lo Feb., 191 2.] Wheat and its Cultivation. 97 



The production of flour of good white colour is therefore a matter of 

 considerable importance. Of course, it does not follow that snow-white 

 bread is more digestible or more nutritious than dark bread. As a 

 matter of fact, the nutritive qualities of whole meal bread are well known. 

 The public, however, have a decided preference for snow-white flour as 

 against dark flour. The durum wheats, therefore, when first introduced 

 into cultivation in America were looked upon by millers with dismay. 

 Thev promptly docked the growers of durum wheat, but in spite of the 

 docking, it soon became evident that these wheats, on account of their 

 prolificacy and adaptability, had come to stay. 



To meet the taste of the consuming public, therefore, they had no 

 alternative but to bleach the flour with various oxidizing agents to rid it 

 of its objectionable colour. Nitrogen peroxide is most commonly used 

 for this purpose, and ordinary flours as well as the durum flours are 

 treated in this way. 



As much controversy has been waged in connexion with this question of 

 bleaching, a short summary may be of interest to possible growers and 

 millers of durum wheat. 



Ladd utterly denounces the ' practice of bleaching durum and other 

 flours as " undesirable, dangerous, and fraudulent."! He contends that 

 injurious nitrites are left in the flour, that the quality of the gluten is 

 lowered, and that the bleaching permits of low-grade flours being used. 



On the other hand, Wesener and Teller| examined a number of flours 

 and foodstuffs, and, inter alia, found that rain-water contained eight times 

 as much nitrogen trioxide as ordinary bleached durum flour, and that 

 ham contains five hundred times more of this compound than the highest 

 amount found in a series of bleached flours. They also affirm that 

 bleaching has no injurious effects on the gluten, and entirely disagree with 

 Ladd's views. 



Snyder, § in an exhaustive review of the subject of bleaching of flour, 

 concludes that in bread-making tests of commercially bleached flours, no- 

 difference could be observed between the bread made from bleached and 

 ordinary flour of the same variety of wheat, except that the bleached 

 flours produced a whiter bread and also showed a tendency to produce 

 larger loaves. No difference was observed in the digestibility with pepsin 

 solution, and the bleaching did not impart any odour or taste to the bread 

 or leave in it any residue. 



It is interesting to note that the question of flour bleaching, both of 

 durum and ordinary bread-wheats, was discussed at length before Lord' 

 Warrington in the High Court of England in a dispute over a patent for 

 bleaching flour {vide Reports of Patent Cases, xxvi., 1909); and. after 

 hearing evidence from such specialists as Ladd, Halliburton, Hehner, 

 Dewar, Ballantyne, and Wilcox, His Honour, during the course of a 

 lengthy judgment, found — 



(i) That there is no substantial difference in point of digestibility between bread 

 made from unbleached flour and bread made from bleached flour. 



(2) No deleterious action on the flour is caused by bleaching with nitrogen 

 peroxide. 



It might be mentioned that several varieties of this sub-species are 

 grown in different parts of the Commonwealth, but those most in favour 

 at the present time are grown entirely for forage purposes, and not for 



t Bulletin No. 72. North Dakota Experiment Station. 

 % American Fool Journal, September, 1907. 

 § Bulletin No. Ill, University of Minnesota. 



