Graham flour is a type of coarse-ground flour of whole wheat named after Sylvester Graham. It is similar to conventional whole-wheat flour in that both are made from the whole grain, but graham flour is ground more coarsely. It is not sifted ("bolted") with a flour dresser after milling. [1] : 9 A report from 1913 claimed that bread made from graham flour had a protein content of 12.1% – only slightly less than white wheat flour and essentially the same as whole wheat flour. [2]
Graham flour is available at health food stores, some grocery stores, bakery supply stores, and some specialty and gourmet food shops, or directly from a flour mill that has experience making it.
A substitute for it would be a mix of unbleached white flour and wheat middlings; this was a common substitute prior to and after the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906, but the FDA gradually established standards and eliminated imitations from the market. [1] : 13
Graham flour is named after Sylvester Graham (1794–1851), an early advocate for dietary reform. [3] Graham despised the discarding of nutrients such as germ and bran when making flour for white bread. He believed that using all of the grain in the milling of flour and baking of bread was a remedy for the poor health of his fellow Americans during changes in diet brought on by the Industrial Revolution. [1] : 7–8
Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour and water, usually by baking. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cultures' diet. It is one of the oldest human-made foods, having been of significance since the dawn of agriculture, and plays an essential role in both religious rituals and secular culture.
Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, roots, beans, nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures. Corn flour has been important in Mesoamerican cuisine since ancient times and remains a staple in the Americas. Rye flour is a constituent of bread in both Central Europe and Northern Europe.
A graham cracker is a sweet flavored cracker made with graham flour that originated in the United States in the mid-19th century, with commercial development from about 1880. It is eaten as a snack food, usually honey- or cinnamon-flavored, and is used as an ingredient in some foods, e.g., in the graham cracker crust for cheesecakes and pies.
Sylvester Graham was an American Presbyterian minister and dietary reformer known for his emphasis on vegetarianism, the temperance movement, and eating whole-grain bread. His preaching inspired the graham flour, graham bread, and graham cracker products. Graham is often referred to as the "Father of Vegetarianism" in the United States of America.
Seitan is a food made from gluten, the main protein of wheat. It is also known as miànjīn, fu, milgogi, wheat meat, gluten meat, or simply gluten. It is made from vital wheat gluten, a flour-like substance primarily consisting of gluten extracted from wheat flour.
A digestive biscuit, sometimes described as a sweet-meal biscuit, is a semi-sweet biscuit that originated in Scotland. The digestive was first developed in 1839 by two doctors to aid digestion. The term digestive is derived from the belief that they had antacid properties around the time the biscuit was first introduced due to the use of sodium bicarbonate as an ingredient. Historically, some producers used diastatic malt extract to "digest" some of the starch that existed in flour prior to baking.
Graham bread is a name for whole wheat bread that was inspired by the teachings of health reformer Sylvester Graham. The ingredients for Graham bread include Graham flour, milk, molasses, yeast, and salt.
White bread typically refers to breads made from wheat flour from which the bran and the germ layers have been removed from the whole wheatberry as part of the flour grinding or milling process, producing a light-colored flour.
Wheat flour is a powder made from the grinding of common wheat used for human consumption. Wheat varieties are called "soft" or "weak" if gluten content is low, and are called "hard" or "strong" if they have high gluten content. Hard flour, or bread flour, is high in gluten, with 12% to 14% gluten content, and its dough has elastic toughness that holds its shape well once baked. Soft flour is comparatively low in gluten and thus results in a loaf with a finer, crumbly texture. Soft flour is usually divided into cake flour, which is the lowest in gluten, and pastry flour, which has slightly more gluten than cake flour.
The germ of a cereal grain is the part that develops into a plant; it is the seed embryo. Along with bran, germ is often a by-product of the milling that produces refined grain products. Cereal grains and their components, such as wheat germ oil, rice bran oil, and maize bran, may be used as a source from which vegetable oil is extracted, or used directly as a food ingredient. The germ is retained as an integral part of whole-grain foods. Non-whole grain methods of milling are intended to isolate the endosperm, which is ground into flour, with removal of both the husk (bran) and the germ. Removal of bran produces a flour with a white rather than a brown color and eliminates fiber. The germ is rich in polyunsaturated fats and so germ removal improves the storage qualities of flour.
Rye bread is a type of bread made with various proportions of flour from rye grain. It can be light or dark in color, depending on the type of flour used and the addition of coloring agents, and is typically denser than bread made from wheat flour. Compared to white bread, it is higher in fiber, darker in color, and stronger in flavor. The world's largest exporter of rye bread is Poland.
Brown bread is bread made with significant amounts of whole grain flours, usually wheat sometimes with corn and or rye flours. Brown breads often get their characteristic dark color from ingredients such as molasses or coffee. In Canada, Ireland and South Africa, it is whole wheat bread; in New England and the Maritimes, it is bread sweetened with molasses. In some regions of the US, brown bread is called wheat bread to complement white bread.
Pepperidge Farm is an American commercial bakery founded in 1937 by Margaret Rudkin, who named the brand after her family's 123-acre farm property in Fairfield, Connecticut, which had been named for the pepperidge tree.
Sprouted bread is a type of bread made from whole grains that have been allowed to sprout. There are a few different types of sprouted grain bread. Some are made with additional added flour; some are made with added gluten; and some, such as Essene bread and Ezekiel bread are made with very few additional ingredients.
Bread was central to the formation of early human societies. From the Fertile Crescent, where wheat was domesticated, cultivation spread north and west, to Europe and North Africa, and east toward East Asia. This in turn led to the formation of towns, which curtailed nomadic lifestyles, and gave rise to more and more sophisticated forms of societal organization. Similar developments occurred in the Americas with maize and in Asia with rice.
Nordic bread culture has existed in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden from prehistoric times through to the present. It is often characterized by the usage of rye flour, barley flour, a mixture of nuts, seeds, and herbs, and varying densities depending on the region. Often, bread is served as an accompaniment to various recipes and meals. Nordic breads are often seasoned with an assortment of different spices and additives, such as caraway seeds, orange zest, anise, and honey.
A Unifine mill is a single one-pass impact milling system which produces ultrafine-milled whole-grain wheat flour that requires no grain pre-treatment and no screening of the flour. Like the grist or stone mills that had dominated the flour industry for centuries, the bran, germ, and endosperm elements of grain are processed into a nutritious whole wheat flour in one step. Consumers had accepted whole wheat products produced by grist or stone mills. The flour produced by these mills was quite coarse as they included the bran and the germ elements of the grain.
Whole-wheat flour or wholemeal flour is a powdery substance, a basic food ingredient, derived by grinding or mashing the whole grain of wheat, also known as the wheatberry. Whole-wheat flour is used in baking of breads and other baked goods, and also typically mixed with lighter "white" unbleached or bleached flours to restore nutrients, texture, and body to the white flours that can be lost in milling and other processing to the finished baked goods or other food(s).
Barley flour is a flour prepared from dried and ground barley. Barley flour is used to prepare barley bread and other breads, such as flat bread and yeast breads.
After baking, the white wheat flour not only proved the more digestible, but the protein contents were as follows: White wheat flour 12.5% protein; Graham flour 12.1%; Entire wheat flour 11.9% .