The Whole Food Journal

The next time you shop for bread check the label. The first ingredient must say “whole wheat flour” or it’s not whole wheat bread. It may look like whole wheat bread. That’s because mollasses gives it color and it could have a few flakes in it to fool you. Don’t be fooled. Read the labels. Better yet, to get all the goodness and nutrition of whole wheat and eliminate the preservatives, stablilzers and other additives, try making your own. I guarantee you’ll eat better and save money at the same time. It’s really disgusting to pay $4.00 for a loaf of bread these days.

That said, I want to share some interesting facts about whole wheat that are extremely important to a healthy, disease fighting diet. Many whole grains have fed, and still do, entire civilizations. There’s good reason. Whole grains in general are loaded with nutrients including many of the B vitamins and the fat soluable vitamins as well as protien. They are also rich in fiber.

When whole wheat is refined the oil, bran and germ are removed. What is left is the starchy middle to which a few vitamins and minerals have been added and it is then called “enriched” white flour. Real whole wheat flour has a very short shelf life because the oils will turn rancid rapidly. Either grind and use immediately or store in your freezer. There are many grinders out there, but I have always used my VitaMix machine with great success. White (refined) flour on the other hand is simply nutritionally defunct and can sit on the shelf for years.

Yes, the taste is different but you will really learn to dislike white bread when you become accustomed to the real thing. It resembles the old time “all purpose paste” our grandmothers used to make with white flour and water. Speaking of grandmothers, mine cooked the wheat berries and served them with fresh cream and a little sugar. That was before fertilizer and pesticides.

I’m looking forward to sharing with you some of the great bread recipes I have collected for years as soon as I find them among the moving boxes. Eat well.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 6:36 pm and is filed under Whole Food 101. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.