WHOLEMEAL AND OTHER BREAD
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Snt,—The letter of Mr. Francis Hughesdon in your issue of February 14th under the above heading clearly expresses the state of uncertainty existing in the minds of the majority of English people with regard to the important question of wholemeal bread—what it is, and why it is so necessary for the physical well-being of our race. With your indulgence, Sir, I will endeavour briefly to answer these questions. Before doing so let me point out that the so-called wholemeal bread at present sold by the bakers of this country is not germ bread at all, but white bread made with devitalized flour, to which has been added a certain amount of " offal " or bran, almost worthless as food and withal indigestible.
The true wholemeal or germ bread, which was the staple food of England seventy or eighty years ago, can only be made from flour from which the vitamines have not been extracted by over-milling. This flour, so vital to the stamina of our race, the elaborate roller mills of this country are unable to produce. Only the old-fashioned stones of the old-fashioned mills, most of which have been dismantled, could produce it. The majority of us, at some time or other, have held a few grains of ripe wheat in the palms of our hands and noticed that they are covered with a golden-coloured skin with a hard and somewhat shiny surface. If one of these grains be cut in half with a sharp knife we see that the interior consists of a dead white substance, which bears much the same proportion in bulk to the skin that encloses it as does the contents of an egg to its shell. Now, this dead white interior is little more than starch, and comparatively worthless as a food, whereas the skin contains almost all the blood and bone-producing vitamines of the wheat. As corn is at present milled in England this skin is entirely eliminated. Conse- quently, when eating white bread we are simply eating starch ; and when eating the so-called wholemeal bread, as at present supplied, starch plus a little meal or bran, fibrous, indigestible stuff which the bakers mix with the white flour to discolour it, so that the public may be led to believe that they are eating the old-fashioned stone-milled vitalizing germ bread of our forefathers, the true staff of life. This applies equally to the " Standard " bread sold before the War and to most of the so-called farmhouse bread.
Now, Sir, such a condition of things in the production of the most vital item in the food of the nation must surely be of the utmost importance to us all. It calls for immediate legislation. It is an Imperial matter. This is no exaggeration, no scare-mongering.—I am, Sir, &c.,
A. G. FOLLIOTT STOKES.
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