# Sawdust used in place of flour to make bread? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 26, 2015, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994 "2015-03-26T00:45:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2015, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994/41 "2015-03-29T21:38:40Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > I read once of attempts, during a siege, to make bread using ground bones. As delicious as that sounds, it didn’t work out so well. Fee-fi-fo-fum? ---
**Author:** ![PointedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/eb8c5e/32.png) [@PointedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PointedDog)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994/42 "2016-05-11T07:30:00Z")
I read that sawdust was added to the bread given to Nazi concentration camp inmates. Charlie Chaplin’s Great Dictator even mentioned it. One writer said it made their gums bleed, but this may also from the scurvy they got from poor nutrition. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994/43 "2016-05-11T09:18:56Z")
The problem is that we are used to modern bread. Even artisan bread bears little relationship to the bread eaten by peasant in the middle ages. The BBC did a fascinating series where they took some modern bakers and asked them to use the equipment and bake the bread that their ancestors would have baked.It only goes back to the 1830s but even so, it spans a period from the small village baker, right up to the early manufacurers and certainly explains why flour was adulterated and how white bread became so fashionable that even the poor wouldn’t eat wholemeal. [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0qbOq2wA6w) ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994/44 "2016-05-11T10:11:51Z")
Speaking as someone who has actually baked their own bread, a very rough rule of thumb is that you can replace up to half of the wheat flour with something else and still get something that looks and has the mouth-feel of bread. The less wheat flour the denser the result, and at a certain point you do start to taste the other substance, but depending on what the other thing is it might take a surprising amount to become readily detectable. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994/45 "2016-05-11T10:44:17Z")
[quote=“bob\_2, post:43, topic:715994”] The problem is that we are used to modern bread. Even artisan bread bears little relationship to the bread eaten by peasant in the middle ages. The BBC did a fascinating series where they took some modern bakers and asked them to use the equipment and bake the bread that their ancestors would have baked.It only goes back to the 1830s but even so, it spans a period from the small village baker, right up to the early manufacurers and certainly explains why flour was adulterated and how white bread became so fashionable that even the poor wouldn’t eat wholemeal. [/QUOTE] That has been added to my “to watch list”. I think the results would vary a lot by location, though, and I’m not talking about going to the middle of Africa. Some of the best times of my childhood were spent up to my elbows in what would later become bread, pastry and cakes, because why use a machine if children will do 🙂 (the hardest part of the work was that we couldn’t lick up until we’d finished mixing); my closest friend’s grandparents lived in a small town and her grandmother baked once a month in the public oven, with the help of a different daughter or daughter in law each month. It might be that she would have been less surprised by ancestral equipment than someone used to mechanical mixers. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994/46 "2016-05-11T11:18:06Z")
I don’t think that they were surprised by it so much as surprised at how physically hard work it was (and a couple of the men were used to making bread by hand). There is a good deal of difference between knocking up a few rolls and loafs, and getting up at 2am to light the fire, followed by all the process of bread making with no machinery, poor quality ingredients (soft flour, weak yeast etc) and then baking in an oven with no temperature controls. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994/47 "2016-05-11T11:35:43Z")
The oven we used didn’t have temperature controls either, but I’ll admit we didn’t get up at 2am, as the place didn’t open until 7am. The amount baked was for about two hundred people, for almost one month, and all the work was done by hand. I expect that the ingredients would be the biggest difference. ---
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994/48 "2016-05-11T13:26:09Z")
Cellulose is not sawdust. Sawdust has a lot of lignin in it. ---
**Author:** ![Doughbag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Doughbag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doughbag)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994/49 "2016-05-11T14:12:47Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I think the results would vary a lot by location, though, and I’m not talking about going to the middle of Africa. The climate in the region changes the baking recipe due to moister & temperature differences. It also changes how long the bread lasts or behaves, thinking of the good old German Brezel - in Germany its nice and crispy (sort of) here in Ireland it’s always soggy, due to the salt drawing the water from the higher humidity. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994/50 "2016-05-11T14:16:03Z")
Yeah, the experiment if done in different locations would need to involve local old recipes. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994/51 "2016-05-11T14:19:38Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > It was a common adulterant in the 19th century. Prior to food purity laws, people could put whatever they wanted into food. > > Here’s a quote mentioning sawdust: > > The chalk in bread was an amusing case: it was finally banned. Years later, people started being concerned about not getting enough calcium, so bread was enriched with calcium carbonate – chalk. The active ingredient in Tums antacid is…calcium carbonate. No wonder it tastes like chalk, because it is. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994/52 "2016-05-11T15:31:17Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > cellulose, aka sawdust Additive grade cellulose is no more “sawdust” than cognac is “spoiled grape juice”. It may derive from wood pulp, but is purified to remove the lignin and other non-cellulose components. That I think, is the big misconception here. What they put in food isn’t super-fine sawdust merely passed through some really small sieves, but rather a specific product derived from wood, that’s ground and sieved after its production. