| With regard to the nutritive qualities of brown bread, | | | | In his lecture upon ''The Chemistry of Bread-Making," |
| Professor Jago (who I think one of our highest | | | | delivered before the Society of Arts in December, |
| authorities) says that whole meal, and flour from which | | | | 1879, he said: "As regards the importance of the |
| the bran and germ have not been removed, do not | | | | constituents of bran, I say that the analyst, and the |
| keep well. These bodies contain oil and nitrogenous | | | | physician who makes use of the analyst as his |
| principles, which readily decompose, producing rancidity | | | | supporter, in bringing before us the importance of |
| and mustiness in flavor. Not only do these changes | | | | brown bread as compared with white, and who assert |
| occur in the flour, but they also proceed apace in the | | | | that in rejecting the bran we are guilty of a serious |
| dough. The diastastic bodies of the bran and germ | | | | waste of flesh-forming and bone-forming material, |
| attack the starch, and more or less convert it into | | | | should not take a mere chemical analysis as |
| dextrine and maltose; they further attack the gluten, | | | | all-sufficient to establish their point. A table showing, |
| and that remarkably elastic body which confers on | | | | from an analyst's point of view, the comparative merits |
| wheaten flour, alone of all the cereals, the power of | | | | of various substances for feeding purposes, shows |
| forming a light, spongy, well-risen loaf. The gluten, under | | | | hay to be of high value as a food, and even oat straw |
| the action of the bran and germ, loses its elasticity, and | | | | -- as, indeed, every farmer knows from experience. |
| becomes fragile and incapable of retaining the gas | | | | Still more valuable for their heat giving, and especially |
| produced during fermentation; the result is heavy, | | | | for their flesh-forming, materials, are linseed- cake, |
| sodden, indigestible bread. | | | | rape-cake, and decorticated cotton-cake. Now those |
| Evidence of this is found in the fact that while | | | | who hold, from mere chemical analysis, that bran is of |
| whole-meal loaves are so excessively baked as to | | | | such high value as a food material that its omission |
| produce a crust two or three times the ordinary | | | | from flour would meet with grave censure, should, |
| thickness, the interior is still in a damp and sodden | | | | from a similar analytical standpoint, urge us to eat hay, |
| condition. This is the effect of bran in whole-meal. | | | | oat-straw, linseed and cotton cakes. Doubtless these |
| "Not only, then, on the ground of nutritive value may the | | | | substances are of high value as food for cattle, |
| use of a pure white loaf be urged, but such bread is | | | | because the herbivorous oxen can digest and utilize |
| more healthily made, and will be sweet and free from | | | | them with ease; not so with man, who would starve in |
| acidity when whole-meal and dark breads are sour | | | | a field where a cow or a sheep would fatten. As with |
| and unwholesome. It has also been pointed out that | | | | hay or linseed cake, so with bran; I hold that the best |
| the nutritive constituents of the bran are so locked | | | | mode of digesting such food substances is first of all |
| within it that they escape unaltered from the human | | | | by the aid of our hoofed friends, to convert them into |
| body." | | | | milk or cream, or bacon, beef, or mutton." |
| Such, in brief, is Professor Jago's opinion of | | | | Now these are the scientific opinions of two of our |
| whole-meal, and bread made from it. My own opinion is | | | | very highest authorities. But of late I have been making |
| that Darwin's theory of the survival of the fittest is | | | | brown bread out of a blend of cereals made and |
| very forcibly illustrated in the milling of cereals, and the | | | | milled by an enterprising firm of millers in the North of |
| adoption of food most proper for the human system. | | | | England, and I must really say that it meets a long-felt |
| We have had brown bread and white bread before | | | | want, as it produces a brown loaf which is free from |
| the public from time immemorial, and what is the | | | | that nauseous taste of which complaint is so often |
| result? Why, for every sack of wheat-meal bread | | | | made with brown bread, and has a good nutty flavor |
| which is baked we have a thousand sacks of fine or | | | | of its own. |
| white bread. And what of our hospitals and our army | | | | In conclusion, let me say that we have reason for |
| and navy, with medical men at the head of them, | | | | great hope for the future of the Bread and |
| watching the results of this food or that food, and its | | | | Confectionery trade. Many earnest minds are devoting |
| effects on the human body? I admit that brown bread | | | | both time and money to the development of this |
| does suit some constitutions; but to the majority of | | | | important industry, and their efforts cannot fail to result |
| people it is nauseous, frequently causing flatulency. I will | | | | in bettering the knowledge and lightening the labor of |
| just quote another good authority -- Professor Charles | | | | the practical baker. |
| Graham. | | | | |