432 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLVII. No. 1218 



three times as mucli available energy and 75 

 per cent, more protein. 



The wheat by-product alone has no physical 

 bread-making value; it is exactly on a par 

 with corn meal or any other cereal product 

 that has no gluten. Why, then, should we use 

 wheat by-product in bread-making to con- 

 serve wheat, when com meal, or com flour 

 or other cereal flours furnishes pound for 

 pound so much more digestible protein and 

 available energy? 



The -presence of the wheat by-products lowers 

 the amount of other cereal that can be blended 

 with flour. That is, you can not use as much 

 com, barley or oat flour in combination with 

 whole-wheat flour in making bread as you can 

 when using ordinary white flour. In the 

 rationing of Belgium when whole-wheat flour 

 (82 per cent.) was used, Mr. Eobinson Smith, 

 of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, in 

 discussing corn, says: 



Its cKief value as maize flour was in mixing with 

 the wheat flour up to 11 per cent. 



In our bread at the present time 25 per 

 cent, and more corn or other cereal flour is 

 used with white flour. The use of whole- 

 wheat flour reduces the amoimt of other cereal 

 that can be combined and made into bread, and 

 also reduces the amoxmt of available energy 

 and digestible protein contained in the loaf. 



Furthermore, wheat by-product is more com- 

 pletely digested by animals than by man, a 

 pound of wheat feed in a mixed ration for 

 animals is worth a little more than a pound 

 of corn. 



We have an abimdance of corn and a short- 

 age of wheat. Milk is a necessity as human 

 food, also butter, eggs and meat, and these 

 must be produced as cheaply as possible. 



When man uses as a bread mixture 75 per 

 cent, white flour and 25 pev cent, com meal or 

 corn flour then all of the wheat by-product is 

 available as animal food, where it is more 

 valuable than when used as human food; 

 while in turn the corn goes farther as human 

 food than the by-product it replaces. This 

 certainly is a valuable and an economical 

 substitution of com for wheat by-product as it 

 benefits both the human and the animal. 



If we should use whole-wheat flour only 

 and 12 per cent, corn flour as a bread mixture, 

 the wheat supply would not last as long as 

 when white flour is used with 25 per cent, of 

 corn flour. 



In view of these facts it is not surprising 

 that the U. S. Food Administrator followed 

 the course he did in regard to regulating the 

 milling of flour and the making of bread. 



The long extraction flours of other coimtries 

 are frequently mentioned as an example for 

 the United States to follow. Surely we should 

 profit by their example to the extent- of avoid- 

 ing their mistakes, but there is no reason why 

 we should copy their mistakes and failures. 

 France was the first country to lengthen the 

 extraction of the wheat to 82 per cent. Re- 

 cently she has gone back to the old standard. 

 (Commerce Reports, IJ. S. Dept. Commerce, 

 January 7, 1918, p. 79.) The change to long 

 extraction was not a success. Professor Bert- 

 rand, chief of the service stafi of the Pastuer 

 Institute, has pointed out that in digestion of 

 the long-extraction flours " there are other con- 

 siderations that tend to reduce" the actual 

 available calories, and that they have not been 

 previously considered, namely: the loss of en- 

 ergy due to the " digestive work " of the " ex- 

 cess of inert substances " in the long-extraction 

 flour. This factor has not been numerically 

 determined but it would still further reduce 

 the available nutrients of the whole wheat. 

 The change of the French government from 

 the long extraction of wheat as a war-time con- 

 servation measure back to normal basis is cer- 

 tainly significant. The experiment failed. 

 We should profit by this failure. 



The whole wheat and graham advocates 

 usually place great stress upon their whole- 

 someness, richness in minerals and to certain 

 unknown comiwnents to which the name 

 " vitamine " has been applied. A restricted 

 diet may have an insufficient amount of min- 

 eral matter or growth-promoting substances, 

 improperly called "vitamines," as well as an 

 insufficient amount or kind of protein, but in a 

 diet with a variety and ample amount of food 

 there is no danger whatever of any deficiency. 

 The U. S. Public Health Service says: 



