It will now be convenient to discuss the merits of those foodstuffs which are of the greatest importance to the people of these Islands.

Bread

The evolution of bread from white flour corresponds with our more luxurious method of living, and the abandoment of the millstone, which refused to remove from the flour its vital constituents, or - to quote speakers at the 1914 meeting of the British Association which has condemned it - its "Vitamines."

The food value of bread cannot be adequately measured in units of energy. The 30 per cent. loss in weight in wheat which is ground into white flour is equivalent to its loss of food value, while at the same time it diminishes the size of our national loaf. Can we afford this when wheat reaches 60s. to 80s. a quarter? Can the consumer afford to lose what is rejected, and what means so much to his health, and still more to that of his children? The rejection of the bran and germ of the wheat in the modern process of milling means that if wheat were ground into meal instead of white flour, a year's consumption by 46,000,000 people at the usual 6 bushels a head, would fall from 276,000,000 bushels, costing an average of 55s. 6d. a quarter, in the middle of 1915, to 193,000,000 bushels, thus effecting a saving to the country of £28,750,000 a year, and enormously improving the vigour of the race.

Bread is composed of starch, gluten (a proteid), a very small proportion of fat, some minerals and water. Thus, a four-pound loaf contains approximately 2 lb. of starch, 5 oz. of protein, some fat and minerals, and 25 oz. of water. There are only two forms of ordinary bread which need discussion in a work of this character - those made respectively from fine white flour and wholemeal. "Brown" bread is a term which is applied in a promiscuous way to all loaves other than white, whether they are made from the whole grain of the wheat or from meal from which a portion of the husk or the germ has been removed. As a rule the whiter the flour the poorer the loaf. The nutritious value of bread cannot be measured by its starch and protein alone, but by these constituents plus the mineral salts which are almost wholly found in the bran and the germ. The practical superiority of wholemeal bread lies in the fact that these salts are retained, and that the mechanical action of the husk on the intestines maintains their activity and a consequent healthy equilibrium. The wholemeal bread eater, unlike the consumer of white bread, is therefore neither a victim to pills nor to purgative medicines, which are among the afflictions of life, that is usually shortened in consequence.

The public are supremely indifferent to the enormous importance of suitable bread - the whitest of which is supplemented by cakes, pastry, and puddings made with the same emasculated flour. The truth is either unknown or ignored. "Brown" bread is sometimes made by bakers from white flour mixed with bran as occasion demands to please the views of their customers.

It has often been pointed out that the finest white flour forms only 66 to 70 per cent. of the wheat grain, but that wholemeal forms over 95 per cent. The smaller quantity is owing to the removal of the husk and the germ, which contains fourteen times as much protein (gluten) and fat, and eight times as much phosphate of lime (bone-building material) and iron, as fine white flour. The value of wholemeal bread to the consumer lies in the fact that -

1. It contains more fat than white bread.

2. It enriches the blood by increasing the number of red corpuscles - a good index to vigour; and -

3. It ensures that mechanical action and regularity of the system, without which no one can maintain health.

I am, however, of opinion that the employment of yeast or baking-powder is deleterious to digestion.

Bread made in the home is of double importance; - it is a superior and a much cheaper food. On one occasion a responsible baker made some loaves from a weighed quantity of wholemeal at the writer's request. To his surprise the bread, then sixpence a loaf, cost only threepence, plus yeast and fuel. When, later in the year, bread and wheat meal cost 2d. a pound - which it may do with wheat at l 1/4d. - the quantity required for a four-pound loaf cost 5 1/3d. Thus, by home-baking in war time there was a saving of more than one-third of the money paid to the baker.

The crust of bread is of much greater value than the crumb. It is 50 per cent. richer and contains 80 per cent. of nutritious food. In baking white bread it is important that the flour should contain neither too much nor too little gluten. Gluten is the protein of the wheat, and corresponds to the casein of milk and cheese and the nutritious properties of the lean of meat. When the dough ferments it is expanded by the gas which is produced, and cells are formed in the process. The walls of these cells chiefly consist of the elastic gluten, which, when it is too small in quantity, are too thin to resist the pressure of the gas. The result is that they burst, and the collapse involves heavy bread. If, on the other hand, the flour contains too much gluten, the cell walls become too thick, and by resisting the pressure of the gas do not expand sufficiently. In this case the cells are too small, and the bread becomes close and inferior in texture.

Among the most agreeable and highly soluble of all pure breads I find Winter's highly malted loaf. It is rich in gluten and long keeping.