The flour you see in stores, on the shelf, is an abomination.

When manufacturing could finally make steel cutter mills it completely revolutionized the wheat flour milling industry.
After this, milling companies started making white flour... AND PEOPLE STARTED FALLING OVER.

Not like the covaids scare, people actually started falling over

White Flour

Previously only royalty could get white flour. It is quite a pain to do, by hand, to remove the germ and the bran. So, a lot of work goes into making white flour.

Then industrialization happened, and mills could make tons of white flour.
People started making light, fluffy breads.
It was all the rage.

However, little did they know, they removed all the nutrition out of wheat flour.
And so, people, who thought they had eaten, had not really, and people started falling over from lack of nutrition.

When they figured out what was happening, mills were required to add nutrition into white flour.

Thus we now have ENRICHED FLOUR.

Yep, 4 essential nutrients chemically added into this abomination to keep people from falling over. Unfortunately, it doesn't really make it nutritious. It makes it so you don't just fall over.

Whole Wheat Flour

Many of you who are health concious might avoid the white flour (and its products) and select whole wheat flour.

Unfortunately, this stuff is misleadingly labelled.
The stuff in this bag is white flour with SOME of the bran and SOME of the germ put back in.
Not all of it, just some.

The wheat germ oil (very vital nutrients) must be removed or the bag of flour will go rancid in a couple weeks.

In the before time, you would take a small bag of wheat to the local miller. They would grind your wheat and give you flour. You did this because wheat flour would turn bitter, you can't store it very long.

And then you sifted this flour to get out any grinding stone that was left in.

But, you did get a nutritious meal that was quite useful in balancing meals.
If you want this same nutrition, you can grind your own flour at home with hand powered and electric wheat mills.

Other Terms on that Bag of Flour

Bleached. - when you want a truly white cake.
This is just what it says. They bleach the flour. Often with the same stuff you use to whiten your clothes.
And how do you think they get it out? Gonna wash the flour? Well, a lot of it is still in the flour.

Bromated - helps bread rise right away
If you grind wheat flour, it doesn't make fluffy bread right away, it actually needs to sit a little while. But, if you add Bromide, it will act like aged flour right away.

Wonder Bread - you wonder if its bread.
The reason it is called wonder bread is that it was one of the first all white flour breads.
It was light and fluffy. Not dense. It was unlike anything that was sold in stores.
Of course, the only thing i would use this for is to fill holes in plaster.

Overall, we lost a lot when we developed mass produced steel cutters.
Of course we gained flour without bits of rock in it.

And most people do not know what we have lost.
We just take for granted that the packages in the grocery stores are appropriately labelled.

Unfortunately they are not.
Further, more adulteration is done, and much of society is paying the price. Gluten Intolerance.

Too make really fluffy bread, like on McDs hamburger buns, they take out all the nutritious stuff, AND they add in more gluten. Gluten is the glue that makes it hold in the air to make bubbles. So, add more gluten, and you get lighter, fluffier breads. Further, you get an addictive product. Gluten is addictive like sugar.

But, after eating so much adulterated bread products, many have started gaining an allergic reaction to wheat.

However, i have found that for these poor souls, i can make a bread with a entire wheat ground flour (not sold in stores, does not sit on a shelf without going bad) using a slow rise (longer than 24 hours) and people with gluten intolerance have no problem eating it.

Who would have ever thought that we have been lied to all of our lives

Especially buy a govern-cement agency that is supposed to be all about truth of what is in a food product.

All images in this post are my own original creations.