58.
The Whiter The Bread, The Quicker You’re Dead!
The Scourge of Refined White Flour
The scourge of the 21 century is not war, famine, or plague. While most of the worlds population still struggles with
these problems, there is even a bigger scourge that is taking its toll. Its called carbohydrate poisoning and it is caused by processed & refined foods, and an eating style promoted by corporate marketing and the medical community and it is now killing people more then ever before.
Here’s an important rule to remember: the more a food is refined, the more you should stay away from it.
What are refined foods? Refined foods are highly processed foods that have been stripped of their original nutrient content and fibre. Refined white flour, white pasta, and white sugar are just some examples.
To get the conveniences of high-tech food processing, mass-production, mass-marketing, long shelf life, uniformity of final product, even coloration, and soft texture, we create nutritional deficiencies. The food processing industry deceptively markets its products as more convenient versions of what grandmother once did in her kitchen. That is far from the truth!
Most of today’s mass-produced foods are seriously depleted of nutrients and are highly chemicalized with additives. Processed foods today are not just more sophisticated and more convenient versions of the foods eaten by our ancestors. The basic molecular structure of what remains is also degraded and nutritionally inferior.
Processed refined foods deliver a double whammy to your system. While overloading the body with glucose that raises insulin levels in the blood which shuts down fat burning, the chemicals used in processing to increase shelf life and promote taste, slowly damages the body’s ability to properly use these foods as fuel by damaging the very cells this fuel is intended for.
Consider a loaf of sliced white bread. First, the wheat is stripped of bran and fibre, and then it’s pulverised into the finest white flour. The baking process puffs it up into light, airy slices of bread. No wonder your stomach makes such quick work of it. A slice of white bread hits your bloodstream with the same jolt you’d get by eating a tablespoon of sugar right from the bowl!
Genuine 100-per cent whole-wheat or whole-grain bread, on the other hand – the coarse, chewy kind with a thick crust and visible pieces of grain – puts your stomach to work. It too is made of wheat, but the grains haven’t been processed to death. It contains starches, which are just chains of sugars, but they are bound up with the fibre, so digestion takes longer. As a result, the sugars are released gradually into the bloodstream. If there’s no sudden surge in blood sugar, your pancreas won’t produce as much insulin, and you won’t get the exaggerated hunger and cravings for moresugary and starchy carbs.
Until recently, grains were ground between large stones to make flour. Everything in the original grain remained in the finished product, including the germ, the fiber, the starch, and a wide spectrum of vitamins and minerals. The final product contained all the naturally occurring vitamins, minerals and micronutrients.
In the absence of refrigeration, stone-ground flour spoils quickly. After wheat has been ground, natural wheat-germ oil becomes rancid at about the same rate that milk becomes sour.
Hippocrates, a physician in ancient Greece, once recommended stone-ground flour, complete with its vitamins, minerals, natural bran and dietary fiber, for beneficial effects on the digestive tract. Today, three-fourths of that dietary fiber is removed from commercial flour. Partially as a result, constipation is very common.
During the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century, assembly-line techniques for mass-producing flour and bread were developed. Grinding stones were not fast enough for mass-production. High-speed, steel roller mills were invented, to produce flour very rapidly. Grain mills thus earned higher profits.
High-speed mills do not grind the germ and the bran properly and it is ejected. Much of the original grain, including the most nutritious portion, is taken out and sold as “byproducts” for animals. Animals are often better nourished than people are. It’s been cynically observed that more profit can be made from healthy animals and sick people.
High-speed mills run very hot, at 400 degrees Fahrenheit, just under the temperature that will burn and discolor the flour. That high heat destroys many vitamins. (While baking, the interior of bread does not get much hotter than 170 degrees, which is much less harmful to vitamins.) Since the late nineteenth century, white bread, biscuits and cakes made from white flour and sugar have become mainstays in the diets of industrialized nations.
