White; whole-meal; wheat-meal. - "Bread" (says Miss Yates, Hon. Secretary to the Bread Reform League), being the staple food of a large proportion of mankind, should approach, as nearly as possible, to what is required in a complete food.

In white bread the nitrogenous and mineral substances are so deficient that it cannot possibly maintain life. It is, therefore, only suitable when a large proportion of animal food is used in the diet, and even then its constipating qualities render it disadvantageous.

Whole-meal bread, made from the whole of the grain, contains every element necessary to sustain life, and with the addition of fat and fresh vegetables can maintain healthy life (see Appendix on Bread Diet and Typhus Fever); but owing to the mechanical action of the sharp edges and points, left by a bad process of grinding, it has an irritating effect on the alimentary canal which makes its general and constant use objectionable.

Wheat-meal bread, made from wheat which has been properly cleansed, decorticated, and ground in a fine granular form, as directed by Dr. Campbell Morfit, contains all the nourishment of wheat in an easily digestible form, and is, therefore, a much more wholesome food than white bread and better adapted for a general food than coarsely ground whole-meal bread.

One pound of whole meal contains double the amount of lime, and nearly three times as much phosphoric acid as a pound of white flour. In addition to this it contains a large proportion of other mineral substances requisite for the nutrition of the body and a larger proportion of valuable nitrogenous substances. It will be therefore understood how valuable this bread must be as an article of diet to growing children, and how essential it is that the poor, who are unable to afford expensive animal food, should be able to obtain it. There is good reason for believing that children fed principally on white bread are liable to various forms of ill-health, consequent on an insufficiency of lime and other mineral substances in their food. The adoption of a wholesome nourishing bread would better enable the poor to resist the effects of the various depressing influences by which they are so apt to be surrounded.

Dr. Pavy, in a paper "On the Dietetics of Bread," supporting the views promulgated by Miss Yates, says: -

"Fine flour contains 10.46 per cent, of nitrogenous matter, and only 0.79 of mineral matter. 'Coarse middlings,' - which comes from the outer part of the grain, and would be excluded from white flour but included in 'whole-wheat meal,' - contains 15.5 per cent, of nitrogenous matter as against 10.5 per cent, of nitrogenous matter in the centre of the grain; and of mineral matter, instead of 0.79 per cent, as in white flour, contains 2.90 per cent. The outer part of the grain, you thus see, is incomparably richer in mineral matter, and is to a marked extent richer in nitrogenous matter, than the central part of the grain, and so far it shows that wheat meal is much more valuable as an article of diet than the white flour derived from the centre of the grain.

"It is self-evident from these facts, that an article derived from the whole grain, or that which includes the outer part as well as the centre, is better adapted for our requirements than an article derived from the centre of the grain."