THE ETHICS OF FOOD— BREAD 539 



whether the treatment is harmful or the reverse to the flour and 

 to the digestibility of the bread made from it. The United 

 States authorities have gone so far as to forbid the use of 

 bleached flour within their dominions. In Britain the reverse 

 opinion is probably that generally held : it is at least certain 

 that there is no positive evidence that the bleached flour affords 

 a bread which is in any way harmful to digestion. In any case 

 it is a question between baker and miller ; the public in getting 

 the white bread it desires is not getting bread of less nutritive 

 value. 



In brief, the colour of the loaf bears no relation to the 

 nutritive value except in so far as the whiter colour brought 

 about by improved aeration of the loaf is due to the presence of 

 a stronger flour. It becomes necessary therefore to examine the 

 connection between strength and nutritive power. 



Strength 



It has long been sought to correlate the somewhat elusive 

 quality defined as strength of a flour with its chemical composi- 

 tion and although much yet remains to be done in this direction, 

 sufficient has been established to indicate that, as a rule, the 

 strongest flours are those which contain most gluten — that is, 

 the most nitrogen. Strictly speaking, strength is dependent on 

 the quality rather than on the quantity of the gluten but flours 

 in which quality does not accompany quantity are the exception 

 rather than the rule and need not be considered here. 



The " strongest " flours are obtained from Canada and the 

 United States and the baker cannot do otherwise than use a 

 proportion of these if he wish to make the class of bread now in 

 vogue. Bread made from weak English flour is quite different 

 in character and will contain a slightly smaller proportion of 

 protein. An average English flour contains from 9 to 10 per 

 cent, of protein ; a Canadian patent flour will contain upwards 

 of 14 per cent. And this is in general still true when the 

 English flour is enriched by the presence of the germ and the 

 outer layers of the grain. The experiments of the Home 

 Grown Wheat Committee have proved that it is possible to 

 grow strong wheat in England but unfortunately the diminished 

 yields of grain and straw obtained with such varieties are 

 against their general adoption by farmers. 



