Refined Flour, a Brief History

Refined, White or All Purpose Flour, regardless of the title, it is ground wheat endosperm.

But, you ask, if all the nutrition is in the bran and germ, why would we remove it? That seems foolish. Well, it does in retrospect. But we didn't know it at the time.

Ground whole wheat flour has a shelf life of around 6-9 months, due primarily to the fatty acids and oils found within the bran and the germ. This is pretty long by today's standards, but not so several hundred years ago. I am unsure of where white flour was first produced. But I am fairly certain that it was a relatively recent time like within the last 300 years or so. Perhaps a reader will know for sure! Whole wheat flour, on the other hand, has been made using stones to grind it since prehistoric times. But as the world became civilized and towns and cities sprung up in which people were not necessarily living on the farm where their food was grown, it was difficult to harvest it, grind the flour, transport it, sell it and use it within the 6-9 month period before it went rancid. So producers came up with the idea that the problematic parts of the grain should simply be removed. White Flour will last on your shelf indefinitely, because there is nothing in it that will go bad. I have for the last ten years lived by the mantra that your food is supposed to go bad (even if I don't ALWAYS follow it), so already this sounds like something to eat in moderation.

When researching the history of flour and flour making one name kept popping up, Oliver Evans. Evans is credited with creating an automated grist mill to grind flour and that was in the late 1700's (like the last decade of the 1700's) so I imagine that white flour had been around much longer than that. I wish I had more free time to research more of the progression of flour 'technology', but *sigh* there is a job I get paid to do and I do that one first.

In terms of nutrition (and we all like to compare nutrition) Whole Wheat Flour has a pretty different nutritional composition than Unenriched White Flour. Below is the comparison of some more important nutritional aspects in 1 cup of flour....

Whole Wheat Flour-1 Cup
Calories 407 cal
Carbohydrates 87.1 g
Total Fat 2.2 g
Thiamin .5 mg
Calcium 40.8 mg
Iron 4.7 mg
Magnesium 166 mg
Manganese 4.6 mg
Selenium 84.8 mg
Total Omega 3's 45.6 mg
Total Omega 6's 886 mg

Unenriched White Flour-1 Cup
Calories 455
Carbohydrates 95.4 g
Total Fat 1.2 g
Thiamin .1 mg
Calcium 18.7 mg
Iron 1.5 mg
Magnesium 27.5 mg
Manganese .9 mg
Selenium 42.4 mg
Total Omega 3's 27.5 mg
Total Omega 6's 489 mg

What is in there is just numbers to me. I really only know about a couple things on that list, and it is far less than the total list that I found online. I have provided links to both sets of data, whole wheat flour as well as unenriched white flour, just click the links to see more. What is the most important to the average person is that there are fewer amounts of nutrients in the white flour than the whole wheat flour. When flour is enriched a few items are added back in, but those items are only thiamin, iron, riboflavin, niacin and folic acid. That is really only some of the B Vitamins and the iron. Whole wheat flour is far more nutritious.

People for years have said in passing that white flour is just like eating pur sugar. I never believed them because it just didn't sound right. Well, I have done the research and it is mostly true. Only mostly true because there is a shred of nutrition in white flour as you can see above. But otherwise, sugar is just a loosely bonded molecule of fructose and glucose that break apart when you digest them. The starch in bread is just a long chain of glucose molecules that all break apart in digestion. Fortunately your body does need glucose, so it is not a total waste. The problem is we get very little else from white flour but glucose and most of us on the Western Diet eat FAR more than we need.

So Enriched Flour only adds in some nutrients. Why those nutrients? There are many nutritional deficiency diseases that came up as I researched this topic. Iron Deficiency, Pellagra and Beriberi are all diseases known to result from a lack of certain vitamins in the diet (iron, niacin and thiamin respectively). It was specifically to help stamp out those diseases in the US that manufacturers first started enriching their wheat flour. Any population that turns to one food source tends to get sick. Not having a varied enough diet has caused a multitude of diseases during the course of history. Seasonality builds in variety in the diet when you live close to the food source. Cherries are only in season for a little while, and the same with carrots and sweet potatoes, even meat can't be consumed all year round because all the calves are born in the spring time. On a side note, even human fertility often dips in the springtime because babies conceived in the spring will be born during the coldest and most inhospitable months of the year. I always found it funny that there were more babies born in August than any other month. I thought it was funny because I thought the holiday season must have gotten alot of people in the mood. But no, it has more to do with babies being born around the harvest time when it would be nice and warm for a while and mom would have had enough to eat to nurse them into fat happy bouncing babies. We evolved this way over time because it worked.

