San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-02-23
Raising Of Dough With
Yeast Is Process Over
1000 Years Old.
ONE BARREL A YEAR
That Is Average Flour Con-
sumption in U. S., Sta
tistics Show.

Inc "SldlL OIL lie Is ludI plOuuII
of the seeds of certain cereals (the
grass-like plants named after Ceres,
the Goddess of Agriculture) which
share with milk the position of the
basic food for man. One-fifth of the
total food of Americans Containing
third of the protein and two-fifths
of the starch-sugar) is composed of
wheat products, largely in the form
of loaf bread. Each of us average
about a barrel of flour year.
Bread is far from being an ap-
proximately balanced diet. 1t is not
nearly so close to it as milk.
Most of cur bread is "raised" with
yeast, a process certainly over 1000
years old, as is proved by examina-
ton of Egyptian bread dating back
to thousand years before the
captivity of the Israelites. This
minute yeast fungus is present in the
atmosphere, and wild yeast" is still
used at times in the "leaven" with
which bread is raised in parts of
Europe, in wet or potato yeast, and
in the Scotch malt extract "barns."
Process Is the Same.
In all cases the process is the same;
the minute plants feed on the sugar
in the warm dough. grow and multiply
and by fermentation give off car
bon dioxide gas, which forces its
way through the tenacious gluten.
spreads all through the sticky mass
and lightens the loaf.
Baking powders are chemical sub
stitutes for the yeast plant in the
production of this tightening carbon
dioxide. Self-raising" flour is flour
mixed with some such baking powder.
The members of the National Lum-
Der Manufacturers Association, at
their last convention, were Toasted on
biscuits made with baking powder
produced from sawdust at the Gov
eminent Forest Products Laboratory
in Madison, Wis. The triumphant
scientists claim that this baking pow
der is quite as good as and much
cheaper than that manufactured from
tartaric acid.
Atmospheric ferments are drawn
upon by the methods employing sour
milk, like "salt rising"
Gluten Is Factor.
Rye. barley, oats or Indian corn
cannot be used alone for raised
bread because they are lacking in
the elastic gluten of wheat which
must hold together the honeycomh
structure.
While gluten is more perfectly
digested when eaten raw than cooked,
starch grains must be burst open by
heat to make them digestible. Bread
not sufficiently cooked is apt tc
ball up in the mouth, making hard,
insoluble lump. Bread should separ-
ate easily when chewed, and the crust
which has undergone a chemical
change, producing sugar, should be
brown and hard.
1t is the characteristic of massing
into Jumps which is responsible for
the popular fear of hot breads,
Other things equal, bread right out
of the oven is probably more digestible
than any other. But fresh bread is
softer and reeds more careful chew
ing, whereas it is just the thing that
most people bolt. The reason for this
is not alone greediness. PavlOw has
shown that it is mainly the dryness
of food which excites the secretion OF
saliva and moist fresh bread causes
very little flow. Then again hot
breads tempt to over-eating and large
quantities of bread Tor any other
starch) are difficult for stomachs,
especially when there is any existing
weakness of digestion.
Stale bread, the fetish of many a
dyspeptic, apparently is no more
digestible than fresh. In fact, the
main change which takes place is
not the loss of water, but a chemi-
cal alteration in the starch rendering
it less soluble. But it gets more
chewing.
Toast or zwieback, is easier to
digest than fresh bread owing to its
causing thorough mastication and
also to the fact that its starches
have been changed into soluble sugars.
Graham flour gets its name from
Sylvester Graham, a noted lecturer
and reformer, who declared sixty oil
seventy years ago that the over re-
finement of milling processes was re-
sponsible for much malnutrition and
digestive troubles. Much of what he
NAaAAhtu was NOllNNbf DuI cpLlC VI wv
commercial graham flour today is
said to be inferior flour mixed with
bran. Until the government experts
recommendation is adopted that such
zAIture shall be labeled limitation
graham flour" it is an injustice to
the dealer who sells real graham flour
to. have to compete with inferior
grades. Unbolted flour always shows
relatively larger amounts of coarse
and fine middlings mixed with the
bran and powdery flour, while the
fake" mixtures show small amounts
of middlings or poor quality.
TWO GALLONS HIGHE S I
GRADE PAINT at about same price
you pay for one gallon of pure paint.