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ARTICLE
A Little Bread History
By Sue Becker
In all my years of school, I never cared much for history. My interests were more in science and math. They were practical to me – and history – well I ignorantly thought it was irrelevant. “Who cares” was my attitude or “why do I need to know this?”
I often remark that I am a better student today than I ever was while in school. Once the pressures of tests and passing grades were removed, I learned to love learning. Today, I am fascinated with history. The history of most anything, the bible, origin of words and their meanings, people groups, countries, cultures, food and of course bread. Over the past 30 years, as many of you know, I have read, researched and studied the nutritional benefits of whole grains and real bread and along the way learned some of its history.
I am quite passionate about sharing the truth about real bread, bread made from freshly milled flour, and the history of flour milling. I have found it encouraging to learn that many who have gone before me, shared this same passion. Some dating back hundreds of years, if not several thousand.
I want to share with you all some of the passion of others in history that I have discovered over the years. You don’t just have to take my word for it. You can be encouraged by the wisdom of others.
Throughout history, bread made from the flour of various grains has been the daily food of most people around the world. But from the earliest times, people understood that flour could be sifted, using primitive sieves made of marsh grass or papyrus. This sifting, though primitive as it was, removed much of the coarse textured bran and germ. This enabled bakers to produce whiter breads, with a softer texture, as well as more delicate cakes and pastries.
From historical writings, it appears that even as early as 50 AD the production of sifted flour was widespread throughout Greece and other Mediterranean countries. However, this white flour was considered food for the rich and royalty, those who could afford to buy bread from professional bakers or, as in the case of kings, have their own personal baker.
The coarse, unsifted, whole grain brown flour was considered food for the poor, the peasants, the working class, who could not afford the cost or time for such luxuries. Not to mention the loss of about 25% of their food if the bran and germ were simply discarded. In both ancient Greece and Rome, white bread indicated a higher social status. The Romans even called the coarse brown bread fed to slaves, dirty bread.
For centuries, the idea prevailed that white flour was reserved for the rich and powerful and that whole grain flour was suitable only for peasants.
This belief went right along with the idea that beans and vegetables were food for the poor and meat was food for kings and nobles. Much like the idea, that being overweight was a sign that an individual was wealthy, someone who did not need to do manual labor for a living and could afford to indulge in rich foods and, of course, white bread.
Poor people looked with envy upon those who could afford such delicacies. But what they did not realize, is that poor health and disease prevailed among the royalty and wealthy. They could not see and understand that consuming even the coarsely sifted flour of the day had may negative health implications. Writers, philosophers and medical practitioners tried, often in vain, to warn the people that their beliefs were foolish.
As early as the 4th century before Christ, the well-known Greek physician, Hippocrates, considered to be the Father of medicine, recommended whole grain flour over its sifted white flour counterpart stating that whole grain flour had a salutary or health-giving effect on the bowels.
In the 9th century AD, a Persian physician also praised the value of the fiber rich whole grain bread for a healthy bowel function. And years later, in 1683, Thomas Tryon, a sugar merchant, turned health enthusiast, wrote in his book, The Way to Health, Long Life and Happiness, that “when the finest flour is separated from the coarsest and branny parts, neither the one nor the other has the true operations of the whole wheat meal”.
Continuing on into the 1800s, the Reverend Sylvester Graham, became one of the most outspoken health advocates of his day. He is probably best known today for his invention of the graham cracker, though the current recipe is a far cry from his invention. Coming from a long line of pastors and physicians, he actually began his preaching ministry in 1830. But, following a long illness and possibly out of his concern for his own health, he became interested in human physiology and nutrition, teaching and developing what came to be known as the Graham System.
Like others before him, Graham taught that white flour, being stripped of the nutritious bran and germ portions was a poor substitute for freshly milled whole grain flour and that consumption of this new white flour led to poor health and something he called, a lazy colon. As commercially milled white flour was gaining in popularity, Graham also believed that the removal of bread baking from the home was ruining American bread.
But Sylvester Graham was not just being fanatical as some labeled him. He felt a responsibility to declare the truth. Professional bakers of the day were less than reputable, adding to the white flour such harmful chemical additives as copper alum, clay and chalk, all to extend and whiten the flour and to artificially increase the weight of the loaf. I can only imagine what he would think today as many of the same less than reputable practices and more are being done to our commercially milled flour and breads.
