fundamental and difficult change in their
food habits than for the well-to-do with greater freedom of choice.
Besides, the already overburdened working woman must get her bread in
the easiest possible way--a ready-made loaf from the baker. The burden
of scarcity or high prices falls on those least able to bear it.

Europeans eat even larger amounts of wheat than we. Over half the
food of the French is bread, so if the wheat shortage were near the
danger-line, it might lead to a serious weakening of the marvellous
courage of the French people.

WHEAT FLOUR IN WAR-TIME

To use this country's share of the short supply of wheat to the
greatest advantage the Food Administration has changed the making
of flour to include more of the wheat-kernel. 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. White flour thus uses
less of the wheat for human food than Graham or whole-wheat flour.

Yet to convert all the country's wheat into Graham flour would not be
a wheat-saving