Agricultural Progress Measured in Grain Equivalents

Abstract

The wheat which supplies our bread undergoes various milling processes, removing the outer layers of the grain, which are sold for animal feeding, until (except for the minority who like wholemeal bread) only about two-thirds of the weight of the original grain is left. The demand, on the part of most consumers, for highly milled white flour is a matter of taste and choice; the fact that people can consume ‘wholemeal’ bread indicates that such a high degree of milling is not a physiological necessity. But on the other hand, it appears that we are not entitled to say that the whole wheat grain (after crushing and cooking, but without milling away any of the bran, etc.) is edible and digestible by human beings, as it is by animals. There appears to be some difference of medical opinion on this point. ‘Bran is used industrially for polishing steel’, said one medical upholder of the view against eating it, ‘but why use it on your intestines?’