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| Type | Bread |
|---|---|
| Main ingredients | Wheat flour |
| Other information | glycaemic load 37 (100g) [1] |
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. [2]
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White bread contains ½ of the magnesium found in whole-wheat bread, and it is generally considered to be less nutritionally dense.
The milling process can give white flour a longer shelf life by removing the natural oils from the whole grain. Removing the oil allows products made with the flour, like white bread, to be stored for longer periods of time avoiding potential rancidity.
The flour used in white breads is often bleached further—by the use of flour bleaching agents such as potassium bromate, azodicarbonamide, or chlorine dioxide gas to remove any slight natural yellow shade and make its baking properties more predictable. This is banned in the EU. Some chemicals are also banned from use in other countries.
Bread made with grass grains goes back to the pre-agriculture Natufi proto-civilization 12,000 years ago. [3] But only wheat can feasibly be sifted to produce pure white starch, a technique that goes back to at least ancient Egypt. [4] Because wheat was the most expensive grain to grow, and the process to sift it labor-intensive, white flour was generally limited to special occasions and the wealthy, until the mid-19th century. Then industrial processes eliminated the labor cost, allowing prices to fall until it was accessible to the middle class. [5]
In the US, corn meal was the standard grain for bread until closing in on the 20th century, while in Europe it was other grains.
But once accessible, white bread became very popular in industrialized countries for a number of reasons:
However, there was a backlash from the popularity of white flour, giving rise to whole grain alternatives popular to this day, such as graham crackers and corn flakes, which (in their original whole grain form) have more fiber and micronutrients. Eventually, the transformation of white bread from an elite to a common foodstuff became symbolic of the success of industrialization and capitalism in general, especially paired with the advent of machine sliced bread in the 1920s.[ citation needed ]
In the United States, consumers sometimes refer to white bread as "sandwich bread" or "sandwich loaf". [8] It is often perceived as an unhealthy, bland, and unsophisticated menu item. [9] [10] [11]
Japanese milk bread, a type of soft white bread, is popular in Asia, particularly in Japan, and has artisan status there. [12] [13] Bread was not a traditional food in Japan, but it came into culinary use there after the American response to post-World War II Japanese rice shortages included relief shipments of wheat. [14] The style of bread became popular outside Asia in the 2020s. [15] [16] [17]
While a bran- and wheatgerm-discarding milling process can help improve white flour's shelf life, it does remove nutrients like some dietary fiber, iron, B vitamins, micronutrients [18] and essential fatty acids. The US government has mandated since 1941 fortification of white flour-based foods with some of the nutrients lost in milling, like thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, and iron. This mandate came about in response to the vast nutrient deficiencies seen in US military recruits at the start of World War II. [19] This fortification led to nearly universal eradication of deficiency diseases in the US, such as pellagra and beriberi (deficiencies of niacin and thiamine, respectively) and white bread continues to contain these added vitamins to this day. [20]
Folic acid is another nutrient that some governments have mandated is added to enriched grains like white bread. In the US and Canada, these grains have been fortified with mandatory levels of folic acid since 1998 because of its important role in preventing birth defects. Since fortification began, the rate of neural tube defects has decreased by approximately one-third in the US. [21] [22] [23] Folic acid supplementation was mandated in the UK in September 2021, joining more than 80 countries in the world with this public health measure. [24]
Pasta is a type of food typically made from an unleavened dough of wheat flour mixed with water or eggs, and formed into sheets or other shapes, then cooked by boiling or baking. Unlike noodles, pasta was traditionally only made with durum, although the definition has been expanded to include alternatives for a gluten-free diet such as rice flour, or legumes such as beans or lentils. While noodles are believed to have originated in Asia, pasta is believed to have originated in Italy and is a staple food of Italian cuisine.
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.
