152 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



workers are compelled to cat white bread because they are 

 too poor to buy brown. 



The fact is, pure rye-l)read, wliicli is nearly black, or 

 wheaten bread in which there is a liberal mixture of rye 

 flour, is far more nutritious than pure wheaten white bread. 

 This the German people know full well, and they simply eat it 

 in preference to white bread for that reason — irrespective of 

 price. 



Innutritiousness of White Bread 



English people have been told again and again by dietetic 

 experts — Sir James Crichton-Browne and many others — that 

 the white wheaten bread generally eaten in this country and 

 more generally hy the working classes than hy the rich, is not 

 nutritious. 



Here is one of the most recent references to the subject, 

 published towards the end of 1908 — 



" Britain's Bread 



" A circular entitled ' Daily Bread ' was issued yesterday by the 

 Bread and Food Reform Lea,u:ue. 



" It is signed by the Duchess of Portland, the Earl of Meath, Sir 

 James Crichton-Browne, Sir William Ramsay, and many other 

 influential persons. It points out, incidentally, that, out of 355 lbs. 

 of corn, wheat, meal, and flour consumed by each person every year, 

 27 'J lbs. come from abroad, only 76 lbs. being produced at home ; 

 and that two-fifths of the total weight of food consumed by work- 

 ing-class famihes consists of bread and flour. 



" The circular advocates that persons charged with the care or 

 feeding of children, especially heads of schools, should at least ask 

 their millers and bakers to supply them with the ' old-fashioned 

 household bread, which is not brown, but cream-coloured, and 

 retains about 80 per cent, of the grain, and especially the embryo or 

 germ, now entirely discarded from fine white flour.' " 



In spite of this unassailable testimony of the folly — nay 

 obstinacy — of the British people in clinging so fatuously to 

 their innutritious white bread, and of the superior wisdom of 

 the Germans in selecting a more enriching loaf for their con- 

 sumption, many of our people still believe that the " Black " 

 bread of Germany is eaten by the German people because they 

 are too poor to buy any other. But they believe this only 

 because the leaders of the party to which they belong have told 

 them so in order to serve the narrow selfish purpose of party 

 interests, or the leaders themselves are ignorant of the true 



