Wheat, The Staff of Life (1947)

sweet has been one of our basic foods for 6,000 years but the huge males of today that make wheat into flour are something almost new from the time of the ancient Egyptians until 1870 wheat was simply crushed by hand or under stone wheels today the milling process begins in the laboratory samples of wheat are brought to a miniature mill and ground the grain has three principal parts which used to be ground together but now the germ or embryo is separated along with the bran or outer coat from the starch or clear flour the flour is tested in many ways this is a test for color both dry and wet there are many varieties of wheat and they differ in their amounts of protein and starch of carbohydrate which are basic food substances along with fats vitamins and minerals the protein in wheat which we see being tested allows us to have soft springy bread it is called gluten it holds the gas bubbles which are formed by fermentation better than the flours of any other cereal all of the tests however are intended to assure one thing the flour that will give us good bread and all the other foods we make from flour so the final test is that of making sample loaves of bread the dough is mixed weighed and kneaded into loaves just as it will be in bakeries time is allowed for the dough to rise then the big gas bubbles are forced out and the dough is ready to be baked tests like these show in advance what to expect in the milling and baking of each variety of wheat hard or soft or the very hard durum wheat the object is always baked goods of high quality on the storage elevators holding millions of bushels of wheat the grain moves by underground conveyors to the mill where it is first weighed to regulate its flow through the cleaning and milling operations the wheat first goes through separators like this a series of screens or SIVs of different sizes the wheat passes on through but the machines catch stick stone straw and other small things that were picked up with the wheat and pass through the threshing machines the seeds of other plants that grow among the wheat are screened out oats barley corn cockle and small weed seeds sand and broken wheat kernels are also separated so that the wheat going through a series of these separators loses first the rough impurities to remove whatever seeds have gotten past the mill separator the wheat flows into the center of these whirling disks the wheat is thrown to the outside and carried away but the seeds of the other plants are caught to make sure that only wheat is milled both pointed seeds like oats and round seeds like cockles are caught wheat comes to the mills from many sections of the United States particularly from the Midwest the north-central States and the northwest but from other states too with the seeds removed the wheat flows next to an aspirator that removes dust and fragments like the tiny hairs from the kernel these are carried off by air blowing up through the feet as it whirls on a disc next a row of magnets pick up pieces of metal its tray into the wheat and the belt carries away the metal which could not pass through the machines it will grind the flow of wheat stones also must be separated here air blows the wheat over vibrating screens but allows the stones being heavier to drop out when the stones metal seeds and other foreign matters are separated the wheat is washed or scoured it must be cleaned since it is a food and will be made into the breads macaronis pastries and other foods basic to the diet of one third of the world's people the next step is called tempering the outer coat of the grain the bran layer is toughened with steam or water or both so that when the wheat is put through the rollers of the mill the bran will be leathery and break into large pieces that can be sifted out of the flour easily the tempering takes time perhaps 10 or 20 hours to toughen the brand exactly now the wheat is free from dust dirt stones metal and other seeds it is tempered and ready for milling it has only to be taken back to the top of the mill and started down again these are the mills made possible by the development of steam and electric power in the centuries before our time when wheat was crushed by heavy stone wheels turned by horses or by water power the bran and the germ were ground into the flour and made a heavy dark flour a really white flour was almost impossible the Mills today work on a different principle the wheat flows down between pairs of spinning steel rollers that break the kernels gradually freeing the starch from the germ and bran the first set of roles are corrugated the teeth are set far enough apart to break the kernel open but without crushing it we see the effect of the first brick some of the flour is freed the germ and the bran are left in fragments large enough to be caught in a series of sieves and bolting cloths which separate the fine flour from the larger parts these go on to further sets of corrugated rolls to be broken and sifted again each time freeing more flour the next step is that of purifying or grading the flour which has already been through the corrugated rolls perhaps five times and sifted each time air passes up through the purifier to carry off the light fragments of bran and dust at the same time vibrating screens sift the flour while a scraper underneath rakes off the flour which passes through the mesh of the screens grows smaller and smaller as the stream of flour passes along from the screens of different meshes streams of flour flow off producing flour of different grades according to the degree of separation that is wanted meanwhile air blowers like these furnish the power to carry off the brand dust these fragments are taken out of the streams of air as it passes through cyclones the particles of bran and germ from the milling make a nutritious food for animals cattle poultry and dogs the graded flour or middlings as it is called now starts through a new series of rolls it may go through as many as seven sets of these rolls known as reduction rolls since they are smooth and meant to reduce the flour to still further fine this the flour is sifted after each reduction as before the finest fragments pass on and the larger ones go through the rolls again by breaking and sifting again and again almost all of the flour is gradually screened off into the various grades of baking flour until the very last flour passes through the silk claws of the last flour real the finished flower is usually bleached to improve its color and baking quantities and usually it is enriched with iron and vitamin b1 the white flour we see being weighed and packaged for ordinary family use is far superior to that known before modern milling methods were developed in the past only the very rich could afford was called white flour now fine white flour is one of our cheapest foods and available to all people quaked is still as it has been for centuries a basic food and has a proper place in a balanced diet the bags here being tamped and sealed are only a tiny fraction of the 23 billion pounds of flour produced in the United States each year 1/3 is used as family flour better than 1/3 is used by bakeries much goes to the army-navy hotels and institutions 6 to 7% normally goes to other countries the flour of very hard wheats like durum goes into macaroni types of food of course not all the flour milled is white flour the entire wheat grain is also made into flour and mixed with the white flour to make dark breads but whether we is consumed is white or whole wheat flour as bread pastries macaronis of breakfast cereals it provides the average person of the United States with 18 to 20 percent of the energy foods in his diet so today as in ages past we rely upon receiving our daily bread but today we can give thanks for more and better bread [Music]