The great advantage of eating pure and genuine bread must be obvious. Every part of the wheat, which may be called flour, was not only intended to be eaten by man, but it really makes the best bread. The delusion, however, by which so many persons are misled to think that even the whole flour is not good enough, obliges them to pay much dearer for their bread than they need, to gratify a perverted and fanciful appetite. Had it not been for the custom of eating whiter bread than the whole of the _flour_ can make, the miller and baker would not have employed their art to render the bread as white as possible, and to make the consumer pay for the artificial whiteness. The average quantity of flour, from an unvaried series of experiments, made from age to age, through the course of many hundred years, appears to be three-fourth parts in weight of the whole grain of wheat, taking all wheats together, being more in the finer sorts, and less in the coarser; and the bread made from this flour has always been deemed the standard of the food of bread corn. But, by insensible degrees, the manufacture of bread became separated into two distinct employments. In consequence of this alteration, the baker, having no further connexion with the market for corn, became dependant solely on the mealman for supplying him with flour, who, not considering himself amenable to the then existing assize laws, made different kinds of flour, some extremely fine and white, while others were very coarse and unpalatable. These artificial whites, when made into bread, were so pleasing to the eye and taste, that, in the course of a few years, they got into such general use that the people refused any longer to purchase the bread made of the whole of the grain. “Our forefathers[8] never _refined_ so much: they never preyed so much on each other; nor, I presume, made so many laws necessary for their restraint, as we do.” Footnote 8: The great advantage of eating pure and genuine bread, comprehending the heart of the wheat with all its flour. Shewing how this may be a means of promoting health and plenty, preserving infants from the grave, by destroying the temptation to the use of alum and other ingredients in our present wheaten bread. By an advocate for the trade. London, 1773. See also Important considerations upon the act of the thirty-first of George II. relative to the assize of bread. London: T. Becket, Strand, 1768. “In looking back, for some hundred years, it appears that they adopted a certain plan, supposing that nature had given nothing in vain, and that every part of the wheat which may be called flour, was not only intended to be eaten by _men_, but that it really made the best bread, as that might be called the _best_, which is best adapted to general use, and in itself so fine, as to contain no parts of the coat, or husks of grain.”