I can certainly relate to Graham’s passion for sharing the truth. But thankfully I am receiving a warmer reception. In 1837, Graham’s book, The Treatise on Bread and Bread Making, denounced the less than nutritious white flour and declared that “if we were to have good and wholesome bread, that it must be made at home and cooked with whole meal flour by those whose skill and care are exercised more with a view to secure health and happiness than monetary interest.” The loss of business, caused by his teachings, so angered commercial bakers that he often had to have police protection to hold meetings and in Boston he was actually attacked by a group of angry bakers.
But Graham was not deterred. He stated that truth compelled him. His Graham flour, as it came to be called, containing all of the bran and germ was successfully being milled and used with amazing health improvements. He stated that “in the hundreds of cases that he observed, of diseases in every form and name, with constipation being among the most common and important symptom, that he had never known the difficulty in even the most obstinate of cases to not be resolved with coarse wheaten bread made from flour that contains all of the bran and germ”. Graham stated that the bran of wheat is one of the most soothing substances in the vegetable kingdom. And I whole heartedly agree.
Sylvester Graham certainly agreed with the early writers. He stated in his writings that “it was a fact well understood by the ancients that this whole grain bread was much more conducive to the general health and vigor of their bodies, and in every way better adapted to nourish and sustain them than that made of the fine flour”.
He went on to note that “wrestlers and others who were trained for great bodily power ate only the coarse wheaten bread to preserve them in their strength and limbs”. Sylvester Graham was not the only one to notice the strength and stamina of those who made whole grains and real bread the mainstay of their diets
In 1910, an ailing physician by the name of Dr Robert Jackson also discovered the benefits of whole grains. Dr Jackson was an avid historian who became fascinated with the accounts of the legions of ancient Romans who lived on daily rations of 2 pounds of wheat or rye. On these daily rations, he noted, these foot soldiers had the strength and stamina to conquer the world.
Inspired by these early empire builders and a desire to improve his own health, Dr Jackson developed a hot breakfast cereal of whole grain wheat, rye, bran and flax seed. Not only did this cereal correct his vitamin and mineral deficiency and own poor health, but also provided an effective prescription for many of his patients.
The demand became so great that in 1912 he opened a small factory, known as The Roman Meal Company, just to supply the demand. In 1927, he sold the Roman Meal Company to a family of German Bakers who used their baking expertise to develop the first commercially baked whole grain bread in the US, known as the Roman Meal Bread.
If you are my age and older, perhaps you remember this Roman Meal Bread. My mother ate it specifically to help keep her bowels moving regularly. Unfortunately, the Roman Meal Bread like Graham Crackers is a far cry from what was originally created.
I find it interesting that the doctors and advocates of health so long ago understood the importance of whole grains for proper bowel function and elimination, as well as the connection of the rich man’s sifted white flour to common health-related issues of the day.
Even the Bible with all of its wisdom warns us.
Proverbs 23:1 tells us to “Be careful when we sit down to dine at the king’s table. Consider carefully what is set before you.”
And if you think I am passionate about advocating real bread – listen as Proverbs continues in verse 2
“You will put a knife to your throat lest you be given to gluttony. Do not desire his dainties and his delicacies – they are deceitful food”.
From this verse perhaps we can see why obesity has become a major health issue in America. “Dainties and delicacies or as I call them, “white flour fluffy things” have certainly contributed to gluttony and obesity as it is very easy to over eat these tasty white flour morsels offered to us today. Many health professional claim that “Americans are the most over fed, but undernourished people in the world”.
With all the modern medical advances today, it saddens me to hear that some doctors declare that constipation as well as other common health complaints are simply the way of things these days and that there is really nothing that can be done. And that having a bowel movement only every 2-3 days just might be normal for you. I can assure you that is not normal. And more importantly that there is certainly something that can be done.
I will close with more inspiring words from Sylvester Graham from his 1837 Treatise on Bread and Bread Making.
“If there is occasionally an individual who is troubled with some convictions that his bread is not quite what it should be, and he knows not how to remedy the difficulty, for it is a serious truth that although nearly every human being in civilized life, eats bread of some kind or other, yet scarcely any one has sufficient knowledge of the true principles and processes concerned in bread making and of the actual causes of the bad qualities of bread, to know how, with any degree of certainty to avoid the bad and secure good bread ….”
I do not think I could state the reason for my passion to help those in this journey to find real bread any better than these words of Sylvester Graham.
We are here at Bread Beckers to help you “avoid the bad and secure good bread”. And to find health and wellness in the process.
I hope that you will join us in a class one day soon or check out some of our many bread-making classes on our Bread Beckers YouTube channel.
Sincerely Sue Becker
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