In Guyana we consume a lot of flour mostly in the forms of bread and roti. These are staples at breakfast and sometimes at dinner time. During a recent visit to an ital (vegan) hot spot in the city, I told the server that I felt like eating roti, pumpkin and ‘one-foot’.
She asked, “White or whole wheat”? And the response, from a health-conscious young man like myself, was, “whole wheat”.
But is whole wheat that much better than white? Let’s take a look. The results may surprise you.
In nature, wheat grains are brown because the bran (or outer layer) is brown. When the bran layer is intact, it contains the endosperm and the germ, though only the bran and germ have true nutritional benefit. To get white flour (and hence white bread), wheat grains are stripped of their bran and germ, leaving only the nutrient-poor endosperm.
