What is unbleached all purpose flour?
Americans have this awful belief that everything needs to be white. So they bleach flour to make it white. Bleaching removes many nutrients though. The unbleached flour is much better for you, and tastes better too. Given a choice, you probably wouldn’t add things like benzoyl peroxide, chlorine dioxide, and potassium bromate to the cookies you’re making for the family picnic. But at least one of these chemicals is already found in most flours in America. Most flour companies add benzoyl peroxide or chlorine dioxide to chemically whiten — that is, bleach — their flours. Some add potassium bromate to artificially strengthen their flours. When you hear benzoyl peroxide, you probably think acne cream, in which benzoyl peroxide is the active ingredient. Chlorine dioxide? Anyone who’s done the laundry or cleaned the swimming pool knows that chlorine is the key agent in liquid bleach. For its part, potassium bromate is a suspected carcinogen that has been banned from food products in Europ