It is the same with our food. When people moved off the farm in the Industrial age (and other ages too) we had large populations living off of one or two foods. We see that to a lesser extent today, however we are still getting more of our calories from corn and wheat than virtually anything else. Enrichment has seen to it that deficiency diseases are a rare thing in this country. And they are, No one reading this should be afraid. So many people these days take a supplement on top of what they eat anyhow, it is almost unheard of in the US. But we can do more to eat a varied diet. Today there are certain populations that still don't have great access to fresh foods, but a vast majority of Americans do and still CHOOSE to eat processed refined grains. I think there is alot of misinformation about where our nutrition is coming from.

Modern science may have added back thiamin, niacin, folic acid, riboflavin and iron. But what else is white flour lacking? What else that we haven't discovered yet is not in this enriched flour? There may still be dozens of nutrients that we do not know are lost in the production of white flour. Where do we draw the line? It is no longer 1700, we are able to consume whole wheat flour well within it's shelf life. Will you choose whole wheat next time?

Notes About Different Kinds of Flour

Ever wondered what was with all the diffrerent kinds of flour? And I don't mean just different grains or beans. There are a seemingly endless amount of wheat flours. What are they? What makes them different? Are some better than others? I have put together the most common wheat flours I could find. Let me know if I missed any.

Whole Wheat Flour-In Whole Wheat Flour, all three parts of the seed are finely ground: endosperm, bran and germ are all included. Whole wheat flour is the most nutritious of all the wheat flours.

Brown Flour-Some sites said 85% of the germ and bran are left in the final product. But the miller I buy from tells me their variety is about 50%. I imagine there is a wide variety.

White (or Refined) Flour-In Whie Flour, all the bran and germ have been removed and only the endosperm remains. The endosprem is then finely ground. Much white flour on the market has been bleached to make it whiter than it is in nature, but not all. Do not be fooled by anyone trying to sell you a 'health food' item: when it comes to flour, the terms white, refined and all purpose all refer to the EXACT same kind of flour.

Enriched Flour-As I mentioned yesterday, much of the nutrients of wheat seeds are lost in white flour when the bran and the germ are removed. Enriched Flour is White Flour to which synthetic vitamin supplements have been added. The US Government does not require white flour to be enriched, but much of it is. However in order to be called 'enriched flour' the FDA says that every pound of enriched flour should contain 2.9 milligrams of thiamin, 1.8 milligrams of riboflavin, 24 milligrams of niacin, 0.7 milligrams of folic acid and 20 milligrams of iron. Enrichment is a process which adds synthetic nutrients back to the flour that have been lost when the germ and bran are removed. This is not to be confused with 'fortification' where nutrients are added that were never there in the first place.

Durum Flour-Durum is a kind of wheat, and very hard or high-protein kind of wheat. It is best used in applications like bread and pasta.

Semolina Flour-Semolina Flour is a coarsely ground hard wheat flour. I used to work at a bakery that made a wicked good semolina bread covered in sesame seeds.

Cake or Pastry Flour: Whether Whole Wheat or White Pastry Flour, all cake or pastry flours are simply made from a variety of wheat that has a lower protein content. The result flour yeilds baked goods that are more tender which is good for sweeter softer items.

Sprouted Flour-This is flour where the whole grains have been soaked in water and allowed to sprout before they are ground. I have found some websites that state that allowing the seeds (grains) to sprout changed most of the starch in them into vegetable sugars thus making them much easier to digest. I have started to see sprouted flours and products made from them popping up everywhere.

Vital Gluten Flour-This is a flour that is very very high in gluten, the compound found in the endosperm that makes bread springy. My biggest complaint about completely whole wheat anything is that it crumbles apart. White flour has a higher gluten ratio so it naturally sticks together and doesn't crumble. Vital Gluten Flour can be added to a whole wheat recipe to help it hold together better. It is not for those with Celiac Disease. I bought some this weekend and I am anxious to try it the next time I make whole wheat beet muffins.

Processed foods most often make use of white/ refined flours or enriched flours. Whether or not they are labeled as organic is of no importance to nutrition, there is little if any additional nutrition in an organic white or refined flour. (BTW-I am well aware of recent studies that have found organic produce and plants to be more nutritious than their conventially grown counterparts. However in the case of wheat, there isn't much nutrition found in the endosperm regardless. Now if you want to talk about an organic germ or bran layer versus conventional, now there would be a conversation!) While it is always good to treat the land well, and organic wheat has that going for it, the term 'organic' does not give white flour any additional health benefits. Look for 'whole' flours. I definitely am limiting them for myself to once a day or not at all if I am able, but sometimes it seems that flour and baked goods of some kind are omnipresent.