Labels, Information and Knowledge

Reader Contribution by Jim Baker
Published on June 11, 2015
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Hello, again, my huge fan base of readers. (I am aware of four for sure.) The dinosaur that is me is once more going to go where I have gone before with others, just not here quite yet.

I recently watched a documentary on foods, particularly processed foods, and the young woman in the one clip said she wouldn’t buy anything at the grocery store where the label listed more than five ingredients. Two percent milk from my grocery store lists three. That sugar-coated frosted cornflakes cereal we all love and grew up with, 17 ingredients. A small can of peas from the store, four, a small can of pinto beans, five. Pick up any box, bag, can, jar, bottle or sleeve of any product in any grocery store in this country and you will be hard pressed to find things with five ingredients or less.

Then we get into the huge plethora of ‘all natural,’ ‘organic,’ low fat, low sodium, healthy, etc., etc., etc. I was reading a label on a ‘breakfast biscuit’ thing. First ingredient – ‘whole grain wheat flour.’ Second ingredient – ‘enriched flour,’ and it then lists all the added vitamins, minerals, preservatives, salt, soy, oats, sugar, etc., etc., they have added to make it ‘enriched.’ All told, roughly 30 more things were added to the ‘enrichment process.’ And one of those happens to be whole grain rye flour.

Which makes this old man ask two questions, how do they cut all those grains in half for making flour when they don’t use the ‘whole grain’? And then that begs the question – why? Then one more question – what do they do with the part they don’t make into flour? Flour, wheat flour, unadorned, is, from what I have learned throughout my life, made from wheat. The wheat grain – in its whole, whether it is in one piece or not – when it goes into the mill is what wheat flour is made out of. The same holds true for rye flour I would have to believe.

I find it hard to believe that at some potato flour facility someplace they are cutting potatoes in half so half can be used for making flour and the other half for making potato chips or something else entirely. I think they would find it more cost effective and advantageous to just use the whole potato, wouldn’t you agree?

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