Ethanol Growth Inspires Advances in Cereal Milling

Fractionation of cereal grains is an old and sophisticated industry, from which are obtained flour for baking, starch for industrial and food uses, sweeteners, animal feeds, oils, proteins, and dietary fibers. Without some form of processing, cereal grains such as wheat, corn, rice, barley, oats and rye are not edible by humans.

The discovery of milling, at first as tedious hand labor with stones, and later as one of the first communal industries using animal or water power, might have enabled ci…