Wheat Flour: A Silent Killer in Your

Food?
By Ty Bollinger

Bread: its something of a cultural pastime that most all of us grew up eating,
and a hallmark of the meal plate since time immemorial. Heck, bread has
even been codified as a pinnacle of human achievement that only the greatest
of the great innovations could ever hope to match, let alone surpass. The
best thing since sliced bread being the famous marketing catch
phrase coined by the Wonder Bread company that encapsulates the high
esteem with which people all around the world regard this most cherished
food.
But sadly, a typical loaf of bread made with wheat flour today isnt the same as
it once was. In times past, bread represented one of the most basic forms of
complete nutrition, readily available and affordable to practically anyone.
Todays commercial bread, on the other hand, has been reduced to little more
than a cheat day junk food a fluffy loaf of tasty (but empty) calories and
carbohydrates that many people now avoid for health reasons.

So what changed?

Milling and Refining Grains Destroys Their Nutrient

Content
For one, the wheat flour used to make most of the bread products at your
local supermarket has been heavily processed and refined, meaning its been
mostly or entirely stripped of its nutrient content. Then, to create the illusion
that this flour is still somehow healthy after all that its gone through,
manufacturers enrich and/or fortify it with synthetic vitamins and minerals
that, as Ill explain shortly, do nothing for the body in terms of nourishment.
A revealing study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition back
in 1971 found that the milling process alone denatures or destroys nearly half
of the nutrients naturally found in a whole wheat berry within the first 24 hours
following extraction. After 72 hours (three days), nearly all of the nutrients
are lost, including most of the B vitamins, vitamin E, and fiber that are present
in the bran and germ of wheat kernels.
But nearly everything beneficial in whole wheat is lost. Not only as a result of
the milling process, which exposes the nutrients in wheat to irreversibly
damaging oxidative stress, but also the refining and bleaching process which
finishes off the job. All of this milling, refining, and bleaching turns what would
otherwise be nutritious wheat grain into little more than empty wheat starch, a
form of simple sugar that the body ends up storing as fat. Hence why wheat
in general has become something of a food villain in the modern age.
Compositionally speaking, highly-processed wheat flour, a.k.a. starch, is
nothing like wheat grain. It contains almost none of the 22 vitamins and
minerals naturally present in whole wheat, and only trace amounts of fiber,
linoleic acid (omega-6), vitamin E, and amino acids such as lysine, a
necessary component of protein synthesis.

Fortified Wheat Flour Nutrients are Toxic to the

Body
But artificially enriching this flour with the nutrients that were lost during
processing makes everything better, right? Not exactly. The so-called
vitamins added back to refined flour to make it seem edible are
synthetic impostors that the body cant even use. Reduced iron, for instance,
isnt even bioavailable because its in metallic form, which the body doesnt
know how to properly metabolize.
The same is true for folic acid, a synthetic form of natural folate (vitamin B-9)
that the body has an even harder time metabolizing. Folic acid doesnt
undergo the same metabolic cycle as folate, which is metabolized into usable
form by the mucosa that lines the small intestine. Instead, folic acid goes
straight to the liver where its processed so inefficiently that most of it ends
up entering the bloodstream non-metabolized, triggering the growth of
cancer-causing neoplasms.
So what we have with refined, enriched flour is essentially a disguised form of
simple sugar laced with synthetic vitamins and minerals that, for all intents
and purposes, is completely toxic to the body. Seeing as how obesity, heart
disease, and many other chronic health conditions began to skyrocket after
refined flour hit the mainstream, its only logical that this common food additive
is one of the major contributors to the perpetual downward spiral of public
health.
One major study concluded that the current standard intake of synthetic folate
(folic acid), vitamin A, zinc, and sodium exceeds the Tolerable Upper Intake
Level in a significant proportion of toddlers and preschoolers, a finding that a
comprehensive report compiled by the Environmental Working Group (EWG)
cites alongside a consortium of similar evidence to show that synthetic
vitamins and minerals are harmful to health.

Whole Foods are Best, Especially When Sprouted

As tasty and enticing as it might be, wheat flour is simply a no-go when it
comes to maintaining vibrant health. At least the highly refined, fortified
kind. Sticking with only whole grain flour as fresh and close to its natural
state as possible offers the best chance at getting the most out of your
grains. Grains that, contrary to popular thought, are actually healthy for you.
Just like with grains, carbohydrates often get a bad rap for contributing to
weight gain and disease because the kinds we most often think of are those
that come from foods containing sugar and refined flour. But again, these are
the bad carbs that should be avoided, while the good ones
from unrefined sources like fresh fruits and vegetables are beneficial for
energy production and protein metabolization.

A good rule of thumb is to eat foods as close to their natural states as possible
and as fresh as possible. Exposure to oxygen (oxidation), degrades nutrients
and causes foods to turn rancid. Perhaps the best way to consume whole
grains which should always be organic, by the way, because conventional
wheat is often contaminated with pesticides like Roundup (glyphosate) is
in sprouted form. Sprouting not only protects grains from becoming
denatured, it also makes them more digestible and their nutrients more
bioavailable.

The Role of Digestive and Systemic Enzymes

As it turns out, sprouted foods contain upwards of 100-fold more enzymes
than their non-sprouted counterparts. Enzymes serve functional roles both in
digestion and nutrient assimilation. Digestive enzymes help to extract more
nutrients from the foods we eat, and the systemic (proteolytic) enzymes help
our bodies to better metabolize these nutrients.
So stick to nature, friends. Your body will thank you. Youll feel better and live
a longer, stronger, and healthier life. Youll also set a positive example for
others to follow as they learn to value getting real nourishment from whole,
living foods as opposed to just getting full from the processed pretenders such
as enriched or fortified wheat flour.