Whole Grain vs. Whole Wheat: Which is Better for You? Left
We’ve all seen it, 100% whole wheat bread sitting next to white bread. It looks like white bread, but it says enriched. Enriched with what? Well, let me back up a bit. When the wheat is harvested, the whole grain is taken to the refinery. REFINERY, did you see that? The wheat is heated to the point where the germ and bran fall off. What’s left is the starch, the white part, the part that’s not good for you. The part that has a long shelf life and is resistant to insects. Do you know why it is resistant to insects? Insects CANNOT support life on it. They will die if they only eat this refined grain. So why the heck, with the abundance of good, life-sustaining foods, do we eat white flour, which is the starch from the milled wheat grain? Honestly, do I need to answer that? Look around you and you will see that obesity is on the rise, and now not only adults are overweight, but children, young children are getting fatter and fatter. Why? We are feeding ourselves with all kinds of unhealthy foods. Some do it because it’s cheaper, some for fun, and some just because they don’t taste any better.
So now that I’ve explained what white bread is made of, let me continue to answer the question of “what exactly is enriched?” After the refinery breaks down the grains and makes white flour, which has no nutrition, they add some vitamins, some minerals, and some fiber, but it’s not worth a gram. White bread is enriched with some of the same things they worked so hard to put out. However, they don’t add as much of the grain as they take away, otherwise it would be whole grain. Just enough to add a little flavor and calories.
What is comprehensive? It is the WHOLE grain that is used in the process of making bread, cereal, and the building blocks of many other foods. To be truly healthy, the whole grain must be listed in your bread, cereal, or other food in position #1 or #2 on the ingredient list. No, whole grain flour followed by (enriched white flour, niacin and iron) is not healthy, it is a way of making people believe that they are getting a whole grain bread. They don’t lie, it’s whole wheat flour, but not whole wheat. It came from the wheat plant and is all wheat, but not all grain. Everything is just another word like everything. If you look a little further down the list you will see molasses, why molasses you ask? Color the bread so it looks brown. Yes, white flour plus vitamins and minerals still don’t put the bran back into the bread. The bran is what helps give the bread its natural brown color. Then again, they add something to it, to try to make it look like something it’s not.
