Communicating about flour is difficult, if not impossible, because the word “flour” is used to describe at least three completely different qualities. These are produced from grains from at least three different forms of agriculture (Demeter, organic, conventional). Yet, none of these qualities fulfills the original meaning of the word flour.

So, what is flour?

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Flour is obtained by grinding cereal grains. Most flour is made from rice, corn, or bread grains. Bread grains are grains that can be used to – you guessed it – bake bread. Traditionally, this refers to spelt, wheat, rye, emmer, kamut, and similar grains. Such a bread grain consists essentially of hulls surrounding the endosperm and the germ. For flour production, the following are significant:

ed. Endosperm
f. Bran or Aleurone layer
k. Germ

Essentially, the endosperm is the food for the germ, and the bran encases and protects the whole. The germ consists of the actual embryo and a thin membrane, the aleurone layer, which separates the embryo from the endosperm. This membrane bears the melodic name Scutellum (the “silver skin” in rice) and, after germination, initiates the enzymatic breakdown of starch, which unlocks the endosperm as food for the germ. The germ nourished in this way would grow into a new cereal plant.

In this paragraph lies the key to understanding the entire subject.
The germ is the seat of life, but it is only awakened to life by the enzymes of the aleurone layer. If the germ is the blank of a key, the enzymes are the profile. An enzyme only works if it fits exactly into its substrate. If it is denatured (bent), the key no longer fits the lock. The metabolism stands still.
Enzymes are extremely sensitive. You can imagine them as highly complex, three-dimensional “special tools” made of protein. Their function depends 100% on their exact shape.
As soon as the temperature rises above a critical point, the same thing happens as with a chicken egg in a frying pan: the protein coagulates (denaturation). The shape changes irreversibly, and the tool becomes useless.

What happens during grinding?

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When grain is ground coolly, e.g., in a household mill, the biological clock ticks as follows:

• The first 3 to 15 minutes: The maximum of vitality. The flour is still “hand-warm” from grinding, the enzymes have just been released, and the valuable oils of the germ (Vitamin E, Omega-3) have not yet had any significant contact with oxygen.

• Within 24 hours: Very good. The enzymatic power (phytase) is still fully present. Fat oxidation has begun but is not yet perceptible in taste.

• After 72 hours (3 days): The turning point. Here begins the oxidation cascade where the free fatty acids from the germ increase rapidly and the first vitamins (especially the sensitive B vitamins and Vitamin E) begin to break down due to contact with oxygen.

• After 2 to 4 weeks: Biological decay. The flour is still bakeable, but the “life force” is gone. The enzymes lose activity, and the fats become slightly rancid (even if you can’t always smell it yet). The minerals are still there, but the “ignition mechanism” to release them from the phytic acid becomes weaker.

So much for grain and flour in itself; now on to the different qualities.
These are…

… practically always: Degerminated refined flour

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This is today’s normal flour. Worldwide industrial standard.
You can imagine it like an egg without a yolk and without a shell – egg white essentially – which is naturally called an “egg.” The majority of flours on the market, as well as various dark-colored flour-containing products made from them, consist of degerminated refined flours.
Most people fill themselves with this quality, and that is a real problem; more on that later.

… far too often: Heat-stabilized flour

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In heat-stabilized flours, the germ is “stabilized” using dry heat, steam, or microwaves and then mixed back into the flour. You can imagine this like an egg where a cooked yolk swims in raw egg white. This is again called an “egg” and advertised as having a “valuable yolk.”
This mainly concerns industrially produced (including organic) whole-grain flours; refined flours of this type are much rarer.
This process is remarkable for two reasons:

• First, distribution structures are now so well-developed that natural shelf life is perfectly sufficient even for industrial processing. Compared to dairy products, flour is exceptionally durable. There is therefore no actual need for stabilization.
• Second, for products “with valuable germ,” no attention is drawn to the process of thermal stabilization. This is not false, but it is selectively misleading because vitamins, enzymes, amino acids, and fatty acids change through heat. We know this from the egg.
  Boiled eggs are different from raw ones.

