Whole doesn’t mean whole when the word is with wheat.

Rosie Schwartz wrote in the post about Health Canada Regulations that allow part of the wheat grain to be removed and still constitute a “whole wheat” product. (All the goodness of whole wheat? National Post 17 Jan 2007)

Whole wheat has been masquerading as a whole grain — at least to those unfamiliar with a minute detail of a regulation dating back to 1964 that defines what whole wheat is in Canada.

[...]according to Health Canada, his product can be called whole wheat flour even though it is not a whole grain product because legislation does not require the whole grain to be used in whole wheat products.

[...]phone call to Health Canada confirmed this to be true and, in fact, whole wheat products typically have about 70% of the wheat’s germ removed.

I looked up the Food and Drugs Act and its Food and Drug Regulations

Whole Wheat Flour or Entire Wheat Flour

(a) shall be the food prepared by the grinding and bolting of cleaned, milling grades of wheat from which a part of the outer bran or epidermis layer may have been separated;

So basically it says wheat can still be “whole” if part of a particular part of the grain is removed.

When I bought a different brand of flour last month, it seemed smoother. I wonder if the new brand is less whole. That 10kg bag is done now, so I need more flour anyway. Time to go read labels.