White vs Brown Flour

Another food debate that has been around for quite some time is whether ‘brown’ flour is better for you than white flour. Like most other debates, it’s actually more complicated than it seems. To settle the battle of white vs brown flour, we need to do a little research.

The Truth About Flour Varieties

First, there is no such thing as ‘brown’ flour. There are hundreds of varieties of wheat, but they all fit into four main categories:

Hard White Winter Wheat – Ideal for making high-gluten breads such as hearth and artisan loaves. The bread will have a nice, crunchy crust with a rustic appearance and taste (if you make it right).

Hard Red Winter Wheat – Slightly less gluten than Hard White Winter, but it still has more than enough for artisan breads. It has a reddish-brown color and a slightly nutty taste. Great when mixed with rye for pumpernickel, Russian brown bread, or Jewish rye bread. It also makes great bread on its own.

Hard Red Spring Wheat – Similar to Hard Red Winter Wheat, but your bread will have a tighter texture (smaller holes). This wheat is preferred for loaf breads, where a nutty taste is desired. It can also be mixed with other grains, such as rye, and is commonly used for multi-grain breads.

Hard White Spring Wheat – Similar to Hard White Winter, except the bread will have a slightly tighter texture. It’s great for loaf breads and can be mixed with other grains easily, as long as the total added grains don’t exceed 10% of the total.

Soft Red and White, Winter and Spring Wheats – These varieties do not have enough gluten to make yeast breads. They are used for pastries, biscuits, scones, and quick breads. Other than that, they share similar properties to their hard counterparts.

All wheat varieties are nutritionally similar, whether red or white. The differences are primarily due to soil and climate conditions, not the specific variety of wheat.

The Industry Secrets About Commercial Flour

Now, I’m going to share one of those secrets that the food industry would rather you didn’t know. The only way you’ll obtain true whole-grain, whole wheat flour in the U.S. is if you mill your own wheat at home from wheat berries—just like I do, and many others. The flours labeled as ‘whole wheat’ on grocery store shelves are anything but. I’ll explain more in a moment.

So, the real debate is whether commercial white flour is worse for you than commercial ‘whole wheat’ flour. I’ll give them some credit: ‘whole wheat’ does have a nice brown color, but they use high-grade food colorings.

Commercial flours all start the same way: as a beautiful, nutritious kernel packed with vitamins and minerals. To make flour, all that’s necessary is to run the kernel through a mill, which is essentially a grinder that crushes things very finely. This is easy to do at home. All you need is a mill, either hand-cranked or electric. But you should only grind what you’ll use within the next few hours, because once the kernel is cracked, the nutrients begin to oxidize rapidly. After 12 hours, over 50% of the nutrition is lost. This can be slowed by freezing the flour, but even then, after 24 hours, the flour is essentially nutritionally dead. To make matters worse, the wonderful oils in the flour will become rancid in just a few days, ruining the flour. Whole grains, however, can be kept in airtight containers for thousands of years and still be good. Sealed buckets of spelt wheat (an ancient variety still used today) were found in the pyramids, over 300 years old. Some of the wheat was even planted, and it grew. Bread was made from it, and it worked perfectly.

The Decline of Whole Grains
Whole grains do have one quirk: they make slightly heavier products than what modern society is used to. During the 19th century, a genius figured out that he could make lighter breads by removing the bran and germ from the wheat (nutritional concerns were clearly not a priority). All that was left was the endosperm, which had the added (and dubious) benefit of not going rancid, since all the oils were removed. The new ‘white’ flour became a sensation in Europe, especially among the upper classes. Using white flour was a mark of distinction. Later, someone decided to bleach the flour to make it even whiter. By the end of the 19th century, several companies were producing white flour, and the leftover bran and germ were sold as cattle feed for extra profit (the livestock got the better end of that deal).

During the early 20th century, there was a massive pellagra epidemic in the U.S. and Europe. In America, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was created to investigate the cause. It was traced back to the use of white flour, which had little, if any, nutritional value. The flour companies were called to task, but they were not willing to give up the lucrative cattle feed sideline. Instead, they added 14 nutrients back into the flour—just enough to prevent pellagra. They had removed over 75 nutrients, so the consumer still lost out. To further deceive consumers into thinking they were getting whole grain, a tiny bit of bran, along with cellulose (sawdust, cleaned, of course), and food coloring were added. It was marketed as ‘whole wheat’ with FDA approval. So, now you know: your ‘whole wheat’ flour is really just unbleached white flour with a little bran and sawdust added. It has more nutrition than the white flour, but far less than the whole grain.

Whole Grain Flour: The Best Option
There is a third option. Some companies now market ‘whole-grain’ flour. This flour has the germ removed, but the bran is left. The germ is what goes rancid, so it’s a better option than other commercial flours. While it still doesn’t match the nutritional values of true whole wheat, it’s far superior to the rest. If you don’t want to mill your own flour, this is your best choice. But don’t confuse ‘whole grain’ flour with ‘whole wheat.’ They are totally different.

Take Control of Your Health
If you’re really concerned about your health, get a grain mill and start milling your own flour. You won’t believe the impact it will have on how you feel. It also puts you in control of your food supply. If you have to use commercial flours, try to stick to ‘whole grain’ or ‘whole wheat’ at the very least. White flour is one of the most nutritionally depleted foods ever marketed.