Heat-stabilized flours were the industrial response to the reform movement, which began at about the same time as the introduction of degerminated flours but only gained real momentum towards the end of the 19th century. Pioneers like Theodor Hahn, Maximilian Bircher-Benner, Thomas Allinson, Sylvester Graham, Werner Kollath, and Hans-Adalbert Schweigart are well-known representatives of this theme.
Common to all of them is the observation that degerminated white flour makes people sick.

Heat stabilization was the solution to offer whole-grain flour WITHOUT logistical changes on the part of industrial flour production. The “innovation” of heat-stabilized whole-grain flour established itself towards the middle of the 20th century. The justification for heat stabilization is the same as for degermination: one prevents enzymes from splitting the fats in the germ, thus ensuring the flour does not go rancid.
However, this logically correct view ignores that heat stabilization destroys the enzymatic vitality as well as that of the germ. A significant result of this is that while these flours contain many minerals, the human body cannot absorb them. To stick with the egg comparison: you cannot boil an egg for shelf-life reasons and expect a chick to still hatch from it.

… out of competition: Enriched flour

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Enriching means that, on the one hand, vitamins (nowadays mostly produced by genetically modified microorganisms) are added that were previously removed with the germ and bran, and/or on the other hand, vitamins are added that do not naturally occur in flour at all. You can imagine this like an egg where instead of the yolk, you find a bit of fish and banana, sometimes even insects. This is done to compensate for deficiencies in the population that were previously caused by degermination.
Intelligence paired with ignorance can create serious problems. Enriched flours, and the situation of staple foods in general, are a good example of this.

… almost never: Goldkeim Flour

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This is the quality most people believe they are eating. Goldkeim flour is in no way something new; quite the opposite! It consists of endosperm, untreated germ, and bran in unchanged weight proportions, or to put it another way: simply coolly ground grain. You can imagine it like an egg that actually is one.
For Goldkeim refined flour, the bran is partially or entirely (not recommended) sifted out, which, depending on the type of grinding, can also cause part of the germ to be lost.
Apart from the last ~160 years, whenever flour is mentioned in human history, these Goldkeim qualities from organic agriculture are meant. That Goldkeim flour cannot be genetically modified should therefore hopefully be clear.

Important Note: Goldkeim was coined as a portmanteau for flour to be able to communicate more fluently about it. Before the creation of the word Goldkeim, a typical dialogue was:
“This is bread made from flour from non-genetically modified organic grain with unchanged weight proportions and a non-heat-stabilized germ.” “A whole-grain bread?!” “No, because industrial whole-grain flours are broken down into individual components during grinding and the germ is heat-stabilized.” “Broken down?! Bran and germ are separated from the endosperm and…” Such conversations were enough to make one despair!

Now: “The bread is made from Spelt Goldkeim Flour.”
“What is Goldkeim Flour?”
“You can read about it on the Goldkeim website.”
Much! Easier!

The word Goldkeim thus serves purely as a qualitative linguistic distinction! The Goldkeim flour quality is as old as the relationship between humans and grain itself, and anyone who grinds their own grain at home has produced Goldkeim flour, provided it is not from genetically modified grain.

Note: Producing Goldkeim flour is easy.
Making non-Goldkeim flour, that is difficult!
We have only been able to do it since 1860.

Distinction of the Cultivation Method

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Grains still come from the field and are cultivated in Demeter, organic, or conventional agriculture. These differences are of the greatest importance for biodiversity, water (and thus the climate), and, of course, human health.
The term “conventional” (in German: “üblich, althergebracht”) would apply to ecological agriculture but is erroneously used for industrial agriculture based on artificial fertilizers and pesticides. However, as has been quite impressively shown, this is a failed field experiment of the human species, not even 150 years old, which has caused immense damage to humans and nature. Demeter and organic grains are therefore clearly to be preferred.

A Brief History of Flour

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Grains have supposedly been cultivated for 20,000 years. In more than 20 years of research on the subject of flour, however, historical events often contradict each other – sometimes it’s only 10,000, then again 100,000 years – but basically: until 1860, the Goldkeim flour quality must always have been what was meant, as no historically verifiable technique can be found that could have degerminated flour.
Removing the bran is a fad first mentioned in 4000 BC in Egypt, finding its first peak during the French Revolution. Part of the new equality, freedom, and fraternity was to eat like the previously beheaded nobility, and they supposedly ate white flour. From today’s health perspective, this development was revolutionary but unfortunately (though unknowingly) completely off-track. At that time, at least the germ was still in the flour.

Until the Industrial Revolution began in 1712, grain was stored and ground or de-hulled on demand. Depending on which grain was involved, rice and millet were pounded by hand or hammer mill, oats were previously kiln-dried (a low-temperature drying process) and then de-hulled. Corn, in turn, had to be nixtamalized in alkaline lime water, and bread grains were threshed and ground to bake bread or whatever else was needed.
Common to all grains, as to the cultures living on them, is that these activities were processed either by the people themselves or by smaller, local mills on site. From grains that were likewise more or less cultivated, processed, and consumed on site. Accordingly, there were many mills; they were distributed across the land and dependent on natural energy (wind, animal, human, and water power).
In summary, staple foods back then were each a regional fresh product.
To believe that these were rosy conditions in terms of health, however, would be far from the truth!

A characteristic of the industrial revolution (reversal) is the increasing disappearance of small, local mills and the emergence of centrally operating large-scale mills. In 1785, Oliver Evans constructed the first fully mechanized flour mill in the USA; in 1787, Jonathan Lucas constructed the first water-powered rice mill in South Carolina. Little by little, natural energy was replaced by thermally generated energy (wood, peat, coal, and oil) and later electrical energy. Thus, milling was no longer tied to local conditions, but transport routes became longer. It was no longer just grain that was stored, but also industrially produced flour or polished rice produced for stock.

The solution that is the problem: Degerminated flour

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Until the middle of the 19th century, grain was rubbed between millstones. In the process, the fatty germ was inevitably crushed and its valuable oils mixed with the flour. The flour was thereby “living” but, depending on climatic conditions, became rancid after a few days to months. It becomes lifeless, however, much faster, as already mentioned above.

Producing for stock, the addition of long transport routes with comparatively slow means of transport (no car, not yet a train) collides with the natural shelf life of processed grains, specifically that of the germ and the aleurone layer. If air gets to it – which is the case with all grinding methods – the fats in the germ begin to oxidize, it becomes rancid, giving flour, rice, oats, millet, and corn an unpleasant to gross aftertaste; essentially, they spoil.

The solution for the industrial problem came around 1840 from Switzerland with the development of the first high-performance roller mill by Jacob Sulzberger.
Unlike the millstone, the roller mill does not rub but works with pressure and shear. Since the germ is elastic and oily, it is not pulverized by the metal rollers but pressed flat (like a flake) while the brittle endosperm “crumbles” into flour dust and semolina. With the invention of the roller mill in combination with the sifting machines developed in Austria-Hungary around 1860 by Ignaz Paur, it became possible to simply sift out the flat-rolled germ. The process established itself worldwide towards the end of the 19th century, first in urban centers, and about a generation later in rural areas.
This made it possible for the first time in human history:

• To completely remove the germ and
• to produce a flour that is more or less indefinitely shelf-stable.

The same thing also happens in Asia with the industrial peeling of rice. In this technique, too, what is actually valuable for us – in rice, the silver skin and the germ – is removed. Since the first vitamin was discovered only 37 years later by the Dutch physician Christiaan Eijkman and scientific knowledge about the importance of enzymes, amino acids, minerals, and the like for humans was only in its infancy, this solution was also brilliantly logical given the knowledge of the time. After the bran, the germ also disappeared from the flour.

Conclusion

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Today, there is no sensible reason to remove the germ from flour or to change it using heat.
There just isn’t one – period.

We can therefore turn to the actual problem.