WHITE FLOUR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 November 1940, Page 4

WHITE FLOUR

bearing on dental decay SIR LEONARD’S HILL’S VIEWS MASTERTON BAKER’S COMMENT. “I baked better bread 30 years ago than I do today. That opinion is held by the majority of bakers,” stated a Masterton master baker in commenting on the quality of bread baked today owing to the refined white flour used. Giving reasons for his statement, the baker pointed out that with a new type of machine being widely used in New Zealand for harvesting wheat, only the heads were taken off the stalk, with’ the result that the wheat was no longer allowed to mature in the stock. The time from the cutting of the wheat to its milling was now considerably shorter.

It is of interest to read a letter published by Sir Leonard Hill in the ‘Lancet,” which also has a particular bearing on the subject of dental decay. He writes as follows: —

“The new method of milling wheat, recently described in “The Times” (London)’ by means of forced air and steel cutting knives, breaks down the whole of the bran, germ, starch grains, etc., into a fine flour, which contains only about 8J per cent of water in place of the usual 15 per cent, and 141per cent, of protein in place of about 9 per cent, in white flour, and all the minerals, and vitamins, A. B. and E. Owing to the small percentage of water and the fine milling process, this flour keeps very well and make a most excellent bread. In the milling of white flour some of the best of the wheat is separated off and goes to feed chickens and pigs, which do very well on this so-called offal. The white flour is robbed of vitamins and materials present in the natural food, and of much of the protein. The purchaser of white bread also buys in it far more water than he should. “It is for the millions of not-well-off people that bread and flour should give all the properties of the natural wheat. The Government appeals to us not to buy articles which have to be brought by ship while they are allowing a large part of the imported wheat to be separated off as ‘offal,’ and not put into bread, but fed to animals, which are not necessary for healthy existence, if conditions become hard, and can be otherwise fed. Millions of Russians live on black bread and vegetable soup; they could not live on white bread.”