Craig Reilly, age 12, of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, for his question:

What exactly is wheat germ?

A grain of wheat, of course, is the seed of a new plant. It is a tough little kernel encased in a tough little coat. Inside the husk is a tightly packed nut of carbohydrates'. proteins and a small percentage of fat. This concentrated pantry is intended as food for, the sleeping seed. But it cannot start, or germinate the future wheat plant. This must be done by a small pocket of embryo cells at one end of the grain of wheat. We call it the wheat germ.

The nutty grain is ground up to make     flour and various kinds of wheat bran and meal. But as a rule, the embryo wheat germ is removed in the process. And the small embryo is especially rich in vitamins. For this reason wheat germ is often added to breakfast cereals. It gives extra doses of vitamin E and the vitamins niacin and riboflavin. Dry wheat germ comes in small, deep brownish flakes. Oil crushed from wheat germ is very rich in vitamin E. An acid extracted from these small wheat embryos is used to bring out the natural flavor in vegetables and savory meat dishes.