the aicl of the husk, which is in itself only a mechanical value. As a food, that is to say, the brownest particles were in themselves useless, but their mechanical effect in splitting up tlie substanco was so valuable that they made every bit of the rest of the food available. Exactly the opposito was the result of the diet of white bread ; every speck of it had food value, would, theoretically, go to the sustenance of the body; but for want of drier and harder particles to split up and crumble the substance, a very large proportion of white bread was useless, and therefore pernicious, one may say poisonous.

These conclusions would seem to .suggest that the laborer, with tho lusty digestion belonging to the men who work out of doors, should eat bread made of the. Hungarian flour, and that the “weaker vessels” should consume tho coarser food. One often hears animadversions on the absurdity of the poorer people demanding white Hour. Richard Jefferies said that he would neyer persuade the laborer, to eat brown bread when ho could got white, and lie seemed to approve of his taste. No doubt as bis food is less, varied he should specially need tho variety that the germ and the husk give. But otherwise lie is much wiser in preferring white bread than would lie the man of sedentary, pursuits whose digestion is of a less robust nature. *

Against the retention of the germ in bread there is no argument. It is full both, of savour and sustenance, as many people; some of them commercial, quite realise. The germs squeezed out of the grain by the' first-class millets are,bought up and form the bulk of fiotne of the patent, (lours both here and in America. You can, therefore, buy either flour which is all starch, or flour with a minimum of starch and percentage of hu.sk to taste, or wholemeal flour from which no,-part df the grain is rejected. Possibly one form may suit one appetite, one another; bub there can lie no two opinions on the fact that the germ of the wheat, which is rejected because it is colored and not easily dried, is the principal source of flavor.