Folate, also known as vitamin B9 and folacin, is one of the B vitamins. Manufactured folic acid, which is converted into folate by the body, is used as a dietary supplement and in food fortification as it is more stable during processing and storage. Folate is required for the body to make DNA and RNA and metabolise amino acids necessary for cell division. As the human body cannot make folate, it is required in the diet, making it an essential nutrient. It occurs naturally in many foods. The recommended adult daily intake of folate in the U.S. is 400 micrograms from foods or dietary supplements.
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.
Wonder Bread is an American brand of sliced bread. Established in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1921, it was one of the first companies to sell pre-sliced bread nationwide by 1930. The brand is currently owned by Flowers Foods in the United States.
Wheat flour is a powder made from the grinding of 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.
A bread making machine or breadmaker is a home appliance for baking bread. It consists of a bread pan, at the bottom of which are one or more built-in paddles, mounted in the center of a small special-purpose oven. The machine is usually controlled by a built-in computer using settings input via a control panel. Most bread machines have different cycles for different kinds of dough—including white bread, whole grain, European-style, and dough-only. Many also have a timer to allow the bread machine to function without operator input, and some high-end models allow the user to program a custom cycle.
Enriched flour is flour with specific nutrients added to it. These nutrients include iron and B vitamins. Calcium may also be supplemented. The purpose of enriching flour is to replenish the nutrients in the flour to match the nutritional status of the unrefined product. This differentiates enrichment from fortification, which is the process of introducing new nutrients to a food.
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 is aimed at producing a flour with a white rather than a brown color, and eliminating fiber, which reduces nutrition. The germ is rich in polyunsaturated fats and so germ removal improves the storage qualities of flour.
A whole grain is a grain of any cereal and pseudocereal that contains the endosperm, germ, and bran, in contrast to refined grains, which retain only the endosperm.
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.
Food fortification or enrichment is the process of adding micronutrients to food. It can be carried out by food manufacturers, or by governments as a public health policy which aims to reduce the number of people with dietary deficiencies within a population. The predominant diet within a region can lack particular nutrients due to the local soil or from inherent deficiencies within the staple foods; the addition of micronutrients to staples and condiments can prevent large-scale deficiency diseases in these cases.
Brown bread is bread made with significant amounts of whole grain flour, usually wheat, and sometimes dark-coloured ingredients such as molasses or coffee. In Canada, Ireland and South Africa, it is whole wheat bread; in the Maritimes and New England, it is bread made with molasses. In some regions of the US, brown bread is called wheat bread to complement white bread.
A dough conditioner, flour treatment agent, improving agent or bread improver is any ingredient or chemical added to bread dough to strengthen its texture or otherwise improve it in some way. Dough conditioners may include enzymes, yeast nutrients, mineral salts, oxidants and reductants, bleaching agents and emulsifiers. They are food additives combined with flour to improve baking functionality. Flour treatment agents are used to increase the speed of dough rising and to improve the strength and workability of the dough.
Sprouted bread is a type of bread made from whole grains that have been allowed to sprout, that is, to germinate, before being milled into flour. 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 towards East Asia. This in turn led to the formation of towns, as opposed to the nomadic lifestyle 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.
Nutrition International, formerly the Micronutrient Initiative (MI), is an international not for profit agency based in Canada that works to eliminate vitamin and mineral deficiencies in developing countries. Although often only required by the body in very small amounts, vitamin and minerals – also known as micronutrients – support an array of critical biological functions including growth, immune function and eye function, as well as foetal development of the brain, the nervous system, and the skeletal system. Micronutrient deficiency is a form of malnutrition and is a recognized health problem in many developing countries. Globally, more than two billion people live with vitamin and mineral deficiencies.
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).
The Roller Mill was created by Hungarian bakers in the late 1860s and its popularity spread worldwide throughout the 1900s. Roller mills now produce almost all non-whole grain flour. Enriched flour is flour that meets an FDA standard in the United States. Roller milled white enriched flour makes up over 90% of the flour that comes out of the United States.
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