THE ETHICS OF FOOD— BREAD 537 



by fermentation and a means provided of giving starch to the 

 body in a pre-eminently digestible form. 



In the eyes of the expert, good quality in bread is the out- 

 come of excellence in several points which have been concisely 

 defined to be strength, colour zxiA flavour; these are regarded 

 as of importance somewhat in the order stated. The term 

 " strength " is one which is used continually in relation to 

 flour : it has been defined as " the capacity for making large, 

 shapely and well-aerated loaves " and therefore includes the 

 three separate qualities, stability of dough, yield of bread and 

 size and shape of loaf 



From the point of view of the public, flavour is regarded 

 as of minor importance ; until recently weight has been attached 

 chiefly to colour or rather to absence of colour in the loaf 

 and there has been a demand, especially on the part of the 

 operative classes and in the mining and manufacturing districts 

 for a very white loaf. 



Those who know the British workman are aware that he is 

 gifted with far more acumen than is generally supposed ; his 

 selection of the whitest possible bread and perhaps the 

 popularity of the " black bread " cry at a recent general 

 election afford no exception to this statement. In the past, 

 when wheat was dear, bread was often made with dirty flour 

 or with flour produced from sprouted, badly harvested wheat or 

 from wheat full of foreign seeds. All sorts of other cereals, in 

 particular barley, sometimes to the extent of 25 per cent., were 

 mixed with it. This is well shown by the evidence given 

 before the Parliamentary Committee on adulteration in 1855, 

 Dr. Hassal, in his historic work on Food and its Adulteration, 

 published in 1876, devotes several pages to these adulterations. 

 The effect has been to make the working man shun dark- 

 coloured bread ; those who have lived sufficiently long on 

 the continent of Europe to eat the dark-coloured bread during 

 months at. a time will agree that our white bread is in everyway 

 a more pleasant and palatable article, although there is no proof 

 that the one is more nutritious than the other. 



As a matter of history, it must be remembered that threshing 

 by machinery is also a modern innovation, its introduction 

 dating from just before the invention of the roller mill. Rational 

 threshing has involved an immense improvement in the purity 

 of flour, 



