With a pastry cutter or a fork, cut the shortening and salt into the flour until the mix is pebbly.

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They tackled the wartime problem of rickety children, caused by a shortage of calcium in the diet, by getting bakers to mix chalk with the flour.

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Mahmoud Nili of Bu-Ali Sina University in Hamadan for example, is using polypropylene fibres and quartz flour, known as fume, in his mix.

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Traditionally, folk artists mix water with wheat and glutinous rice flour.

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Instead, "flour was all over the box, " and just one jar of cookie mix was intact, says the 47-year-old public relations director for a bed and mattress company from Highland, Md.

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