THE ETHICS OF FOOD 



III. BREAD 



The word " bread " which is common to several languages ap- 

 pears to have been applied originally to pieces of bread obtained 

 by breaking up the loaf. It is strictly applied to the mass of dough 

 made by moistening and kneading the flour of grain and baking 

 it. Custom has led to the use of the term also in the far wider 

 significance of " daily bread " or food in general and as a con- 

 sequence there is some tendency on the part of the public at 

 large to look upon bread as a complete food, sufficient in itself 

 to support life and maintain the body in health. This idea is 

 entirely erroneous; though bread is the food of the people in the 

 widest sense, it is far from being the only food. 



The recent journalistic campaign in favour of the so-called 

 "Standard Bread," which appears to have been promoted mainly 

 for the purpose of securing advertisements, contains so many 

 statements which are essentially false and misleading that it is 

 desirable to consider on a broad and impartial chemical and 

 physiological basis what are really the facts known to the 

 scientific worker. The problem is a very intricate one ; more- 

 over we have learnt only quite recently in the least to 

 understand what the composition of flour is and what the 

 changes are that it undergoes during digestion. Like many 

 another attributed to the medical profession, it is difficult to 

 discover that the statement that white bread is objectionable 

 on the score of health and deficient in nutritive value has any 

 justification in fact, nor is the medical profession particularly 

 qualified to pronounce an opinion on such a question. 



Wheat is the cereal used in largest quantity, though there is 

 quite as much if not more nutritive matter in oats and some of 

 the other cereals, wheat being now preferred to other cereals 

 wherever it is brought into competition with them — rice having 

 been largely displaced by it in the East and maize in America. 

 This pre-eminence of wheat is due to the fact that it affords 

 the only flour from which a light vesiculated loaf can be made 



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