History
White flour became adopted in many cultures because it was recognized as being healthier than dark flours during the late Middle Ages. The unknown factor for its benefit at that time was that mold and fungus in the grains, which led to several diseases, were eliminated in the processing that resulted in white flour.
In the 1920s, Benjamin R. Jacobs began to document the loss of essential nutrients, however, through this processing of cereals and grains and to demonstrate a method by which the end products could be enriched with the lost nutrients. These nutrients promote good health and help to prevent some diseases. It is because of these benefits that enriched flour is so prevalent today, despite there being no Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations requiring their use.
The international effort to start enriching flour was launched during the 1940s as a means to improve the health of the wartime populations of the British and United States while food was being rationed and alternative sources of the nutrients were scarce. The decision to choose flour for enrichment was based on its commonality in the diets of those wartime populations, ranging from the rich to the poor. A major factor in the switch to enriched flour in the United States was the U.S. Army's restriction in 1942, that it would purchase only enriched flour.
Read more about this topic: Enriched Flour
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“We may pretend that we’re basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.”
—Terry Hands (b. 1941)
“When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“If you look at the 150 years of modern China’s history since the Opium Wars, then you can’t avoid the conclusion that the last 15 years are the best 15 years in China’s modern history.”
—J. Stapleton Roy (b. 1935)