If you’ve read many of our articles, you may be picking up on the fact that unless you know what an ingredient is and what it does, it can seem innocuous or even healthy and truly be neither. Label Reading isn’t anyone’s favorite pastime but it is the only way to really understand what you are putting in your body, especially when it’s a pre-processed product. Even if you do make a lot of things from scratch, basic ingredients like flour are not free from deceptive labeling. One such example is the use of “enriched” when referring to wheat flour. Enriched sounds like it would be a healthy alternative to white flour or even more full of beneficial ingredients than plain wheat flour but let's take a closer look.
We’ve discussed before the benefit of fiber as opposed to highly processed foods lacking fiber. Fiber slows down the digestion and really allows the body to gain energy and nutrients as needed and over a longer time. It regulates the use of sugar and helps prevent spikes in blood sugar. It also plays a big role in what makes you feel full so you tend to eat less food when it’s fiber rich. In wheat or wheat flour, the fiber is packed into the bran and germ along with most of the nutrients naturally occurring in wheat. With the endosperm, these three parts make up a whole grain. Based just on the name, you might think enriched flour would just be this whole grain with some vitamins and minerals added in but that is not the case. Enriched flour is flour that has been stripped of the bran and germ, leaving only the endosperm behind. This is often done to make the flour more fine in texture and more palatable to the average American. Manufacturers then try to add back some nutrients specifically, Thiamine, Riboflavin, Niacin, Folic acid and Iron. This is now required of food manufacturers because the rise of the practice of removing the germ and bran correlated with a rise in certain illnesses linked to malnutrition. We also know that even with the added vitamins, the endosperm based flour lacks the fiber to moderate the use of sugar and will instead quickly be broken down and cause a major sugar spike in the blood. The addition of these vitamins is then more of an empty gesture than a true fix.
The bottom line here is that while it sounds healthy, enriched flour is actually pretty bad for you.The empty calories don’t fill you up and you will continue to eat but gain very little in the way of nourishment. You might not be surprised to learn that unfortunately it is in EVERYTHING. Donuts, snack foods, cereal, pizza dough, cake mix, pancakes and, of course, bread are all commonly full of enriched flour. There are, of course, healthier alternatives! When you shop, check the label for enriched flour or even just “wheat flour” without the indication that it is 100%. This might be enriched flour too. When you bake, pick up all purpose whole wheat flour instead of the enriched variety to make sure the things you bake include the germ and the bran. Avoid a diet that relies heavily on processed goods as the more processed a baked good or wheat-based snack is, the more likely it is that it was made with highly processed, enriched flour. If you really want to get back to the basics, you may even be able to find locally ground flour from a farmers’ market or a local CSA! So shop locally if you can and be aware of what’s in your favorite foods so that you can make the best choices about what to put into your body.
Resources:
Flour Enrichment | Baking Processes | BAKERpedia
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