PURE AND IMPURE FOODS. 



Edited by C. F. Langwortiiy, Ph..D. 

 Author of "On Citraconic, Itaconic and Mesaconic Acids," "Fish as Food," etc. 



''JVhat a Man Eats He Is." 



FLOUR AND OTHER MILLING PRODUCTS. 

 When people first began to grind their 

 grain, they did so simply by crushing it be- 

 tween any 2 stones which happened to be 

 handy; a little later they kept 2 flat ones 

 especially for the purpose, one of which 

 they soon learned to keep stationary, while 

 the other was turned about on it. At first 

 each woman ground the meal for her own 

 family on her own stone ; but after tread- 

 mills, windmills, and, later, water wheels 

 came into use all the grinding was done by 

 the professional miller in the village mill. 

 In the feudal days the lord forced his ten- 

 ants to have their grain ground in his mill, 

 even to bake their bread in his oven, and 

 charged a good round toll for the use of 

 each. Various devices for grinding and 

 sifting the grain have gradually been in- 

 vented, until to-day we have mills covering 

 acres of ground ano!- doing apparently im- 

 possible things with the grain. In Hungary 

 the old Roman system of cylinder milling, 

 similar in principle to an ordinary coffee 

 mill, has been developed, but elsewhere the 

 systems which are known as high and low 

 milling are more common. Here we have 

 the original system of crushing between 2 

 stones, or rollers, but so elaborated as to 

 be almost unrecognizable. In low milling 

 the grain is ground in one process between 

 2 crushers placed as near together as possi- 

 ble. Graham flour and that commonly 

 known as "entire wheat flour" are prepared 

 in this way. Of these, only the former, in- 

 vented by the American physician, Dr. Syl- 

 vester Graham, really contains entire grain. 

 It is made by simply washing and cleaning 

 the grain and then grinding it between 2 

 stones or rollers, whose surfaces are so cut 

 as to insure a complete crushing of the 

 grain. Entire wheat flour is made in much 

 the same way, except that after being washed 

 the grains are run through a machine 

 which removes the 3 outer layers, and then 

 are ground. In this way the supposedly 

 valuable cerealin layer is included without 

 the almost useless cellulose of the outer 

 bran. In high roller milling the grain is 

 washed and skinned as in milling entire 

 wheat, and then is run though 5 or even 

 more pairs of rollers, each successive pair 

 being set a little nearer together than the 

 last. After each grinding, or "break," as 

 the miller terms it, the meal is sifted, and 

 the leavings of each sifting ,called "tail- 

 ings," are themselves ground and sifted sev- 

 eral times. In the mill where the grain goes 

 through a series of 6 straight breaks, there 



are as many as 80 direct milling products, 

 varying in quality from the finest white 

 flour to pure ground bran. ..Careful millers 

 always try to grind as near the cerealin 

 layer as possible and to leave as much of the 

 germ in the flour as is consistent with a 

 good color. To make sure that each product 

 is up to the standard set up for it in the 

 mill, samples of it are tested every hour and 

 the milling is regulated accordingly. 



The so called "straight grade" flours or- 

 dinarily seen on the market consist of the 

 siftings of all the breaks plus the first pro- 

 duct of the first tailings. "Patent" and 

 "baker's" or "household" flours are varieties 

 of the straight grade flours. 



If, as often happens, it is desirable to 

 blend 2 kinds of wheat in order to obtain a 

 flour with the average of their qualities, the 

 grains are usually mixed before milling. 

 Sometimes the miller, or even the baker, 

 mixes 2 pure flours, but such a proceeding 

 is less reliable. 



Complicated chemical tests are necessary 

 to determine the exact quality of a flour, 

 but there are certain general rules by which 

 a good bread flour may be judged offhand. 

 Its color should be white, with a faint yel- 

 low tinge. After being pressed in the hand 

 it should fall loosely apart. If it stays in 

 lumps, it has too much moisture in it. When 

 rubbed between the fingers it should not 

 feel too smooth and powdery, but its indi- 

 vidual particles should be vaguely distin- 

 guishable. When put between the teeth it 

 should crunch a little. Its taste should be 

 sweet and nutty, without a suspicion of 

 acidity. 



The impurities which may accidentally 

 slip into a bag of grain, or even into the 

 flour made from it, consist chiefly of the 

 seeds of other plants, and of blighted or 

 mouldy wheat. The foreign seeds most to 

 be dreaded are cockles and darnel, and 

 both should be carefully guarded against ; 

 cockles because they injure the color of 

 flour and bread, and darnel because it is 

 commonly regarded as poisonous. Other 

 foreign seeds may not be equally dangerous, 

 but they should be removed with equal care, 

 as they lessen the nutritive value and the 

 strength of the flour. Moulds and other 

 fungus growths often give a musty odor and 

 taste to grain or flour which has been kept 

 in a damp place. Both these classes of 

 impurities are easily avoided by careful 

 milling and storing, and are not so much to 

 be feared as the foreign substances which 

 are added to the flour to cheapen its 



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