10 The Composition and Food Value of Bread. 



the separation of the germ is that its dampness and high 

 content of fat cause it to suflEer decomposition, and to impart 

 a rancid flavour to the flour on keeping. In stone milling, too, 

 the germ probably fails to get sufficiently powdered to pass the 

 sifting silks, in which case it would not be included in the 

 flour. The germ forms such a very small proportion of the grain, 

 only about 1^ per cent., that its inclusion or not can really 

 make very little difference to the composition of the bread. 

 Having given the above short outline of the process of milling, 

 we are now in a position to define several terms whose use is 

 necessary for the following argument. 



Wholemeal flour is the flour obtained by grinding the 

 ^s^iole grain, nothing being separated out in the process. Its 

 composition will be practically the same as that of the wheat 

 from which it is made, the only difference being due to the 

 evaporation of a little water by the heat developed in grinding. 

 Flour of this type is commonly used in the United States under 

 the name of Graham flour, where it was introduced some years 

 ago on the recommendation of a Dr. Graham. 



A flour is sometimes made by removing some of the husk 

 and grinding all the rest of the grain. There appears to be no 

 generally accepted name for such flour in England. In 

 America it is called " entire " wheat flour, which is obviously 

 misleading. The nearest English name appears to be "standard " 

 flour, the name so much employed in the bread campaign 

 which has recently occupied a section of the daily press. The 

 name, however, is not the exact equivalent of the American 

 term entire flour, for the latter term in the sense in which 

 it is used in America implies nothing definite as to the pro- 

 portion of the grain removed in the bran and the proportion 

 retained in the flour, whilst the standard bread advocates 

 demand that standard flour should contain 8(* per cent, of the 

 grain. 



Straight grade or straight run flour is the flour obtained, as 

 explained above, by mixing together all the flour produced in 

 the mill except that from the last break and the last reduc- 

 tions. It contains very little husk, and what little it does 

 contain is very flnely divided. An ordinary wheat mixture 

 such as is commonly milled — and it should be noted in passing 

 that it is the almost invariable practice to mill mixtures of 

 wheat and not single varieties — yields as a rule from 70 to 75 

 per cent, of such straight grade flour. 



Patents is the name given to the flour from the earlier 

 reductions in the mill. It commonly forms about half the 

 total output of flour, or about 36 per cent, of the grain. It is 

 often sold separately because, being practically free from bran, 

 it is whiter than the rest of the flour, possesses superior 



