30 



The Atillim/ of Wheat in the United Kingdom. 



flour, both produced from the same mixture of wheats, the only 

 case of such a comparison in the set, and the figures are these : — 



Where in these figures is the superiority of millstone-made 

 flour indicated ? 



In spite of what the Bread and Food Reform League say, 

 and of the arguments they found upon a fallacy, the difference 

 in percentage of phosphates present should Ije estimated from 

 the PoO, figures, not from the difference in ash. The phos- 

 phates in wheat contain as nearly as may be 50 per cent. PgOg, 

 so as the difference given above between the PgOg figures is 

 0'04: per cent., the difference in the phosphates may be taken 

 as 0*08 per cent., one part in 1,250, in favour of the 74 per cent, 

 stone-made flour. To get this fact into focus, consider how 

 many mouthfiils of bread a person eats per day, and how the 

 apparent inferiority in phosphates may be remedied by eating 

 one mouthful more of tlie nicer " 70 per cent, roller-made " 

 article in several days. Note also the inferiority of the stone- 

 made flour as regards proteins, and more significant still its 

 inferiority in " ether extract." I have been saying herein, as a 

 matter of common milling knowledge, that millstones while 

 they polished the outside left ordinarily more flour on the 

 inner side of the bran than rolls do. The cells nearest to the 

 inner side of the bran contain a relatively high percentage of 

 nitrogenous matter, the outermost layers of the bran contain 

 no proteids and are about as nourishing as sawdust. It is, 

 therefore, not at all surprising to find in the analyses just 

 quoted a higher percentage of proteins in the roller-made flour. 

 But I have been careful to say that millstones produced broad 

 bran from suitable wheats, and if flakes of bran, why not flakes 

 of germ ? For if millstones did not reduce the bran to a 

 powder sufficiently fine to pass with the flour through the 

 separating medium employed, why should they be expected to 

 reduce a material so oily and resistant to disintegration as 

 germ to such a state. 



Competent millers have been saying for many years that 

 though germ was not extracted as a separate product in mill- 

 stone days, it nevertheless went largely into the oft'als. I have 

 myself extracted germ from finished millstone offal and 

 showed a sample of it to a Society of Arts audience, but 



