What is the difference between unbleached flour and regular flour

While most people prefer one or the other, many are unsure exactly what factors set the two apart. This article tells you everything you need to know about bleached and unbleached flour, including their differences, safety, and uses. Bleached and unbleached flour differ in certain ways, including processing, taste, texture, and appearance. Bleached flour is typically refined, meaning that the nutrient-rich bran and germ of the wheat kernel have been removed, stripping the grain of many of its valuable vitamins and minerals and leaving only the endosperm.

Both types are then milled, which is a process that involves grinding grains , such as wheat, into a fine powder. Next, bleached flour is treated with chemical agents like benzoyl peroxide, potassium bromate, or chlorine, which helps speed up the aging of the flour.

Flour is aged to improve certain qualities for baking. This chemical process significantly changes the taste, texture, and appearance of the final product, as well as its nutritional profile and potential uses in baking. On the other hand, unbleached flour is aged naturally after the milling process is completed. Natural aging takes significantly longer than the bleaching process, which is why bleached flour was created.

Both varieties are sometimes enriched, which is the process of adding certain nutrients back into the flour 1. The chemicals used to speed up the aging process in bleached flour cause it to have a whiter color, finer grain, and softer texture. Though there are minimal differences in taste between the two varieties, people with a very sensitive palate may notice a slightly bitter taste in bleached flour. Bleached flour has a whiter color, finer grain, and softer texture, while unbleached flour has a denser grain and tougher texture.

Bleached flour is treated with chemical agents to speed up the aging process. Both varieties contain the same number of calories and amounts of protein, fat, carbs, and fiber per cup grams. However, unbleached, unrefined, whole-wheat varieties may be richer in several important nutrients. In particular, whole-wheat flour packs more fiber, vitamin E, manganese, copper, and antioxidants 4. Both bleached and unbleached flours are also often enriched with B vitamins like folate, niacin, vitamin B6, and thiamine 1.

Bleached and unbleached white flours are nearly identical in terms of nutrition. Other varieties of unbleached flour, such as whole-wheat flour, may contain more fiber, vitamin E, manganese, copper, and antioxidants. Flour is made by milling wheat grains into a fine powder. People have been producing flour for more than 6, years. Early civilizations likely used stone, or a mortar and pestle , to grind the grains. We now have technologically advanced flour mills, but the process remains essentially the same.

Bleached flour is simply flour that was aged chemically usually with peroxide to speed up the process , rather than naturally over time. Benzoyl peroxide yes, that benzoyl peroxide—the one from your acne cream is one of the most commonly used bleaching agents during flour processing. Unbleached flour, meanwhile, has been naturally aged after being milled.

Maybe, maybe not. For the most part, you can use them interchangeably with good results. Both flours have a medium level of protein, which makes either of them ideal for baking cakes, cookies , and pie crusts, thickening sauces and gravies, breading cutlets , and all of the usual suspects. These additives also assist in aging the flour, which helps it produce lighter and more tender baked goods.

Unbleached flour is aged naturally with no or fewer chemical additives by being exposed to oxygen over a longer period of time. It has a slightly darker color than bleached flour and has a texture that is a bit more dense. Because it takes more time to age the flour naturally, it is usually more expensive than bleached flour.