Most bread is now manufactured in large factories capable of producing up to a quarter million loaves per day. This mass-produced bread is soft, gooey, devitalized, and nutritionally deficient--laced with chemical additives. Public taste is accustomed to such bread. People have forgotten how real bread tastes. Chemical preservatives allow bread to be shipped long distances and to remain on the shelf for many days without spoiling and without refrigeration. Again, resulting in higher profits.
these problems, there is even a bigger scourge that is taking its toll. Its called carbohydrate poisoning and it is caused by processed & refined foods, and an eating style promoted by corporate marketing and the medical community and it is now killing people more then ever before.
Here’s an important rule to remember: the more a food is refined, the more you should stay away from it.
What are refined foods? Refined foods are highly processed foods that have been stripped of their original nutrient content and fibre. Refined white flour, white pasta, and white sugar are just some examples.
To get the conveniences of high-tech food processing, mass-production, mass-marketing, long shelf life, uniformity of final product, even coloration, and soft texture, we create nutritional deficiencies. The food processing industry deceptively markets its products as more convenient versions of what grandmother once did in her kitchen. That is far from the truth!
Most of today’s mass-produced foods are seriously depleted of nutrients and are highly chemicalized with additives. Processed foods today are not just more sophisticated and more convenient versions of the foods eaten by our ancestors. The basic molecular structure of what remains is also degraded and nutritionally inferior.
Processed refined foods deliver a double whammy to your system. While overloading the body with glucose that raises insulin levels in the blood which shuts down fat burning, the chemicals used in processing to increase shelf life and promote taste, slowly damages the body’s ability to properly use these foods as fuel by damaging the very cells this fuel is intended for.
Consider a loaf of sliced white bread. First, the wheat is stripped of bran and fibre, and then it’s pulverised into the finest white flour. The baking process puffs it up into light, airy slices of bread. No wonder your stomach makes such quick work of it. A slice of white bread hits your bloodstream with the same jolt you’d get by eating a tablespoon of sugar right from the bowl!
Genuine 100-per cent whole-wheat or whole-grain bread, on the other hand – the coarse, chewy kind with a thick crust and visible pieces of grain – puts your stomach to work. It too is made of wheat, but the grains haven’t been processed to death. It contains starches, which are just chains of sugars, but they are bound up with the fibre, so digestion takes longer. As a result, the sugars are released gradually into the bloodstream. If there’s no sudden surge in blood sugar, your pancreas won’t produce as much insulin, and you won’t get the exaggerated hunger and cravings for moresugary and starchy carbs.
Until recently, grains were ground between large stones to make flour. Everything in the original grain remained in the finished product, including the germ, the fiber, the starch, and a wide spectrum of vitamins and minerals. The final product contained all the naturally occurring vitamins, minerals and micronutrients.
In the absence of refrigeration, stone-ground flour spoils quickly. After wheat has been ground, natural wheat-germ oil becomes rancid at about the same rate that milk becomes sour.
Hippocrates, a physician in ancient Greece, once recommended stone-ground flour, complete with its vitamins, minerals, natural bran and dietary fiber, for beneficial effects on the digestive tract. Today, three-fourths of that dietary fiber is removed from commercial flour. Partially as a result, constipation is very common.
During the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century, assembly-line techniques for mass-producing flour and bread were developed. Grinding stones were not fast enough for mass-production. High-speed, steel roller mills were invented, to produce flour very rapidly. Grain mills thus earned higher profits.
High-speed mills do not grind the germ and the bran properly and it is ejected. Much of the original grain, including the most nutritious portion, is taken out and sold as “byproducts” for animals. Animals are often better nourished than people are. It’s been cynically observed that more profit can be made from healthy animals and sick people.
High-speed mills run very hot, at 400 degrees Fahrenheit, just under the temperature that will burn and discolor the flour. That high heat destroys many vitamins. (While baking, the interior of bread does not get much hotter than 170 degrees, which is much less harmful to vitamins.) Since the late nineteenth century, white bread, biscuits and cakes made from white flour and sugar have become mainstays in the diets of industrialized nations.
