The Composition and Food Value of Bread. 23 



none the less important, substances are certainly present in milk 

 and in fresh vegetable matter. Furthermore it is by no means 

 certain that the germ is retained in the flour by any of the 

 methods of preparing it short of grinding the whole of the grain 

 and removing none of the bran. The soft and sticky nature of 

 the germ makes it almost impossible to grind even between 

 stones. It is much more readily flattened than ground, 

 in which case it will be taken out of the flour by even the 

 coarsest sifting. It is doubtful therefore if the rather uncertain 

 presence of a trace of germ in the various types of brown bread 

 is likely to endow them with any special value outside protein 

 content and energy value, at any rate for the average population 

 whose diet is only half bread. For infants or children fed 

 almost exclusively on bread the case may be different. Brown 

 bread for them may have a special value, but it may neverthe- 

 less be contended, even in such cases, that no kind of bread 

 forms a suitable exclusive diet for infants or children, and that 

 the proper course is not to use brown bread but to include other 

 feeding stuffs in the diet. For ordinary' people the choice of 

 bread may be safely left to individual tastes. Personally I 

 prefer brown bread, but I do so because I like its taste, and be- 

 cause I find that its rather laxative properties suit my mode of 

 life. I do not think that I get from it more protein, more 

 energy, or more good in any other way. 



In writing this article I have endeavoured to review the 

 evidence bearing on the composition and food value of bread as 

 affected by variations in the source of supply of the wheat 

 from which it is produced, and in the system of milling to 

 which the wheat is submitted. In conclusion it may be well 

 to set out a summarj' of the chief points which have resulted 

 from the inquiry. 



During the last century the population increased faster than 

 the wheat growing area. This necessitated the importation of 

 foreign wheat. Foreign wheats are for the most part hard in 

 kernel and soft in skin. Consequently they cannot be separated 

 into flour and l)ran by the old-fashioned stone mill. This fact 

 led to the invention of the roller mill, which produces over 90 

 per cent, of the flour used in the United Kingdom at the present 

 time. 



The general i)ublic, and especially the working classes, 

 prefer the white bread produced from the higher grade flours 

 of the roller mill. Compared with old-fashioned stone ground 

 flour or with the various brands of whole meal or standard 

 tlouts of to-day, this high giade flour if made from the same 

 wheat would l)e deficient in protein. But it can only l^e made 

 satisfactorily from a blend of wheats containing a consider- 

 aljle proportion of strong wheats rich in protein, so that the 



