What do the various wheat ingredients listed on the nutritional label on packaged breads mean?
Wheat Flour: According to the regulations issued by the United States Food and Drug Administration, white or wheat flour is void of most of the bran and germ. 21 CFR 137.105. Accordingly, wheat flour is flour composed primarily of the endosperm of the wheat berry and therefore is primarily starch with little nutritional value. Enriched Wheat Flour: Enriched flour is flour freed of most of the bran and germ as well as twenty-eight (28) of the thirty (30) known minerals, vitamins and trace elements in the milling process, but has had four (4) to five (5) of these lost nutrients added back. Thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, folic acid, which are all B vitamins, and iron are the nutrients added back to Enriched Flour, white or wheat. The term “enriched” means that vitamins and minerals lost in the milling process are added back to the flour. Fortified Wheat Flour: Fortified means that vitamins or minerals not contained in the original wheat grain are added to the flour. Calcium is an example of
