The Composition and Food Value of Bread. 3 



The millers, however, met the situation with admirable 

 energy and confidence. Capital was subscribed and roller 

 milling plants installed in all the larger mills in the country. 

 Foreign wheats were largely bought, and with modern roller 

 plant, flours were produced from them which suited the public 

 taste as well as, or even better than, imported American flours. 

 The home milling industry soon regained possession of the 

 home flour trade, and wheat offals were again available in 

 quantity and at a reasonable price for the English graziers. 

 The newly introduced roller mills met with progressive 

 economic success, and at the present date practically all the 

 bread consumed by the population of the United Kingdom 

 is the produce of the roller milling process. 



The .above short outline of the history of the milling 

 industry during the last forty years leads to the obvious 

 conclusion that a complete revolution has taken place in the 

 kind of bread consumed by the people of this country, and, 

 it may be added, of all the more civilised bread eating 

 countries ; and this revolution is the result of the invention 

 of the roller mill, which in turn was brought about by the 

 increased production of hard but brittled skinned wheats 

 which, when ground between stones, do not yield a flour which 

 satisfies modern tastes. 



Such a radical change in the food of the people is a matter 

 for serious reflection. The question naturally arises — how is 

 it likely to afl'ect the health of the nation ? In the following 

 pages it is proposed to discuss all the evidence which can 

 be brought to bear on this point, which is one of national 

 interest and importance, as shown by the comment which it 

 evokes whenever it is periodically revived in the public 

 press. 



Those who have followed the question in the public press 

 during the last two years will realise that, like most questions, 

 it has two sides. The food reformers on their side urge that 

 the fine white flour of the roller mills is deficient in nitrogenous 

 substance, and in phosphates, as compared with flour made by 

 stone grinding, or by a modified roller process, which produces 

 what the miller would call a straight grade flour, containing 

 four-fifths of the grain, and rejecting nothing but the coarser 

 bran. The millers, anxious to defend the roller process in 

 which they have sunk so much capital, contend that what 

 their fine white flours lose in the removal of nitrogen and 

 phosphates by their more refined methods of separation is 

 more than compensated for by the greater digestibility of the 

 remainder ; that white bread made from high grade flour 

 yields more available energy to the animal economy ; and 

 that its very whiteness is a reliable criterion of its freedom 



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