This is the difference between whole wheat flour and refined flour. Whole wheat flour is known as Atta in Hindi. And refined flour is known as Maida. With this new machine, after 1873, it was very easy to make refined flour. Though people did make refined flour before this, it wasn’t as easy. This was the first detrimental step in the history of bread.
The second event following this was even worse. The wheat flour gets a white color when it reacts with the atmospheric oxygen. But it takes some time for this reaction to take place. So the flour becomes white after some time. But these large-scale industries did not want to waste time. Time was money to them. They wanted to appease their customers. By showing them the white flour. They couldn’t wait for the reaction to take place.
So they started to whiten the flour by using chemicals such as chalk, alum, and borax. In 1898, bleaching agents were introduced.