Most bread is now manufactured in large factories capable of producing up to a quarter million loaves per day. This mass-produced bread is soft, gooey, devitalized, and nutritionally deficient--laced with chemical additives. Public taste is accustomed to such bread. People have forgotten how real bread tastes. Chemical preservatives allow bread to be shipped long distances and to remain on the shelf for many days without spoiling and without refrigeration. Again, resulting in higher profits.
Flour Treatments - Bleaching Makes The Flour Whiter
The term “bleaching” is a traditional baking industry term that describes the process of whitening.
Through the years, various chemicals have entered the picture to “improve” white flour, including benzoyl peroxide, potassium bromate, ammonium persulfate, alloxan and chlorine dioxide for bleaching. Chlorine dioxide destroys the remaining vitamin E in flour, thus causing the starch to swell; something the baker actually appreciates not knowing how and why it happens.
As early as 1919, the US Public Health Service announced a definite connection between over-refined flour and the diseases beri-beri and pellagra (both of which are vitamin-deficiency diseases). But why is the public still given white flour and white bread as the predominant options today? Because we prefer to buy them.
To make bread a brighter white, at the expense of consumer health, flour is treated with chemical bleach, similar to Clorox. The bleaching process leaves residues of toxic chlorinated hydrocarbons and dioxins. Methionine, an essential amino acid, reacts with bleaching chemicals to form methionine sulfoxine. That toxic residue causes nervousness and seizures in animals.
The bleaching process destroys many vitamins (those not already destroyed by the high heat of milling). Bleaching agents have therefore been banned for breadmaking in Germany since 1958. In the United States, however, no such ban exists and the bleached bread continues to be the mainstay.
Most white flour used in supermarket bread, rolls, cakes, pastries, spaghetti, noodles, pasta, and breakfast cereals, has been bleached.
Grain millers in the nineteenth century soon discovered that highly refined flour would keep without spoiling for prolonged periods, even before the days of chemical preservatives and refrigeration. It’s now clear refined flour is so depleted of essential vitamins and minerals that it will not support life. Even the insects and rodents cannot live on it! Can humans be expected to fare any better?
Dr Weston A. Price showed effect of different wheat products in an experiment on rats.
The bleaching process destroys many vitamins (those not already destroyed by the high heat of milling). Bleaching agents have therefore been banned for breadmaking in Germany since 1958. In the United States, however, no such ban exists and the bleached bread continues to be the mainstay.
Most white flour used in supermarket bread, rolls, cakes, pastries, spaghetti, noodles, pasta, and breakfast cereals, has been bleached.
Grain millers in the nineteenth century soon discovered that highly refined flour would keep without spoiling for prolonged periods, even before the days of chemical preservatives and refrigeration. It’s now clear refined flour is so depleted of essential vitamins and minerals that it will not support life. Even the insects and rodents cannot live on it! Can humans be expected to fare any better?
Dr Weston A. Price showed effect of different wheat products in an experiment on rats.
The experiment was conducted with three rats all of which received the same diet, except for the type of bread. The first rat (at the left) received whole-wheat products freshly ground, the center one received a white flour product and the third (at the right) a bran and middlings product. The amounts of each ash, of calcium as the oxide, and of phosphorus as the pentoxide; and the amounts of iron and copper present in the diet of each group are shown by the height of the columns beneath the rats.
Clinically it will be seen that there is a marked difference in the physical development of these rats.
Several rats of the same age were in each cage. The feeding was started after weaning at about twenty-three days of age. The rat at the left was on the entire grain product. It was fully developed. The rats in this cage reproduced normally at three months of age. The rats in this first cage had very mild dispositions and could be picked up by the ear or tail without danger of their biting.
The rats represented by the one in the center cage using white flour were markedly undersized. Their hair came out in large patches and they had very ugly dispositions, so ugly that they threatened to spring through the cage wall at us when we came to look at them. These rats had tooth decay and they were not able to reproduce.
The rats in the next cage (illustrated by the rat to the right) which were on the bran and middlings mixture did not show tooth decay, but were considerably undersized, and they lacked energy.
