THE NEW BREAD
EN of science are apt to be naive and optimistic people. They seem to believe that they have only to make an important discovery for it to be univer- sally used for the general benefit. Repeated lessons do not seem to have taught them that nothing is more unlikely. If their inventions are used at all they are generally so misapplied as to cause, at any rate at first, nothing but misery. More often they are not used at all, not because of any particular prejudice against them, but simply from the unconquerable apathy of man. A glaring instance is before us to-day. Over ten years ago scientists discovered that wholemeal bread was much superior to ordinary white bread. They found that we had invented costly and intricate milling machinery, a marvel of engineering skill, which had for its purpose the removal of the husk and " germ " from the grain of wheat during the process of grinding it into flour. With the aid of these truly wonderful machines the miller was able to produce the present dead-white bread with which we are familiar, and contemptuously to throw away the rest of the grain as " offal." This was the triumph of the engineers ; but then came along the chemists and the biologists with their discovery that this despised "offal " contained not only valuable nutritive properties, but also some mysterious substance essential to the health of man, which they called a vitamin.
These scientists supposed that, having made this discovery, our milling machinery would be duly modified, and we should take to eating wholemeal or " germ bread " forthwith. But, as- we all know, nothing of the sort has happened ; and this perhaps for a special reason.
The educated classes who heard of the scientists' dis- covery were not in need of it, for bread was not the chief constituent of their diet, and they obtained their vitamins from meat, vegetables, and other things. But the poorer classes, the manual workers, for whom bread is still the staple food, who if they do not get their vitamins through their bread will almost certainly not get them at all, have never so much as heard of the discovery. And therefore there has been no pressure of changing demand to force the millers to scrap or alter their expensive plant.
So every day thousands of tons of grain are, by a triumph of engineering skill, milled in such a manner that the essential vitamin is carefully separated from the rest and thrown away. In hundreds of thousands of families up and down the country the tired worker when he comes home does not get the life-giving food he needs ; the wife and mother has to bear the double strain upon her without its aid ; and the child must go unvitalized to school. And all this is totally unnecessary. Therefore we are delighted to see the present educational campaign for changing the demand from white bread into wholemeal bread. This, of course, is the only way in the long run to change the attitude of millers and retail bakers, but they themselves can immensely help in this great piece of national work by encouraging instead of discouraging the new demand. They can supply wholemeal or " germ " bread as soon as it is asked for. Therefore we are ready to do what we can to help the campaign by publishing the names of any retailers who care to send us their names; and who will undertake to supply the New Bread.
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