Research Officer Replies To Criticism Of Bread

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30233, 11 September 1963, Page 14

Research Officer Replies To Criticism Of Bread

He was confident that most readers of “The Press” were intelligent enough to ignore the outbursts of an unwarrantedly vociferous minority, said Mr £ W. Hullett, director of the Wheat Research Institute, yesterday Mr Hullett was replying to a letter to the editor by W. B. Bray, of Leeston, who said that his reply to •‘Old Timer,” another correspondent on the subject of flour and bread, was not convincing enough. “Why does he not tell us what ‘antelope’ is?” the correspondent asked. “Bakers put it into bread.” The letter continued:— “Oil content of flour is nil because wheat germ has been extracted. Whether to make germajoil or sell as wheat germ in packets, flour is deficient in life-giving property It is immaterial that potassium bromide is never added to flour. If the bromate turns to bromide during bgking. what are the odds? Bromide is a drug. We need a very convincing reason to justify it

‘To say that carbon bisulphide is never used in flour is not enougb when its use on wheat is admitted Modem white flour is devitalised food, lacking in essential body and bone-form-ing materials natural to wheat Lack of these means artificial teeth after all patchwork has failed. Modem sanitation has saved the children from the killer epidemics only to clutter up hospitals with chronic diseases due to useless white bread and refined sugar.” "Antelope* Mr Bray was the first person to mention “antelope” in the correspondence, yet blamed him for not telling the readers about it, Mr Hullett said. Antelope was a time-honoured and innocuous ingredient of baking powers

used by pastrycooks and thousands of housewives. 1 It was used only occasionally in bread, and its chemical name was acid calcium phosphate. "Mr Bray is evidently ignorant of these facts of elementary chemistry, but presumes to preach emotionladen ideas about flour nutrients that have been discredited for 20 years or more,” he continued. "Chemical analyses and large-scale feeding experiments with children have given no support for Mr Bray’s criticisms of flour. Modern New Zealand flour is deliberately milled to a high extraction rate and retains nutrients which elsewhere are added directly to whiter flours. Even low-extraction, unfortified flours are extremely good foods in conjunction with the average diet."

"Not a Drug” It was misleading to call the bromide in bread a drug, he said. It did not accumulate in the body, but even if it did it would take years for anyone to get a medicinal dose Carbon disulphide was not used in milling wheat. After referring to an “unwarrantedly vociferous minority,” Mr Hullett said: ‘This minority would persuade us against certain foodstuffs and against the advice of those of experience and training whom we set in authority by democratic means to safeguard the nation’s health; but we should not allow them to terrify a part of the population into being led like sheep to block progress in public health.

“Our hospitals are full because many people are there getting well But for earlier public health measures based on scientific advances in medicine, nutrition and sani-

tation. these people would have been out of sight in their graves.”