Baking&Snack - December 2016 - 64

THE TREND AMONG BAKERS TO MOVE AWAY FROM ENRICHED FLOUR RAISES ...

Troubling Questions
S

Sometimes a relatively simple question opens the door
to a much more complex concern. In this case, it's a concern that has long troubled me, as it should every other
food professional who cares about the nutritional quality of the foods our industry offers to consumers.
"Why would a dough conditioner contain enriched
flour?" someone asked me. I put on my regulatory hat
and replied that the answer is simple. If the supplier sells
that ingredient in the US and Canada, then Canadian
regulations require that flour used in Canada for baking
bread as well as the carrier for a dough conditioner be
enriched. The same is not true in the US. You are only
required to use enriched flour if you are manufacturing white bread, buns and rolls as defined by the federal
Standards of Identity for bakery products.
That question, however, caught me off guard and
caused me to pause.
The questioner, who works for a bakery co-op, indicated that more than half of the bakeries it represents
do not use enriched flour. My first thought was, "Are
you kidding?"
It's my understanding that the choice to forego enriched flour is prompted by a desire to simplify the ingredient statement on the package label. Without all
those enrichment compounds, it gets a lot shorter ...
and cleaner. Granted, many consumers don't want to see
ingredients they don't know or understand listed in the
ingredient legend. They reason that the fewer the numThe nutritional miracle of enrichment may fade in the pursuit of clean label.
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64 Baking & Snack December 2016 / www.bakingandsnack.com

ber of such materials, the "cleaner" the product is to eat.
The greater the number of ingredients listed, the more
"processed" the food is. And they believe that to be a
bad thing.
This should not be the case with enrichment. It's my
opinion - shared by many in the nutrition community
- that the clean-label trend goes awry when it affects
the health and nutrition of the American public.
I personally worry about the consequences of decisions that are not based in fact or sound science. I worry
about the effect on public health and undoing years of
nutrition enhancement that has been accomplished with
enrichment. What are the consequences of eliminating
the line on the ingredient legend that reads, "ferrous sulfate, niacin, thiamine mononitrate (vitamin B1), riboflavin (vitamin B2) and folic acid?"
Let's review the history of enrichment, hailed as one
of the big successes of the twentieth century and a true
public health miracle. In 1938, the American Medical
Association endorsed addition of nutrients to foods to
improve public health. At that time, the American diet
relied heavily on refined flours. Bakers got the message,
and by the end of 1942, approximately 70 to 80% of flour
and white bread produced in the US was voluntarily enriched. World War II's War Food Order No. 1 mandated
enrichment of flour and white bread and went into effect January 1943.
By 1949, pellagra death rates in the US Southern States
dropped to 0.5 per 100,000, down from 10.5 in 1933.
For those unaware of pellagra, it is a disease caused by a
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