NUTRITIVE QUALITIES OF BKAX. 361 



In country places we sometimes meet, with plain household 

 bread, made from the whole meal of wheat, without the separa- 

 tion of the bran. Such bread is far more substantial, and, as 

 it appears, more nutritive and wholesome, than fine wheaten 

 bread. The researches of modern chemistry on the nutritive 

 qualities of the bread now in use, have proved satisfactorily, that, 

 by rejecting the bran, we lose a large amount of nourishment 

 of the most important kind. 



Wheat is well known -to consist, of two parts; the inner 

 grain, which gives pure white wheat, and the skin, which, 

 when separated, forms the bran. The miller cannot entirely 

 peel off the skin from his grain, and thus some of it is un- 

 avoidably ground up with the flour. But by sifting, he sepa- 

 rates it more or less completely, and thus he obtains his 

 seconds, middlings, &c. The whole meal, as it is called, of 

 which brown household bread is made, consists of the entire 

 grain ground up together, used as it comes from the mill- 

 stones unsifted, and therefore containing all the bran. Thus 

 the finest wheat flour may be said to contain no bran, while 

 the whole meal contains all that grew naturally upon the 

 grain. 



Ascientiflc chemist,Professor Johnston.in directing attention 

 to this subject, has inquired, "What is the composition of 

 the two portions of the seed, namely, the inner grain or pure 

 wheat, and the skin or bran; how much do they respectively 

 contain of the several constituents of the animal body ; how 

 much of each is contained also in the whole grain ?" 



The answers to these inquiries show the value of whole 

 meal or household bread in forming and sustaining the three 

 principal solids of the human body fat, muscle, and bone. 

 The following are the more important particulars : 



1. The Fat. Of this ingredient a thousand pounds of 



Whole grain contain . , . 38 Ibs. 

 Fine flour ,, 20 ,, 



Bran 60 ,, 



So that the bran is much richer in fat than the interior part of 

 the grain, and the whole grain ground together richer than the 

 finer part of the flour in the proportion of nearly one half. 



2. The muscular matter. A thousand pounds of whole 

 grain and of the fine flour, contained of muscular matter 

 respectively 



Whole grain 156 Ibs. 



Fine flour 130 



Thus, of the material out of which the animal muscle is to be 



