However, by 1865, due to recently discovered health benefits of bran, brown meal's London price had increased to a point often greater than that of fine flour.

[4] Historically, brown meal was what remained after about 90% of the coarse, outer bran and 74% of pure endosperm or fine flour was removed from the whole grain.

[5] Using slightly different extraction numbers, brown meal, representing 20% of the whole grain, was itself composed of about 15% fine bran and 85% white flour.

[6] In 1848 it was asserted grain millers knew only of bran and endosperm,[7] but by 1912 it was more widely known that brown meal included the germ.

[3] The brown color of whole grain breads is caused by cerealine, a discovery attributed to Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès of France.