Organic whole-grain bread was especially symbolic for the organic communards, as it had been for the
Grahamite utopian communities of the 1840's, while "white bread" became an epithet for everything they considered immoral, exploitative, and unnatural.
For a
Grahamite the ultimate goal was social--a strictly hygienic community of hard-working, God-fearing, gluten-munching, anesthetized celibates: