NaBloPoMoNoProFoNo #4: Musings on flour and sugar

Some thoughts on flour and sugar, prompted by yesterday's simplecarbfilled bread recipe...

The official stance of October Unprocessed is that flour is OK (including white flour).  The logic is that you could mill flour in your own kitchen if you really wanted to (although it's very unlikely that you do).  However, to count as unprocessed, flour can't be bleached or enriched. The bleaching process is really just a label-reading thing: I have never had an issue finding unbleached flour. The enriched thing ... I have no problem with extra vitamins being added to my flour, but you can decide for yourself. 

 

Whole-wheat flour is always better from a nutritional standpoint, and I do use that when it's possible.  But you can't use whole-wheat flour for everything -- for example, I'm planning to post my homemade angel food cake recipe later in the month and there's no way to make that with whole wheat. The blog 100 Days of Real Food has a nice post about the nutrients you lose in white vs. wheat, if anyone is interested.

Anyways, long story short: flour - always avoid bleached, use whole-grain flours where possible, I will not be avoiding enrichment. 

So what about sugar?  Well, there's no way to make regular table sugar in your own kitchen, so it fails The Kitchen Test.  Along the lines of seeing this challenge as a lifestyle change and not a gimmick, I will admit I have no intention of cutting processed sugar out of my kitchen entirely. So, I didn't stop eating it during October Unprocessed and also won't stop eating it during NoProNo.  SORRY, PURISTS! It is sort of my one big Fail.

However: I do sometimes substitute with honey (which is legitimately non-processed). I occasionally buy and use 'raw' sugar when it strikes my fancy, which isn't very often. More important than raw vs. processed (since, in my opinion, at the end of the day sugar is sugar and it's not that great for you), I try to limit my sugar intake to foods that are 'worth it', like homemade baked goods, as opposed to things like sweetened drinks which contain a ton of sugar but don't make me drool in anticipation. 

Long story short - using processed sugar is legitimately a cheat. Although I am semi-unapologetically not giving it up, I am at least trying to use it mindfully.

I do know a handful of people who have felt way better health-wise after cutting out sugar, which is intriguing to me. But since I like to bake, giving up sugar would  feel sort of like giving up a hobby.  Maybe I'll try it out next year for NoProFoNo, just for the additional challenge.