Not only do organic flours and meals offer the kind of full flavor that comes from grains grown in soils rich in organic matter, but they are often used in whole grain form, which increases their flavor and nutrition even more.
Kathleen Weber, who runs Della Fattoria, one of the best organic bakeries in California’s wine country, describes why organic bread is so good:
Commercially grown wheat sends out shallow roots that only absorb the chemical fertilizers given to it. Organic wheat roots have to go deep, where they get what they need to add richness and flavor to the grain. It makes better flour.
Over-processed flours from chemically grown grain are gray, not gold and warm and beautiful like organic flour.
The gold color Kathleen praised comes from an abundance of carotene—the precursor of vitamin A—in the organic wheat. Great taste and great nutrition is the winning combination that careful bakers like Weber achieve by using organic flours and meals.
NUTRITION
Whole-grain flours and meals contain complex carbohydrates that contribute to good health. They comprise bran, the fibrous covering of the grain; the germ, the seed’s embryo; and the endosperm, the protein-rich starchy part. Refining removes the bran and the germ, where most of the trace elements and vitamins lie. Most often the endosperm is ground to flour by hammer mills or roller mills that create quite a lot of heat. The heat destroys enzymes and further reduces nutrients. Bleaching to turn the flour white further reduces nutrients. Refining removes 80 percent of wheat’s magnesium, 70 to 80 percent of its zinc, nearly 90 percent of its chromium and manganese, and 50 percent of its cobalt—trace elements the body uses to function properly. It also removes most of the thiamine, riboflavin, and niacin, which the government mandates be put back—but is invariably added back chemically.
Organic stone-ground whole-wheat flour, on the other hand, contains all the bran and germ. It is not bleached. The stone milling creates much lower temperatures than the high speed mills, preserving nutrients. There’s a great deal of evidence of the benefits of whole-wheat flour. One study, called the Nurses’ Health Study, surveyed 65,173 women’s diets. Among the results are lower rates of heart disease, less obesity, less diabetes, and healthier digestion and regularity.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR
Some good sources of organic flours are Champlain Valley Mills, Community Mill and Bean, Cooks Natural Products, Giusto’s, and Arrowhead Mills, all available on the East Coast; Cooks, Giusto’s, and Arrow-head are available on the West Coast. In the center of the country you may be able to find flours from all these sources. If not, check for mail-order suppliers of organic flours.
STORAGE
Whole-grain flour or meal should be stored in the freezer. It contains the oil-rich germ that can go rancid if left at room temperature. Whether wheat, corn, rice, quinoa, spelt, barley, millet, or any other flour or meal, make it whole-grain as well as organic. That doesn’t mean you have to go without your all-purpose flour or pastry flour for making delicate baked goods. But it does mean that for regular consumption, whole grains have such proven and obvious health benefits that it’s only smart to use them as much as possible.
USES
When baking bread, look for organic flour ground from whole wheatberries—that way you get the maximum nutritional content.
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