The flour and middlings for the rats in cages two and three were purchased from the miller and hence were not freshly ground. The wheat given to the first group was obtained whole and ground while fresh in a hand mill.
It is of interest that notwithstanding the great increase in ash, calcium, phosphorus, iron and copper present in the foods of the last group, the rats did not mature normally, as did those in the first group.
This may have been due in large part to the fact that the material was not freshly ground, and as a result they could not obtain a normal vitamin content from the embryo of the grain due to its oxidation.
This is further indicated by the fact that the rats in this group did not reproduce, probably due in considerable part to a lack of vitamins B and E which were lost by oxidation of the embryo or germ fat.
Clinically it will be seen that there is a marked difference in the physical development of these rats.
Several rats of the same age were in each cage. The feeding was started after weaning at about twenty-three days of age. The rat at the left was on the entire grain product. It was fully developed. The rats in this cage reproduced normally at three months of age. The rats in this first cage had very mild dispositions and could be picked up by the ear or tail without danger of their biting.
The rats represented by the one in the center cage using white flour were markedly undersized. Their hair came out in large patches and they had very ugly dispositions, so ugly that they threatened to spring through the cage wall at us when we came to look at them. These rats had tooth decay and they were not able to reproduce.
The rats in the next cage (illustrated by the rat to the right) which were on the bran and middlings mixture did not show tooth decay, but were considerably undersized, and they lacked energy.
The flour and middlings for the rats in cages two and three were purchased from the miller and hence were not freshly ground. The wheat given to the first group was obtained whole and ground while fresh in a hand mill.
It is of interest that notwithstanding the great increase in ash, calcium, phosphorus, iron and copper present in the foods of the last group, the rats did not mature normally, as did those in the first group.
This may have been due in large part to the fact that the material was not freshly ground, and as a result they could not obtain a normal vitamin content from the embryo of the grain due to its oxidation.
This is further indicated by the fact that the rats in this group did not reproduce, probably due in considerable part to a lack of vitamins B and E which were lost by oxidation of the embryo or germ fat.
Enriched Flour
When grain is made into refined white flour, more than 30 essential nutrients are largely removed. Only four of those nutrients are added back in a process called “enrichment.” Using this same logic, if a person were robbed of 30 dollars and the thief then returned 4 dollars to his victim for cab fare home, then that person should be considered “enriched” by 4 dollars, not robbed of 26 dollars.
How would you feel in that situation? You should feel the same about “enriched” white flour and bread? Only vitamins B1, B2, B3, and iron are added back. Nutrients which are removed and not returned include 44% of the vitamin E, 52% of the pantothenic acid, 65% of the folic acid, 76% of the biotin, 84% of the vitamin B6, and half or more of 20 minerals and trace elements, includingmagnesium, calcium, zinc, chromium, manganese, selenium, vanadium, and copper.
How would you feel in that situation? You should feel the same about “enriched” white flour and bread? Only vitamins B1, B2, B3, and iron are added back. Nutrients which are removed and not returned include 44% of the vitamin E, 52% of the pantothenic acid, 65% of the folic acid, 76% of the biotin, 84% of the vitamin B6, and half or more of 20 minerals and trace elements, includingmagnesium, calcium, zinc, chromium, manganese, selenium, vanadium, and copper.
White flour contains diabetes-causing contaminant alloxan. You may want to think twice before eating your next sandwich on white bread. Studies show that alloxan, the chemical that makes white flour look “clean” and “beautiful,” destroys the beta cells of the pancreas.
In June, 2005 Mr. Dani Veracity reported on Natural News issue, “The FDA and the white flour industry could counter-argue that, if alloxan were to cause diabetes, a higher proportion of Americans would be diabetic. After all, more consumers consume white flour on a regular basis than are actually diabetic.”
In September 2008, three years after the report of Mr. Dani Veracity, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued the following report:
“New evidence shows that at least 57 million people in the United States have prediabetes. Coupled with the nearly 24 million who already have diabetes, this places more than 25% of our population at risk for further complications and suffering. Together, we can and must do more to prevent and control this growing epidemic.”
