BREAD FOOD VALUES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23418, 7 August 1939, Page 3

BREAD FOOD VALUES

WHITE AND WHOLEMEAL

LESS INTEREST ABROAD VIENNESE SCIENTIST'S VIEWS [by TF.LEOIUrn OWN* CORTIF.SrOXDENT] CHTJISTCHURCH, Sunday White bread is no longer considered overseas to be deleterious to health, according to Br. Bosa Stern, an Austrian woman scientist, who has arrived to take up a position at the Wheat Research Institute. Br. Stern, who was formerly employed at bread and food research work in a Vienna bakery, said there was now little interest taken overseas in the question of the values of white and wholemeal bread. It was no longer considered a problem, and there was not now the same interest in it as she had found in New Zealand.

As part of a mixed diet, white bread ■was considered to be oven more nutritious than wholemeal. The branny substaiico of wholemeal bread had not been found to be suitable for persons whose digestion was weak. The general opinion of Continental scientists was that more value was derived by eating the flesh of animals which had been fed on wholemeal. When asked about the tests that had been made with mice, Br. Stern said it had been shown that a diet composed 'solely of either white or wholemeal bread would bo fatal to mice. Br. Stern said she had read about the work of the Wheat Research Institute before coming to New Zealand, and was delighted with her first impressions of the laboratory and its equipment. All the plant was up-to-date, and she had been particularly impressed bj' the equipment built by the staff of the institute. Valuable work for the agricultural and baking industries was being done by the institute staff,, she said.

Although it is not yet known to which department of the institute's work Br. Stern's talents are best suited, it is understood that her work will probably include cereal chemistry. She studied in Vienna and worked there until she left for England some time ago to come to New Zealand.