The difference between
peace and war time flour is easily understood if the structure of
grains is considered. Wheat and other cereals have kernels much alike;
all have three principal parts:
The outer covering, called _bran_, is made up of several layers. This
is rich in important mineral salts, and the rest is largely cellulose,
or woody fibre.
The _germ_ is the small part from which the new plant will develop.
Here the small amount of fat in the kernel is stored.
The largest part of the kernel, called the _endosperm_, contains the
nourishment to be used by the plant as it begins to develop. This is
mostly starch, with some protein. It is the part of the wheat, for
instance, which is chiefly used to make our white flour.
The kind of flour made depends on how much and what parts of the
kernel are used. Graham flour is manufactured by grinding practically
all of the wheat-kernel--a 100-per-cent use of the grain, called
100-per-cent extraction. Some people still fail to realize that Graham
flour and Graham bread are wheat, perhaps because of the different
name and brown color. The so-called "whole-wheat" flour is often 95
per cent of the kernel only, but may be as little as 85 per cent,
depending on the amount of the bran and germ removed in the making.
Ordinary white flour contains the endosperm alone, with practically
none of the bran and germ. Some brands before the war used up as
little as 56 per cent of the wheat, leaving the rest of it to be
turned into lower-grade flours and cattle-feed.
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