August 2018
Ingredients to success through appreciation – "Nothing inherently better or worse" Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains or roots and used to make many different foods. Cereal flour (such as wheat) is the main ingredient of course of bread – a staple food for most cultures.
During the milling process, different parts of the wheat grain are used to make different types of flour. White flour is made from the endosperm only, whereas wholemeal flour uses all parts of the grain – the endosperm, the wheat germ and the bran layer. Brown flour contains about 85 percent of the original grain, but some bran and germ have been removed.
There are others of course, including: Wheatgerm (white or brown flour with at least 10 percent added wheatgerm), Malted wheat grain (brown or wholemeal flour with added malted grains), Stoneground (wholemeal flour ground traditionally between two stones), Organic (made from grain grown to organic standards, growers and millers must be registered and are subject to regular inspections).
You can also get flours which are not made from wheat, other grains used include: rye, maize and oats. Not to mention nuts such as hazelnut, coconut, potato, peas and chickpeas. Though each of these flours will have a different nutritional make up to wheat flour and to each other, they are not inherently better for you, nor worse. Unless you have an allergy of course (such as coeliac disease) there is no medical or health benefit to choosing a non-wheat flour.
Taking these facts about flour and the milling process, I"d like to make a connection to how flour is milled and how we can take this idea, that different parts of the same original object (to an extent) can still create excellent outcomes, each important and desirable in their own right.
Different people offer different purposes and different benefits to a company or project, bringing different skills and expertise to something creates a much-needed diversity with these ingredients and talents. Without which, the choice for those interested in the product/business (or the flour for their bread) would be very limited, and therefore perhaps bland. This hypothesis may seem like pointing out the glaringly obvious, or perhaps even a sweeping generalisation. But sometimes even the most obvious things are the most difficult to see and appreciate.
Although millers are towards the top of the food chain for arguably the most important staple food on the planet, if you were to ask the consumer or just somebody in a supermarket buying their bread – the history and work that has gone into the farm to table journey – perhaps would not be so obvious to them that without the "middle-man miller", we"d be putting cheese or ham in-between two very dry stalks of wheat. Milling is an undeniable industry, more needed than most, but it is also possibly the most unknown.
So, with that being said, take a step back from what you"re doing right now, and take a moment to appreciate all the little things that make what you"re creating great, and better than most – because it will be these little things that make it special. We all have different "nutritional" make-up, but nothing inherently "better or worse", just different – and different, creates choice and flavour.
