WHOLEMEAL BREAD.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4791, 19 December 1924, Page 1

WHOLEMEAL BREAD.

DOCTORS AND NUTRITIVE VALUE. BETTER THAN WHl'bE ARTICLE. 2k meeting of the members of the Medical Officers of Schools Associations , and friends . wag. held at the rooms of the Medical Society of London to discuss the relative values of stone-milled and other flours and breads, etc., for nourishing giowing ch’ldren. The. discussion showed that ■the balance of opinion was wholly in favour of wholemeal flour and bread, and the meeting unanimously carried the following resolution,. formulated and proposed by the chairman (Dr. L. R. Lempriere, president of the association) and seconded by Sir Bruce Bruce-Porter :—

“Whiteness of flour is not in itself necessarily any indication of its value as a food, The natural germ-vontain-ing bread made from 8u per cent. Hour tastes better and is more nutritious, particularly , for the growing child, and should be provided." it was stated that copies of the resolution would be sent to headmasters and headmistresses of schools of various grades and to local educational authorities.

Dr. Robert Hutchinson, in opening the discussion, said that the whole subject depended largely on the importance attached to the element of vitamines. He thought there was a tendency to exaggerate their importance. If the diet was right in other respects the vitamines could be left to look after themselves. What they should aim at was an abundant and mixed diet, cheap and properly cooked. With these things achieved the matter they were discussing would become one of minor importance. Dr. C. Shelley said that the use of the word “offal” had a great deal to do with making white flour popular. Formerly the word meant something far less unpleasant than now. To-day, when a man was told that the offal had been removed from his flour he felt great satisfaction, and if told that the offal had gone to the pigis he did not stop to ask whether the pigs were going to be better or worse off than himself for having it.

Sir Harry Baldwin said that the jaws of modern people were too small. Deformity of the jaws was a widespread complaint to-day, though it had appeared comparatively recently. He suggested that it was largely due to the removal of vitamines from flour, and considered it important that the' food of the poor should not be deprived of essential qualities in order to pander to the vitiated taste for white flour.

Dr. G. Friend, Medical Officer at Christ’s Hospital, Horsham, said that during the 22 years the school had been at Horsham the boys had eaten bread made of 76 to 80 per cent, flout. In the first year at Horsham the number of carious teeth per boy was, roughly, four. Now it was 1.5. The chief advantage of. stone-milled, or wholemeal, bread was that it ensured proper mastication. The popular preference for white bread was due to an ignorant aestheticism. Bread that was at all dark in colour was thought dirty. Mr Carter, a baker, said that they could not get poor people to buy wholemeal bread. Usually they would go to the baker whose bread wats whitest. Wholemeal bread was simpler to make than white, and if the public would.have it. the baker would make it