Among the chief staple foods of any institution is bread. While with many in the hospital it is not exactly the “staff of life,” yet it is perhaps the one thing in demand for every meal of the major portion of the household, and fills no small part in the hospital dietary. Various forms of this important article are on the market, differing in the variety and quality of flour used and in the process of manufacture. Three principal varieties ate in common use in this country—the fine-wheat bread, made from the finest or so-called straight-grade flour, the Graham bread, made from flour containing the entire grain of the wheat ground together, and the whole-wheat bread, made from flour containing the whole substance of the grain except the outer layer of bran. From a chemical analysis of the three different varieties, to ascertain the nutritive value and digestibility, it was found that the fine-wheat bread yielded the highest percentage of digestible nutritive food, the whole-wheat ranking second and the Graham bread the last. In providing bread for the household it is well to supply at least two varieties, the fine-wheat as the staple and the whole-wheat and Graham alternating. Another point worth noting, proven by the same chemical analysis, was that the digestibility depended more on the lightness of the bread than on the quality of flour used. The question as to whether home-baked or baker’s bread is most expensive is often asked, and the answer almost invariably is that bread can be baked in the institution at much less cost than to purchase the ready-made article. The U. S. Department of Agriculture in 1900 published the result of investigation regarding the market value of bread. Their investigation showed that in some places the baker’s price was set by the trade name of the bread, and in others by the size of the loaf, and that the prices varied greatly in different cities.[1] “In New Jersey it appeared that the larger the loaf, the higher the cost per pound tended to rise. In New Brunswick, where fifty analyses were made, the bread containing the highest amount of nutriment, and that containing the lowest, were sold at exactly the same price per pound, 4.1 cents. When the selling price of bread and the cost of its ingredients are compared, the results are still more striking. In two experiments made in New Jersey it was found that two lots of bread made from materials costing respectively $2.28 and $2.56, were sold for $5.68 and $6.08. This represents a profit of 116.5 per cent over the cost of the materials, or to put it in dollars and cents, the baker received $216.50 for bread whose materials cost him $100. In Pittsburg, the average increase in price over the original cost was 110 per cent.” [1] U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Office of Experiment Stations, Bulletin 112. From these experiments it will be seen that a great saving of money can be effected by home baking, even allowing for the extra cost of labor and fuel.