The DU Lounge

OK, so, before the 1900’s you would go down to the local miller and have him mill or grind up what flour you needed; you would go home and make your breads, biscuits, cakes and whatever. The fresh milled flour could not be stored because it would spoil. The oils would go rancid within just a few days, which forced you to use the fresh flour soon after milling. In addition, the fragile nutrients once stored safely inside the wheat shell (bran), are lost. They oxidize away within 72 or so hours.

It was discovered that if the bran, middlings and oil-rich germ were sifted away leaving the endosperm (the white starchy part of the grain) that the refined flour would not spoil. This newly sifted flour was lighter, fluffier and had a very long shelf-life. Well, as a housewife, you loved that! You could then make your breads, biscuits and cakes whenever you wanted. At the time, only the wealthy had servants who sifted the milled wheat into white flour. But by 1910-ish the steel rolling mills started replacing the local millers and the white flour became available for the masses. The people bought the white flour and the cattle and chicken farmers took the sifted out goody: bran, middlings and germ as feed.

Again, I emphasize once the grain is milled, cracked open, it is sifted, the bran and middlings removed, then the delicate nutrients oxidize away meaning most of the nutrition is now gone. Gone! We are left with practically nutrition-less white flour. Even the bugs and rodents will not eat it. Yet, that’s what we’ve been feeding our families for decades.

Stay with me . . .

Soon after this mass sifting-of-the-wheat, three diseases became EPIDEMIC:

Beriberi – B-1 (Thiamine) deficiency: Two types: Wet – affecting the cardiovascular system (heart muscle issues), Dry – affecting the nervous system, (Can anyone say ADD, ADHD? I’m just wondering?)
Pellagra – B3 (niacin) deficiency: a disease of mental and GI issues. Also call the disease of the four D’s: Diarrhea, Dermatitis, Dementia & Death (Can you say skin issues, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Spastic Colon? I’m again, just wondering?)
Anemia – iron deficiency: fatigue, rapid heart beat, shortness of breath, headache, dizziness, and other sy{mp}toms

The officials traced these issues back to the sifting of the wheat and other whole grains and their lack of nutrition. They urged the millers to put the bran and germ back, but they refused. Hey, they were making too much money! The miller was making twice the buck from the same product. Can you say greed over human welfare? Since the vitamins had oxidized away, the officials said the refined flour had to be “enriched” or “fortified” with chemical versions. So, out of the 30 plus nutrients (that we know of) which are lost, only 4 were added back: iron and three B vitamins: B1-thiamine, B2-riboflavin, B3-niacin. B vitamins must be taken in balance, hence the term “B Complex” in order for the body to assimilate them properly. This synthetic form, which our bodies do not use as efficiently, does not represent the original ratios found naturally in the whole wheat and other grains. I don’t know about you, but the term enrich and fortify is supposed to mean: to make stronger. Hmm, does that sound stronger to you? In the south, the mental institutions were overrun because of the severe niacin-B3 deficiency, resulting in Pellagra. These institutions began supplementing with niacin and soon the asylums were emptied. Note: Due to mothers consuming the nutrition-less refined flour weren’t receiving the adequate B complex, a fifth nutrient, B9-folate or folic acid (chemical version) was added in the late 1990’s to help combat babies being born with brain defects and neural tube defects such as spina bifida.

https://healthyhomeprinciples.com/history-of-white-flour/