The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1931 EAT MORE BREAD.

Hokitika Guardian, 14 October 1931, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1931 EAT MORE BREAD.

Eat more bread for health and economy 'was tho advice given by Dr. Kent Jones, the English, cereal chemist in the course of an address on the chemistry of bread given at Christchurch last week. The eating of bread on n larger scale would be a wondertul

economy and a great blessing to tne world in general to say nothing of my friends the bakers. One is always inclined to think of bread as a filler and not as a food yet bread is probably one of the most nutritive foods ever produced in the world at a low cost. For one penny you may buy more nutrition in bread than in any other foodstuff. Brown bread is excellent for some people, : white lor others. I don’t want to enter into any controversy on this subject, beyond .saying that I wish those who are so keen on brown bread would not, in their enthusiasm, attack white bread so viciously. If they manage to put people v>ff white bread, they are doing a lot of harm. I don’t sav that you should eat nothing but bread, but it is a very good and nutritious food, and should have an important place in the total human intake. Wheats in different parts of the world had different characteristics. New Zealand grow a particular kind of wheat which was able to produce good bread, but the excellence of the bread was due largely to the excellence of the bakers. In other words, New Zealand wheat was not the most suitable for bread-making, and bakers of other lands, unused to handling it, would probably have difficulty in making good bread of it-. Chemistry entered the problem of 'bread-making in many ways. The miller was always faced with the problem of eii'-uring regularity in bis flour. A flour was needed of as low an " bcontent r« possible. Ash-contont. then, would give some guide to regularity. Another method was the investigation of nrotei an tents; and a third, the estimation 'f tin amount of sugar in C!nmis + were called up to nnke nianv cf ->r tests; even in the ordinary, humdrum work of the mill they l;ad an important part,' There were 'tro chief factors which made a

large loaf cr a small Ipaf—the power to produce gas, and the power to retain the gas. The strength of flour, lie believed, was to 'be measured not by the size of leaf which it produced, but by its retention, of gas.-* There were important and complicated physiealchemien] changes taking place at every stage o f the baking of bread. That was why any trouble in the baking was >so difficult to locate. New Zealand flour was a flour very deficient in sugar more so thn>ni the flours of most other countries of the world. This deficiency, however, could he remedied, a lid was remedied, in the bake-house. Dr. Kent Jones thought it unfortunate that here had been so- little research into bakery practice, and commended this subject to the -notice of students. There was one golden rule for the manufacure of good bread : the use of comparatively large quantities of yeast at a low temperature.