322 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
largely into the food of our people, this queston is not one of 
as great importance to us, as to those countries in which 
bread constitutes a larger, and meat a smaller proportion of 
the daily food of all classes. 
It may not be out of place in this connection, to call atten¬ 
tion to the wholesome properties of cracked wheat—wheat 
coarsely broken—as an article of diet. Containing as it does, 
all the nutritive properties of the original wheat; if so thor¬ 
oughly boiled, that when cool it forms a glutinous, jelly-like 
mass, it is not only easy of digestion, but is the method of 
preparation by which a given amount of wheat furnishes the 
largest possible amount of nutritive material to the human 
system. 
Besides the argument above given, there is another which 
favors the substitution of unfermented, for fermented bread, 
where circumstances are such that it may be done. If the 
process of fermentation, or rising, is not checked at the proper 
time, the dough becomes sour by the changing of a part of the 
starch of the flour to lactic acid, as is shown in the following 
equation: 
Starch. Water. Lactic Acid. 
C 12 H 20 O 10 + 2 (IPO) =4 (C 3 H 6 0 3 ). 
This acid gives to the bread a disagreeable taste and odor, 
and is much more common when, from the use of poor veast 
or an inferior quality of flour, fermentation has taken place 
but slowly. 
To prevent this “souring” of the dough, bakers have long 
been in the habit of using certain mineral substances to arrest 
the development of lactic acid. Alum is the substance most 
commonly employed, although lime-water, and sulphate of cop¬ 
per are sometimes used. Alum, besides preventing the acid 
transformation given above, imparts to the bread a white, dry, 
crumbly appearance, and is on this account used in the manu¬ 
facture of the baking powders that are now so commonly used, 
and is also often used by bakers to improve the appearance of 
bread made from poor flour. There are several objections to 
the use of alum in the preparation of food of any kind. Dur- 
