The Mystery of Enriched Flour

Over the weekend I was looking at the ingredient list of freshly baked bread that we got from our local Publix supermarket. What caught my eye was the very first ingredient called enriched flour. At first it appeared to be a good thing. After all, look at what all it contains:

Enriched flour – wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid

Niacin is vitamin B3 needed for DNA repair and production of steroid hormones. Lack of vitamin B3 results in Pellagra, a disease of 4 D’s: diarrhea, dermatitis, dementia and death!

Reduced iron is simply a form of iron added to the flour. Iron is essential for all living organisms and its deficiency causes anemia where blood hemoglobin gets to low levels.

Thiamine Mononitrate is vitamin B1 and its deficiency causes beriberi which affects the nervous system.

Riboflavin is vitamin B2 is needed for metabolism of fats, carbs and proteins. Its deficiency causes inflammation in eyes, mouth and throat.

Folic acid is needed for a lot of different bodily functions especially at a time of cell division and growth (pregnancy and early childhood). Folate deficiency results in loss of appetite, weight loss, weakness, headaches, heart palpitations and behavioral disorders.

So on the surface, all this looks good since enriched flour is giving you iron and important B vitamins. What can be wrong with it you wonder.

Well, the main question is why they need to add them to flour in the first place since wheat contains these nutrients anyway!

Simply grind the wheat, turn it into flour and forget about all this processing and enrichment. Turns out, things are not so simple.

Customers love the looks of bright, white flour. But enriching is necessary because the processing used to make white flour destroys some of these nutrients that originally were present in the whole grain. So, FDA forces producers to add these important nutrients so that they don’t have to face the public health nightmare resulting from their deficiency. This makes everybody happy – customers get the white flour they like, producers make a profit and FDA doesn’t have to deal with public health problems.

But is that really true?

Vitamins, minerals and oils are stored inside the germ of the whole grain, protected by the bran so they can continue to nourish the seed. The carbohydrates and proteins are stored inside the endosperm which is also protected by the bran. The milling process of turning wheat into white flour removes the barn and the germ, so all you are left with are the carbs and proteins from the endosperm. High surface area of the flour causes very rapid release of sugar in your blood when you eat stuff made from white flour. Insulin levels have to go up to correct this sugar surge. Done a lot of times, this can lead to insulin resistance and Type II diabetes. You can add back vitamins and minerals and feel good about it, but the problem of sugar over time is the one we need to worry about.

Next time, go for whole grain bread instead of the white bread. I know it tastes so good, and it is ok to consume it in moderation; but over eating baked foods made from the so called enriched white flour is a long term health risk.

Photo Sources:
White Bread – PhotoExpress
Whole Grain Kernel – Wikimedia Commons
©2009 Littlestomaks.com

Spread the word