Removal of natural nutrients and substituting them with a few synthetic ones, is in itself a dangerous practice. Body can never handle the synthetic nutrients in the same way as it does the natural ones.
If consumers would just educate themselves in the principles of good nutrition and show an educated preference at the checkout counter, the food industry would be forced to respond with more nutritious products.
Iron, the single mineral added back to enriched white flour, is present in toxic amounts in the bodies of many older people. Iron as an additive contributes widely to premature atherosclerosis, heart attacks, strokes, arthritis, cancer and other age-related diseases.
It is quite possible that enrichment of flour with iron has been poisoning the public for decades. Avoidance of unneeded iron supplementation is reason enough in itself not to buy so-called “enriched” flour products.
Deceptive marketing practices are widespread. Much of the bread now marketed as “whole-wheat bread” is the same old refined white bread with a little brown coloring added. That coloring is usually burnt sugar, listed on the label as caramel.
One manufacturer even added sawdust to replace the lost bran, calling it cellulose on the label and advertising it as “high-fiber” bread. It is legal to describe inferior flour as “whole wheat” on the label, even when the bran and germ have been removed in high-speed roller mills.
It is slow and more expensive to mass-produce bread made with l00% stone-ground whole-wheat flour. Manufacturers go to great lengths to mislead the public by making inferior products appear of higher quality.
Without chemical preservatives bread spoils rapidly. It quickly becomes stale, hard and moldy. To market nutritious whole-grain, unrefined bread over long distances would require refrigerator trucks for delivery and refrigerator storage in super-markets. Even under refrigeration, spoilage would be faster than with chemicalized bread. That would add greatly to expense. Profits would be smaller. Production of truly nutritious bread therefore falls to small local bakeries, which sell direct or deliver daily to nearby stores.
Scientific evidence implicates a low-fiber diet of refined flour as one cause of bowel cancer. Without bran, transit time through the digestive tract is greatly lengthened. Constipation results, causing hemorrhoids, diverticulitis and increased risk of colon and rectal cancer.
Dr. Barrie (Nutritional anterior pituitary deficiency) reports that partial deficiency of vitamin E, as shown in the case of the female rat, results in the prolongation of gestation which may be continued as long as ten days beyond the normal period. The offspring under these conditions are abnormal. Further, animals deficient in vitamin E, occasionally give birth to a litter, but fail to lactate.
When we realize that one of the best sources of vitamin E is wheat germ, most of which is removed from white flour, usually along with four-fifths of the mineral, we see one cause of the tragedy that is overwhelming so many individuals in our modern civilization.
If consumers would just educate themselves in the principles of good nutrition and show an educated preference at the checkout counter, the food industry would be forced to respond with more nutritious products.
Iron, the single mineral added back to enriched white flour, is present in toxic amounts in the bodies of many older people. Iron as an additive contributes widely to premature atherosclerosis, heart attacks, strokes, arthritis, cancer and other age-related diseases.
It is quite possible that enrichment of flour with iron has been poisoning the public for decades. Avoidance of unneeded iron supplementation is reason enough in itself not to buy so-called “enriched” flour products.
Deceptive marketing practices are widespread. Much of the bread now marketed as “whole-wheat bread” is the same old refined white bread with a little brown coloring added. That coloring is usually burnt sugar, listed on the label as caramel.
One manufacturer even added sawdust to replace the lost bran, calling it cellulose on the label and advertising it as “high-fiber” bread. It is legal to describe inferior flour as “whole wheat” on the label, even when the bran and germ have been removed in high-speed roller mills.
It is slow and more expensive to mass-produce bread made with l00% stone-ground whole-wheat flour. Manufacturers go to great lengths to mislead the public by making inferior products appear of higher quality.
Without chemical preservatives bread spoils rapidly. It quickly becomes stale, hard and moldy. To market nutritious whole-grain, unrefined bread over long distances would require refrigerator trucks for delivery and refrigerator storage in super-markets. Even under refrigeration, spoilage would be faster than with chemicalized bread. That would add greatly to expense. Profits would be smaller. Production of truly nutritious bread therefore falls to small local bakeries, which sell direct or deliver daily to nearby stores.
