546 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



nature : thus fat and protein are taken separately from other 

 constituents. It is permissible therefore to regard bread as 

 being to some extent a bulky diluent of our other food and its 

 main function is heat-forming rather than muscle-building. 



Modern evolution has not carried civilised man sufficiently 

 far from his more savage ancestors to enable him. to limit the 

 choice of his meals to the oft-talked of " tablet " and he still 

 requires bulk to give the feeling of satisfaction. The case of 

 the diabetic to whom bread is forbidden and who complains of 

 the feeling of emptiness after what would seem to be a large fat 

 and protein meal is a sufficient illustration of the fact. 



If the point of view here developed be the correct one, it would 

 suffice to leave the nation's bread as it is, trusting to the millers 

 and bakers to give us a clean, palatable and digestible loaf and 

 looking to our other food as hitherto to supplement whatever 

 may be the deficiencies in nutritive power. 



If we ate bread alone, everything would be of consequence; 

 as we do not, it cannot be asserted that this or that constituent 

 is of such consequence that the sacrifice of no portion can be 

 permitted. Bread is not like mother's milk, a natural food : 

 nothing can be omitted from the latter without injury to the 

 child ; but as wheaten flour is only one of the foods which 

 man, in course of time, has learnt to use and its quality bears 

 no genetic relationship to his needs, there is no reason to 

 suppose that any slight variation we make in the course of its 

 preparation is likely to be of serious consequence. 



The problem when bread constitutes the chief or only source 

 of nutriment is of another kind and at the best the " improved " 

 bread offers but a poor solution of the economic question. 



Such questions as the handling of bread in a hygienic manner 

 in its passage from the oven to the consumer and the ever- 

 prevalent scandal of short weight are far more worthy of public 

 attention than any attempt to produce a dirty, indigestible loaf, 

 thereby encouraging the use of inferior, badly cleaned flour. 



In dealing with the problems presented by food, it is 

 obviously important that discussion should not proceed on 

 sentimental lines, and that it should be kept out of the hands 

 of the faddists as far as possible. The practice so popular with 

 the American press of writing up a subject in order to force 

 advertisement is certainly not one that should be favoured in 

 such a connexion ; the coincidence of advertisement with advocacy 



