Our Daily Bread. (1924)

From the May 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “Blessings of Civilization” are continually being impressed upon us lest we waver and doubt that the modern world is the “best of all possible worlds.”

Some of these “blessings” are painfully familiar to us, such as dodging death when crossing the streets, or dodging shells and gas during war-time, or trying to live on air during peace time. But there are other “blessings” that affect us just as painfully, only we are apt to miss them as they are dressed up in a very pleasing and becoming, manner.

One of these latter “blessings” is brought to our notice by “An Economist” in the Daily Mail (April 3rd, 1924). This particular “blessing” is white bread— “The Staff of life.”

Its whiteness gives it an inviting and pleasing appearance, but the cause of this whiteness is—guess what? The introduction of poisonous chemicals—introduced so that the employers of the bread producers may make greater profits.

Here is “An Economist’s” statement of the constituents of white bread. Now read what modern civilization provided for your consumption :—

  “Most of the bread on sale at present is of very inferior quality and is chemically treated with a view to improving its appearance.

  Wheat of very inferior quality is imported and ground into flour, and the bulk of this inferior flour is bleached by means of chemicals and gases into startling whiteness. Thus it is given fraudulently the appearance of high-quality flour which is naturally white.

   From the millers the flour goes to the bakers, who convert it into bread, and the majority of bakers add to it other chemicals euphemistically quantity called “improvers,” by means of which they can convert a given quantity of flour into a larger number of loaves.

  In other words, the “improvement” brought about by the “improvers” consists in this—that the public gets an artificially waterlogged and blown-up loaf.”

Now, having read the above, how thankful we should be that we reap the advantages of progress ! Think of the poor savage, over whom the learned professor delights to mourn, doomed to the misery of consuming the unadulterated products of Nature instead of the refined article produced by modern ingenuity—and fiendishism !

Gilmac.