230 
is to be obtained in different foods for a given 
sum of money. This applies in particular to 
staple articles of diet, such even as bread and 
potatoes. Thus, for instance, with bread at 3d. 
per lb., potatoes to yield an equal amount of 
nourishment should not exceed 1s. per stone. 
But Government measures cannot stop with the 
mere regulation of food supplies. Powers must 
be taken to compel a greater production of home 
food and to ensure a larger acreage of wheat. 
Objection may be raised to the shortage of labour, 
but what adequate effort has been made to 
organise and instruct women to take part in agri- 
cultural labour, or to feed them properly when 
so employed? What effort has been made to 
increase tillage in Ireland, where the Military 
Service Acts do not apply? Lastly, why should 
prisoners of war not be utilised to the fullest 
degree possible in raising the home production of 
food? No considerations, political or otherwise, 
should be allowed to stand in the way of carrying 
any or all of these measures into effect without 
further delay. 
STANDARD BREAD. 
HE decision of the Government, which appears 
likely to result in the general consumption of 
“standard bread,” will no doubt be received with 
varied feelings by various sections of the com- 
munity. In view of the certainty that such differ- 
ences of opinion are likely to arise, the following 
brief sketch of the facts of the case so far as 
they are known may be of general interest. 
Under normal conditions at the present time 
the average practice of roller milling results in 
the recovery from cleaned wheat of rather more 
than 70 per cent. of its weight of flour, the re- 
maining 28 or 29 per cent. of the wheat, consisting 
of various grades of “ offals,” being sold for feed- 
ing stock. 
The changes announced last week would make 
it compulsory to recover 8o per cent. of flour from 
wheat, which would increase the amount of flour 
by about 83 per cent. and decrease the amount of 
offals for stock-feeding by a like proportion, the 
percentage in both cases being calculated on the 
amount of cleaned wheat available for milling.’ 
On the basis of the amount of flour produced 
in the United Kingdom for home consumption in 
the years immediately before the war, the change 
announced would increase the amount of flour 
available for bread-making by very nearly 600,000 
tons, which would provide an extra 2-lb. loaf for 
every inhabitant of the United Kingdom every 
three weeks, or seventeen extra 2-lb. loaves per 
head of the population per year. This is by no 
means a negligible increase in the bread supply, 
and it is doubtless considerations of this kind that 
have induced the Government to take action. 
If, however, we examine the result rather more 
closely, we find that the increase in the nation’s 
1 The values here given require modification in 
made by the Board of Trade (see p. 222). 
2456, voL. 98] 
the light of the Order just 
NATURE 
| NOVEMBER 23, 1916 
food supply may not be so great as the above 
figures indicate. In spite of repeated statements 
to the contrary, bread made from 80 per cent. 
flour is not so nutritious, weight for weight, as 
bread made from 7o per cent. flour—at any rate,. 
for the supply of protein and energy for the general © 
population. Although 80 per cent. bread contains 
on the average rather more protein than 7o per 
cent. bread, the digestibility of the protein in the’ 
former is rather lower, so that the actual weight 
of protein digested by the average individual from 
t lb. of 80 per cent. bread is rather less than the 
amount digested from 1 lb. of 70 per cent. bread. 
Again, the energy value of 80 per cent. bread is 
rather lower than that of 7o per cent. bread. 
Still one more correction must be made in order 
to arrive at the actual increase in the national 
food supply which will result from the general 
adoption of a milling standard of 80 per cent. It 
is pointed out above that the recovery of 80 per 
cent. of flour from cleaned wheat entails a decrease 
in the supply of the finer wheat offals for stock- 
feeding to the extent of about 600,000 tons. These 
finer offals are largely used for feeding pigs. 
Their transference to human consumption would 
therefore decrease the production of pork and 
bacon, and this must be allowed for in estimating 
the total effect of the proposed alterations in 
milling. After applying all these corrections it 
appears that the general adoption of an 80 per 
cent. standard would undoubtedly give a sub- 
stantial increase in the amount of digestible food 
for the supply of protein and energy for the popula- 
tion of the United Kingdom. ; 
The possibility that the food value of bread 
would be substantially increased by the adoption 
of the 80 per cent. standard, because the content 
of the mysterious constituents known as vitamines 
would be increased by the inclusion of a greater 
proportion of the germ and of the outer layers 
of the grain, is perhaps scarcely worth discussing 
in this connection. Such constituents are sup- 
plied by other items comprised in an ordinary 
mixed diet, so that the vitamine content of bread 
can have little practicai significance except in 
the very few cases where bread forms the whole, 
or very nearly the whole, of the diet. 
The price of wheat offals for feeding stock is 
now so high that the adoption of the 80 per cent. 
standard cannot be expected to make any con- 
siderable reduction in the price of bread. Even 
the compulsory admixture of a considerable pro- 
portion of other cereals, such as maize, oats, or 
barley, with wheat for bread-making would not 
greatly cheapen the loaf, because these cereals are 
not very much cheaper than wheat. The im- 
portant point in raising the milling standard and 
in including other cereals among the breadstuffs 
is that it would widen the sources from which the 
national food supply is derived—a most desirable 
end under existing conditions. To summarise, 
the result of a compulsory 80 per cent. standard 
would be neither better bread nor cheaper bread, 
i but more bread. 