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994/53 "2016-05-11T20:57:12Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > The chalk in bread was an amusing case: it was finally banned. Years later, people started being concerned about not getting enough calcium, so bread was enriched with calcium carbonate – chalk. \My Mother said that she could remember when the new, special gasoline had lead added to it. Then she lived loong enough that the new, special fuel was unleaded gas, with the lead taken out. And she said that the oil companies charged customers extra in both cases! ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994/54 "2016-05-12T02:45:29Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Additive grade cellulose is no more “sawdust” than cognac is “spoiled grape juice”. It may derive from wood pulp, but is purified to remove the lignin and other non-cellulose components. > > That I think, is the big misconception here. What they put in food isn’t super-fine sawdust merely passed through some really small sieves, but rather a specific product derived from wood, that’s ground and sieved after its production. I thought of cellulose:sawdust :: refined white flour:coarse whole wheat flour Both have some components removed to make it more desirable in bread, (or whatever) especially in terms of giving the finished product a better texture/consistency but the stuff that’s removed isn’t harmful to you. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994/55 "2016-05-12T07:31:45Z")
in the book about the guilded age by bettmann “the good old days (boy were they terrible!)” in the food section it states that in new York the milk sellers were known to add so much chalk and such that the milk had a bluish tint to it (theres about 30 pages that run like this … ) But from what ive read from that and other sources the 1906 pure and food drug act was a godsend… Although I did read that adding chalk to bread during the ancient roman era that one of the early emperors made it a death sentence if they got caught ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994/56 "2016-05-12T18:04:04Z")
Some of you folks are quibbling over whether or not millers and bakers could adulterate flour with rougher-than-fine sawdust. The thing you’re missing is the mill itself. The same millstone that turns wheat grain into flour can turn rough sawdust, and maybe even small chips, into a fine powder, just right for baking. Bread needs wheat flour to rise, but you can mix in things that rise poorly, or not rise at all. Rye flour can make a nice bread, but it rises poorly, so it needs wheat flour. Corn meal has no gluten at all, but you can add it to wheat dough. Damana bread has a lot of cornmeal it, but the finished loaf is pretty dense. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994/57 "2016-05-12T18:50:05Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > \My Mother said that she could remember when the new, special gasoline had lead added to it. Then she lived loong enough that the new, special fuel was unleaded gas, with the lead taken out. > > And she said that the oil companies charged customers extra in both cases! There’s no conspiracy here. The lead (actually a compound known as tetraethyllead) was added to increase the octane rating of the gasoline and to reduce engine knocking. It also worked as a lubricating agent to decrease engine valve seat wear. This additive improved the performance of gasoline when it was first introduced in the 1920s, so it cost more. Decades later, when the addition of tetraethyllead to gasoline had become ubiquitous, higher performance engines with greater compression ratios had also become the norm. It was not possible to simply remove the tetraethyllead without replacing it with an alternative. Alternative anti-knock agents included ethanol, MTBE (now phased out due to groundwater contamination concerns), and isooctane. Other additives were added to replace the lubricating quality of the tetraethyllead. All of these additives were relatively more expensive, which is why the cost of unleaded gasoline was actually pricier than leaded gasoline when it was introduced as a replacement in the 1970s and '80s. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994/58 "2016-05-12T20:00:39Z")
Back in [college](http://www.sjc.edu), we read Marx’s _[Das Kapital](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch10.htm)_, and I have always remembered his sarcastic commentary on the “incredible adulteration” of bread in 19th century England: [QUOTE=Karl Marx] Englishmen, always well up in the Bible, knew well enough that man, unless by elective grace a capitalist, or landlord, or sinecurist, is commanded to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow, but they did not know that he had to eat daily in his bread a certain quantity of human perspiration mixed with the discharge of abscesses, cobwebs, dead black-beetles, and putrid German yeast, without counting alum, sand, and other agreeable mineral ingredients. [/QUOTE] (Okay, so he doesn’t mention sawdust specifically.) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994/59 "2016-05-12T21:12:52Z")
> [@Obtenebrate](#): > > I actually really like Roman Meal bread, but I actually haven’t been able to find a store that carries it locally. Assuming it still exists. > . It does. But really, it’s basically Coarse Whole Wheat Flour bread. The rest of the grains are there in rather small amounts- less than sugar. [http://www.romanmeal.com/](http://www.romanmeal.com/) [http://www.schwebels.com/freshly-baked-breads/whole-grain-and-multi-grain-breads/roman-meal-whole-grain](http://www.schwebels.com/freshly-baked-breads/whole-grain-and-multi-grain-breads/roman-meal-whole-grain) Ingredients: Coarse Whole Wheat Flour, Water, Brown Sugar, Whole Grain Wheat Flakes, Yeast, Vital Wheat Gluten, Whole Grain Rye Flakes, Soybean Oil, Honey, Molasses, Salt, Cultured Wheat Flour, Dough Conditioners (Calcium Sulfate, Enzymes), Yeast Nutrients (Ammonium Sulfate, Monocalcium Phosphate), Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid, Soy Lecithin. ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994/60 "2016-05-12T22:14:01Z")
Not just bread flour, grated cheese. From Bloomberg: “How serious is the problem? Bloomberg News had store-bought grated cheese tested for wood-pulp content by an independent laboratory. Cellulose is a safe additive, and an acceptable level is 2 percent to 4 percent, according to Dean Sommer, a cheese technologist at the Center for Dairy Research in Madison, Wisconsin. Essential Everyday 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese, from Jewel-Osco, was 8.8 percent cellulose, while Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Great Value 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese registered 7.8 percent, according to test results. Whole Foods 365 brand didn’t list cellulose as an ingredient on the label, but still tested at 0.3 percent. Kraft had 3.8 percent.” [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-16/the-parmesan-cheese-you-sprinkle-on-your-penne-could-be-wood](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-16/the-parmesan-cheese-you-sprinkle-on-your-penne-could-be-wood) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sawdust-used-in-place-of-flour-to-make-bread/715994.md?page=4)