Gluten Bread

When, for any reason, persons are denied starch in the diet, as in diabetes, they find it a great privation to do without bread, and many attempts have been made to provide an acceptable substitute. Sometimes bran is used, or inulin or Iceland moss, but none of these is nutritious. One of the best materials for this purpose is gluten flour.

1From Fanner's Bulletin No. 389, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, D. 0.

It is prepared by washing the starch, wholly or in part, from wheat flour. The grayish, tough, elastic, sticky mass left after this process is largely gluten, and since gluten is a protein, it has been sometimes called "the lean meat of the vegetable kingdom" The washed gluten, dried and ground, is called gluten flour.

It still contains considerable starch, so that it is necessary for the physician to know the exact composition of the brand employed, to insure good results.

Gluten Standards

The necessity for a Standard for Gluten Flour is very apparent to chemists who have had occasion to analyze the various kinds on the market. For years millers have supplied dealers with middlings, entire wheat flour and mixtures containing bran to be sold as gluten flour. Ignorant of those facts, physicians advise their patients to use gluten, but, of course, have invariably been disappointed in results. United States Standard for Gluten:

"Gluten Flour is the product made from flour by the removal of starch, and contains not less than five and six-tenths (5.6) per cent. of Nitrogen, and not more than ten (10) per cent, of Moisture".

Note

Using the factor G.25 usually employed by the U. S. Government chemists, Standard Gluten Flour must therefore show at least thirty-five (35) per cent. protein.

Bread-Making

The two practical methods of making bread are with yeast (fermented bread) and with cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda (unfermented bread).

Fermented Bread

The raising or leavening of bread is usually brought about by allowing yeast to develop in it. Yeast is an exceedingly minute form of plant life, which, when given food, flour, moisture and warmth, grows; and by this growth produces carbon dioxide and alcohol.

The carbon dioxide, in its effort to escape, puffs up the flour dough, but owing to the viscous nature of the gluten (the elastic, strength-giving substances of flour) it is caught and retained.

Each little bubble of gas occupies a certain space, and when the bread is baked the walls around these spaces harden and the result is a porous loaf. The alcohol escapes into the oven in the baking.

To bake bread requires a hot oven.

The bread should continue to rise for about fifteen minutes after being placed in the oven, then the rising should cease and the loaf begin to brown.

We bake bread to kill the yeast plant, to render the starch soluble, to expel the alcohol and carbon dioxide and to form a nice flavored crust.

The making of good bread requires care and intelligence on the part of the cook. Use a good brand of flour, fresh yeast, remembering that yeast is a plant and must be put at a proper temperature to grow. Watch each process carefully.

"Lightness and sweetness of bread depends as much on the way in which it is made as on the materials used. The greatest care should be used in preparing and baking the dough and in cooking and keeping the finished bread".