Today we hear about arguments about irradiated beef and
genetically altered plants and all kinds of additives.
How many of us question bleached flour? On the label: All-Purpose - enriched - bleached - presifted
Ingredients: wheat flour, malted barley flour
niacin (A B vitamin)
Iron
thiamin monobnitrate (vitamin B)
riboflavin (vitamin B 2)
folic acid (A B vitamin)
In 1909 Secretary of Agriculture Wilson ruled that it was
permissible to sell bleached flour within the state but
cannot ship it outside the state. The millers in Nebr and
Iowa were up in arms because they had gone to considerable
expense to install machinery to “properly produce flour of
the whiteness desired.” Nebraska wheat was claimed to
contain the highest percentage of gluten of any wheat in the
US but because of the color of the flour it produces it was
necessary to bleach it to get the desired whiteness the
housewife wanted. A professor from the State University (UNL?)
testified that bleached flour was pure and healthful. The
controversy raged all summer.
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