Where wheat is ground whole, it includes six and a half parts of
heat-producers to one of flesh-formers. The amount of starch varies
greatly. Two processes of making flour are now in use,--one the old, or
St. Louis process; the other, the "new process," giving Haxall flour. In
the former, grindstones were used, which often reached so great a degree
of heat as to injure the flour; and repeated siftings gave the various
grades. In the new, the outer husk is rejected, and a system of knives is
used, which chop the grain to powder, and it is claimed do not heat it.
The product is more starchy, and for this reason less desirable. We eat
far too much heat-producing food, and any thing which gives us the gluten
of the grain is more wholesome, and thus "seconds" is really a more
nutritious flour than the finer grades. Try for yourselves a small
experiment, and you will learn the nature of flour better than in pages of
description.
Take a little flour; wet it with cold water enough to form a dough. Place
it on a sieve, and, while working it with one hand, pour a steady stream
of water over it with another. Shortly you will find a grayish, tough,
elastic lump before you, while in the pan below, when the water is
carefully poured off, will be pure wheat-starch, the water itself
containing all the sugar, dextrine or gum, and mineral matter.
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