By H. MÈGE-MOURIÈS.
In consequence of the interest that has been recently excited on the
subject of bread reform, we have, says the London _Miller_, translated the
interesting contribution of H. Mège-Mouriès to the Imperial and Central
Society of Agriculture of France, and subsequently published in a separate
form in 1860, on "Wheat and Wheat Bread," with the illustration prepared
by the author for the contribution. The author says: "I repeat in this
pamphlet the principal facts put forth in the notes issued by me, and in
the reports furnished by Mr. Chevreul to the Academy of Science, from 1853
up to 1860."
The study of the structure of the wheat berry, its chemical composition,
its alimentary value, its preservation, etc., is not alone of interest to
science, agriculture, and industry, but it is worthy of attracting the
attention of governments, for this study, in its connection to political
economy, is bound up with the fate and the prosperity of nations. Wheat has
been cultivated from time immemorial. At first it was roughly crushed and
consumed in the form of a thick soup, or in cakes baked on an ordinary
hearth. Many centuries before the Christian era the Egyptians were
acquainted with the means of making fermented or leavened bread; afterwards
this practice spread into Greece, and it is found in esteem at Rome two
centuries B.C.; from Rome the new method was introduced among the Gauls,
and it is found to-day to exist almost the same as it was practiced at that
period, with the exception, of course, of the considerable improvements
introduced in the baking and grinding.
Since the fortunate idea was formed of transforming the wheat into bread,
this grain has always produced white bread, and dark or brown bread, from
which the conclusion was drawn that it must necessarily make white bread
and brown bread; on the other hand, the flours, mixed with bran, made a
brownish, doughy, and badly risen bread, and it was therefore concluded
that the bran, by its color, produced this inferior bread. From this error,
accepted as a truth, the most contradictory opinions of the most opposite
processes have arisen, which are repeated at the present day in the art of
separating as completely as possible all the tissues of the wheat, and of
extracting from the grain only 70 per cent of flour fit for making white
bread. It is, however, difficult for the observer to admit that a small
quantity of the thin yellow envelope can, by a simple mingling with the
crumb of the loaf, color it brown, and it is still more difficult to admit
that the actual presence of these envelopes can without decomposition
render bread doughy, badly raised, sticky, and incapable of swelling in
water. On the other hand, although some distinguished chemists deny or
exalt the nutritive properties of bran, agriculturists, taking practical
observation as proof, attribute to that portion of the grain a
physiological action which has nothing in common with plastic alimentation,
and prove that animals weakened by a too long usage of dry fodder, are
restored to health by the use of bran, which only seems to act by its
presence, since the greater portion of it, as already demonstrated by Mr.
Poggiale, is passed through with the excrement.
With these opinions, apparently so opposed, it evidently results that there
is an unknown factor at the bottom of the question; it is the nature of
this factor I wish to find out, and it was after the discovery that I
was able to explain the nature of brown bread, and its _role_ in the
alimentation of animals. We have then to examine the causes of the
production of brown bread, to state why white bread kills animals fed
exclusively on it, while bread mixed with bran makes them live. We have to
explain the phenomena of panification, the operations of grinding, and to
explain the means of preparing a bread more economical and more favorable
to health. To explain this question clearly and briefly we must first be
acquainted with the various substances forming the berry, their nature,
their position, and their properties. This we shall do with the aid of the
illustration given.
[Illustration: SECTION OF A GRAIN OF WHEAT MAGNIFIED.]