One of the
biggest components of most our baked goods is flour. Recently though, flour has gotten a bit of a
bad reputation. What is Flour and where
does it come from? What are the different kinds of flour out there? What is the
difference between a wheat allergy and Celiac’s disease? What is the big deal
about Carbohydrates?
The most
common type of flour that we use is wheat flour. In general, there are two
basic types that you will use when baking, White Flour and Whole Wheat
flour. Each kernel of the wheat plant is
made of three main parts: Bran, Endosperm, and Germ.
The Bran is
the tough outer coat of the wheat kernel.
Bran is high in what people like to call dietary fiber. Fiber is made of cellulose, a part of the
plant that our bodies are unable to break down and digest. As a result, fiber is generally passed
quickly through the digestive tract with only a small amount of nutrients
absorbed. Other examples of fiber are
celery, beans and nuts. The reason why
they say that fiber helps to promote regularity is essentially due to the fact
that since fiber is non-digestible, it will be moved to your colon
quickly. Therefore, the more fiber you
eat, the more you’re going to have to poop.
The Germ is
the part of the kernel that will be used to create a new plant. The germ therefore has a very high amount of
protein, fat, vitamins and minerals. In
general, bakers tend to add wheat germ to their baked goods in order to augment
the nutritional value.
The last
part of the kernel is the endosperm.
This makes up over 80% of kernel and has big chunks of protein with a
massive amount of starch embedded in it. Approximately 70-75% of the endosperm
is made up of starch. The proteins that
you find in the endosperm are called glutenin
and gliadin. When water is added to
these two proteins they form gluten.
Gluten is a protein that creates a tough matrix of strands. It is these strands that help to give
structure to a lot of your baked goods.
Now, White
flour is made from the ground up endosperm, the germ and the bran are
removed. There are three main categories
of white flour available; pastry flour, all-purpose flour, and bread
flour. The primary difference between
these types is the amount of protein.
Pastry flour has 7-9.5% protein, all-purpose has 9.5-11.5% protein, and
bread flour usually has 11.5-13.5% protein content. The reason why we generally use all-purpose
flour is because it fits within the range of bread and pastry flours and can
make a fairly good version of both.
There is also cake flour out there which has 6-8% protein and high
gluten flour which has 13.5-14.5% protein.
As you can see, whenever you make bread you want more protein, and when
you make cake you want less. Since the
proteins are used to make the tough gluten strands, it is understandable that
you wouldn’t want to have a lot of gluten in your cake. I’ve never known anyone to request a ‘chewy’
cake.
Whole wheat
flour is a little different from white flour since it is composed of the entire
wheat kernel. These flours also have a
shorter shelf life than white flour since the bran and germ contain oils which
can go rancid. Whole wheat flours tend to have fairly high protein content at
around 11-14%, but do not produce as much gluten as regular flours. There are a few main reasons for this. The Germ contains gluthathione (a protein)
and the bran contains pentosan gum, both of which hinder the development of
gluten strands. Also, the bran particles
are actually quite sharp and tend to literally cut through the developing gluten
strands.
Types of
Flour
Today,
there are many different types of flour available; Rye flour, rice flour, durum
flour, soy flour, potato flour, etc.
These different types of flours can give you a variety of different
flavors and textures. One of the things
you may want to keep in mind though is that many of these flours do not have
the ability to create gluten. It is
actually because of this fact that they have become popular for the creation of
gluten free products, but additional steps are necessary in order to create a
stable product. For example, a gum such
as xanthan or guar must be added to many products to create a stable
structure. Think about the fact that the
entire structure of your bread is based on gluten strands, then think about
what will happen if they are no longer there.
Wheat
Allergies and Celiac’s Disease.
Wheat
allergies are pretty much the same as any other allergy. The wheat particles are identified as a
foreign object by your body and an allergic reaction ensues. These individuals will generally experience
the same symptoms as any other person who is allergic to something.
Celiac’s
Disease is a little bit different. This is a genetic disorder that creates
problems within an individual’s digestive tract. When someone with Celiac’s
consumes any amount of gluten, it literally damages the walls of the small
intestine, which is where nutrients are absorbed by the body. As a result, this disease has actually
spawned a series of gluten free products to be created.
Carbohydrates
The enemy!
Or some people tend to think. True,
carbohydrates can and will make you fat, however, as I have said before,
moderation is the key! In the case of flour, the carbohydrates are coming from
the starch molecules that we saw are found in the proteins in the
endosperm. The starch molecules are what
we would call a complex carbohydrate. It
is made up of many glucose molecules that are bonded together. This is actually how plants store their
excess glucose (sort of like plant fat cells).
I think at this point you’re starting to get the idea of where we’re
going here. Glucose is essentially the
basis for the majority of our food sources.
Now let’s
talk about how sugars relate into this.
Sugars ARE carbohydrates, they are just simple ones. The difference
between eating a starch and eating a sugar is based on how much energy our
bodies use up to digest them. We saw
last time that sugars are easily metabolized since there is only one bond to
break in disaccharides and no bonds to break in monosaccharides. In the case of polysaccharides, there are
several bonds that need to be broken down in order to fully metabolize the food
source. It is because of this fact that
the sugars that are contained within them are more slowly released into our
blood stream. Having a rapid entry of
glucose into our blood makes our bodies tend to store them as fat since there
is far too much to be utilized immediately.
When we eat polysaccharides, the sugars are released more slowly, thus
allowing our bodies to utilize them over time.
This will help prevent the glucose from being converted to glycogen and
stored in our fat cells.
There is a
key point here that is sort of implied.
In order for our bodies to utilize the energy that we are giving it, we
need to be active! It is great to eat
complex carbohydrates since they release their sugars slowly, but if we are
just sitting on the couch, our bodies will still have far too much glucose and
will still be stored as fat. There is
absolutely nothing wrong with a nice pasta dinner with some nice artisan
breads, unless you fill up then sit around doing nothing for the next few hours.
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