Scientific evidence implicates a low-fiber diet of refined flour as one cause of bowel cancer. Without bran, transit time through the digestive tract is greatly lengthened. Constipation results, causing hemorrhoids, diverticulitis and increased risk of colon and rectal cancer.
Dr. Barrie (Nutritional anterior pituitary deficiency) reports that partial deficiency of vitamin E, as shown in the case of the female rat, results in the prolongation of gestation which may be continued as long as ten days beyond the normal period. The offspring under these conditions are abnormal. Further, animals deficient in vitamin E, occasionally give birth to a litter, but fail to lactate.
When we realize that one of the best sources of vitamin E is wheat germ, most of which is removed from white flour, usually along with four-fifths of the mineral, we see one cause of the tragedy that is overwhelming so many individuals in our modern civilization.
I am 94 years old and in good health for my age. I walk 2-3 km daily. In my youth, due to various reasons, we were not allowed to eat anything not made in our house. As a child, I never saw biscuits, buns, breads or other white flour items in Tiruvaiyaru, (South India), at least not in the shops near our house. We ate two meals of rice, vegetables, sambar, rasam and pickles, at 11am and 7 pm. In between we drank coffee or mostly buttermilk. We walked everywhere. The lucky ones rode bicycles.
I find my grandchildren and great grandchildren eating and drinking all the time. Most of it is impulsive eating or absent-minded eating. Often they don't realize that they ate! There is a lot of refined and highly processed food, mostly of white flour and sugary, fizzy drinks.
All my grandchildren--in their 30s and early 40s--have health problems. My great-grandchildren are all overweight. The culprit: refined food, no vigorous exercise. They say my childhood eating pattern is primitive. I'm the one laughing at them!
~N.Mahalingam, Mar 17, 2012
Investigations indicate that Nature has put just the right amount of embryo in each grain of wheat to accompany that quantity of food. If the whole wheat is prepared and eaten promptly after grinding and exposing the embryo to oxidation, the effect desired by Nature is adequately provided.
Make Your Own Whole Grain Flour, Fresh At Home
Many companies are selling Home Grain Mills. These are also called mini or domestic flour mills. With one such mill, you can make your own healthy wholesome flour, right in your kitchen. They don’t occupy much space either. These mills can grind any type of grain. Freshly ground flours have all their nutrients intact and the taste is also very different. It doesn’t take much time or effort to grind the flour for a small family. Some of the brands can be ordered online.
One such popular brand is WonderMill Grain Mill. You can create super fine flour or coarse flour at temperatures that preserve nutrients. The WonderMill can grind over 100 pounds of flour in an hour. It not only grinds wheat, rice and other small grains, but also legumes and beans as large as garbanzos.
One such popular brand is WonderMill Grain Mill. You can create super fine flour or coarse flour at temperatures that preserve nutrients. The WonderMill can grind over 100 pounds of flour in an hour. It not only grinds wheat, rice and other small grains, but also legumes and beans as large as garbanzos.
So I see in your this Mauritius land, you have got enough land to produce food grains. You produce food grain. I understand that instead of growing food grains, you are growing sugar cane for exporting. Why? And you are dependent on food grains, on rice, wheat, dahl. Why? Why this attempt? You first of all grow your own eatables. And if there is time and if your population has got sufficient food grains, then you can try to grow other fruits and vegetables for exporting. The first necessity is that you should be self-sufficient. That is God's arrangement. Everywhere there is sufficient land to produce food grains, not only in your country. I have traveled all over the world -- Africa, Australia, and other, in America also. There are so much land vacant that if we produce food grains, then we can feed ten times as much population as at the present moment. There is no question of scarcity. The whole creation is so made by Krishna that everything is purnam, complete.
~ Srila Prabhupada (Lecture, Srimad-Bhagavatam 7.5.30, Mauritius, October 2, 1975)