VITAMINS IN FLOUR

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24545, 19 April 1945, Page 4

VITAMINS IN FLOUR

RAISING OP CONTENT

PROCESS DEVELOPED IN CHRISTCHURCH

A process which may enable the Vitamin content of New Zealand flour to be raised during the milling has been developed by members of the staff of the Wheat Research Institute in recent experiments. The process by which the thiamin or vitamin B1 content of bread can be raised, is now to be applied on a commercial scale In a Christchurch flour mill Finance for the experiment will be provided by the Health Department. Progress in the experiments in the milling of high vitamin flour, which were begun at the request of the Health Department, was reported at the Wheat Research Institute Committee meeting yesterday by the chief chemist (Mr E. W, Hullett), who has been in charge of the work since it was begun nearly 18 months ago. He said that the difficult season had caused progress to be slow recently. Many trials had been made of the first models of the new machine /designed to aid the separation of high vitamin products from tertain pollard streams. Committee’s Proposal The Wheat Research Institute had been interested for two years before it began its experiments in the production of high extraction flour, which is flour containing a greater proportion of the vltanun-rich parts of the wheat that formerly went into the pollard. These experiments, which were carried out by the institute's miller (Mr R. P. Johnston) followed a proposal by the nutrition research committee of the Medical Research Council that a trial should be made on a commercial basis of bread made with 80 per cent, extraction flour. This proposal was endorsed by the Medical Research Council and referred to the Minister of Health (the Hon. A. H. Nordmeyer). He then recommended to the Minister of Industries and Commerce (the Hon. D, G. Sullivan) that an experiment along the lines indicated should be undertaken.

When the Wheat Research Institute’s team of workers set out to raise the vitamin content of New Zealand flour they checked up on the English methods, but found -that these would involve the installation of a quantity of machinery, which would be unobtainable in war time. Therefore an analysis was made of all the pollard streams in a flour mill in Christchurch to find where the vitamin loss was occurring. This revealed that more searching treatment of a few mill streams would release vitamin concentrates which, although small in quantity, were rich enough to double the vitamin content of flour or bread. When these streams were treated in any of several machines having a rubbing or beating action, and then sifted, the products passing through a fine silk were very rich indeed in thiamin. Machine Designed A machine that would give the best results was designed, and an extensive study of its effect on a variety of mill stocks showed that flour could be obtained from many pollard streams ordinarily regarded as free of recoverable flour, while the machine was also effective in freeing vitamin concentrates.

The prototype of the new machine has been in use for many weeks in one of the Christchurch mills, and the information gained is being used in the design of a larger model. When .this is completed the full scale commercial test will be made. English and Canadian millers have been producing high vitamin dour, and the process developed by the Wheat Research Institute Is not entirely new, although the machinery that has been designed is an improvement on any hitherto used in New Zealand. No conclusion on either the milling or the baking aspect of the work has yet been reached, and it is impossible to do that until commercial use has given the experimental work its ultimate test. But It is believed that it will be possible to secure about 1.2 per cent, extra extraction of a vitaminrich flour, and 1.6 per cent, of a very rich material intermediate between flour and pollard. These two stocks when added in the found proportion to ordinary flour raise the-thiamin content to nearly three microgrammes per gramme, which is the same as the British national flour from which Britain’s war-time loaf has been made.