New priorities for bread Available to Purchase

The report recently issued by the Department of Health and Social Security entitled Nutritional Aspects of Bread and Flour should be required reading for all concerned with the planning of healthy diets. Detailed evidence gathered by the Panel on Bread, Flour and other Cereal Products of the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy (COMA), concerning the composition, nutritive value and physiological effects of cereal foods is presented and discussed, and the recommendations reached on the basis of that evidence could, if accepted, have considerable effects on the national diet. ‘If accepted’ is stressed because the recommendations have yet to be endorsed, either entirely or in part, by the Minister responsible for food, after consultation with his advisers and other interested bodies including the milling and baking industries. The necessary legislation would then have to be drafted, circulated for comment, and laid before Parliament for approval. Some delay is therefore inevitable before modifications of the legislation establishing the composition of bread and flour become effective.