URGENT flour advice required. Time sensitive!!!

[mytwopenceworth]

As I am doing my Tesco (I know, I know, but they are the only ones who deliver round here!!) shop and I need to know what the most healthy flour is.

Brown, farm, buckwheat (eh?), wholegrain, seeded.....

argh!

I do scones and chapatis mainly, but sometimes cakes and buns (usually if the schools want them!)

But I don't like using white flour. We switched to granary/wholegrain etc etc everything else but this Which Flour thing is a toughie.

So.

Which Flour??

I'm guessing wholegrain is the healthiest, but would be gross in cake baking?

Depends on what your priorities are really. White flour isn't UNhealthy per se, it's just a more concentrated source of energy than wholemeal, and doesn't provide any fibre. But you can't make cakes with wholemeal flour - at least you can, but they will be disgusting. Better to make nice cakes and eat a cake one day and a bowl of all-bran the next, IMHO.

Granary btw is not really any healthier than white, it is just white bread with added malt sugar (to make it brown) and a handful of grains which go straight through you.

Doves Farm is very good btw, does tasty organic stoneground wholemeal and strong white.

depends what you're making

if something like a carrot cake / courgette cake then wholemeal flour is fine

I'm afraid for the traditional cakes like madeira etc then only white flour really works

for breads depends what kind of bread you like

I wouldn't discount white flours .. they serve a purpose .. I would suppose it would be the butter / marg and sugar / honey / molasses / natural sweeteners that would be more important than the flour

that's what I thought coleyboy. I thought white stuff (bread, rice etc) was the food of the devil and we had to switch or be damned for all eternity! So I can continue to use white flour without guilt then, MissG?!

xpost Twig. thanks. I use sweetener or honey instead of sugar atm. Is that better or not much difference?

Well it depends- white rice is just ordinary rice that has been husked, so you lose some of the fibre.

White bread has had the wheat-germ removed and some of the vitamins.

Brown bread is white bread with added husks but no wheat-germ.

Wholemeal is the whole grain and has more vitamins, it is my first choice for bread but I wouldn't use it for baking.

Granary, as I said below, is white bread with added malt and whole grains.

I try to eat more wholemeal bread because it is more nutritious (and more filling so you eat less!) but I use white flour for baking (and white rice) without guilt. It isn't BAD for you, it just isn't as GOOD for you (does that m ake sense?)

Agree with MissG, Dove's Farm is one of the best.

IMO you should worry more about what is in the other ingrediants (artifical sweetners etc) rather than the type of flour you use.

Oh and on the subject of sweetners and margarine, I NEVER use either.

Personally I try not to feed anything to my family (or me) that hasn't been road-tested on at least a couple of centuries of human guinea-pigs. I always thought there was something weird about saying unhydrogenated fats were better for you, and then artificially hydrogenating them to make margarine, and guess what? They discovered the process created loats of trans fats and were far worse for you than good old butter.

If you're going to eat something sinful and nice (like a cake) then IMHO it is better to eat the real deal in moderation, than fool your tastebuds with poor imitations. But I realise I am on a hobby-horse here.

x-posted with you Coleyboy!

I would use sugar over sweetener every time tbh and it wouldn't bother me

oh, I buy 'healthy living enriched sunflower spread' (sounds so good, doesn't it?!!) for everything - toast, sarnies & baking.

Am I doing any good, really?

well it just depends what your priorities are really.

If you are diabetic then obviously sweetners are a good thing, and safer than sugar.

If you are normal, healthy adult and not vastly overweight then what's the advantage of eating some chemical instead of real sugar?

As for enriched spreads and stuff, personally I would rather eat butter (partly just because I prefer the taste) and make sure I eat a healthy diet. There is lots of evidence that supplements are at best unnecessary and at worst harmful, so personally I prefer just to stop stressing and eat a good, varied diet.

Sorry, I realise I am ranting. All these omega 3 eggs and stuff are one of my pet hates.

Don't know if this is an urban myth, but apparantly if they didn't put colour in margarine, it would be black!

Move away from the marg and head towards the butter if I were you!!

Miss Golightly I completely agree with you

Its sugar and butter for me all rounds.... not chemicals that have the same molecular shape to stimulate the same tastes on the tounge for me as well!

Am particulary strict with aspartane.... you could not pay me to cosume that (in some studies they have proven a link between it and cancer but our government disagree ) stuff

Ewually having found out how they make that splender (ie from sugar not chemicals) stuff there is NO WAY i would consume that either!

hooray, shall we form a butter-lovers anonymous NannyL?

I am not sure about marg being black - but I think it's true most would not be yellow without the artificial colours. I think most would be white as the fats turn white when they are hydrogenated...? (May be wrong about this!) I have actually used uncoloured soya spread and it looks like lard - yum.