# Why Do They 'Enrich' Wheat Flour (to Such a Pitifully Small Degree)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 27, 2020, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-enrich-wheat-flour-to-such-a-pitifully-small-degree/852661 "2020-04-27T10:00:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-enrich-wheat-flour-to-such-a-pitifully-small-degree/852661/1 "2020-04-27T10:00:44Z")
AFAIK they only do it in the U.S. Anyway I will tell you first how I found out about it. I often read ingredients. And nutritional labels. I am after all very conscious of the nutrition value of the food I eat. Especially now. In any event, when a product has wheat flour in it, it is typically enriched, typically with B Vitamins and Iron for some reason. Sounds like a good idea. Then I read the nutritional labels. There is little or none of the vitamins and Iron that they ‘enriched’ it with. You will understand if I ask ‘why’. Why would they add so little, that it doesn’t even show up as 1% of the daily value? I trust you can see why I am confused here too. I look forward to your replies:). :):):):):):)🙂 ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-enrich-wheat-flour-to-such-a-pitifully-small-degree/852661/2 "2020-04-27T10:37:49Z")
You might care to ponder on how flour might taste or bake if it contained over 1% metallic iron. Food is being fortified with trace elements, dietary components which are required in parts per million or parts per billion in a balanced diet. Work out the percentages. Illustration. The medical condition goitre is primarily of a lack of iodine in the diet. It was essentially eliminated with the use of iodised salt. But people are now favouring non-iodised or pure or boutique salt and using less of it. In Australia there are cases now surfacing in children. It turns out there was a secondary source of iodine. For many years the dairy industry used iodophors as the preferred means to clean and sanitise equipment. They have been banned for a few years now. Iodophors are iodine based and they produced very low level iodine contamination of fresh and processed milk which had the serendipitous benefit of preventing goitre. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-enrich-wheat-flour-to-such-a-pitifully-small-degree/852661/3 "2020-04-27T11:39:01Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > Why would they add so little, that it doesn’t even show up as 1% of the daily value? I’m holding a bag of enriched flour, and the label says that each serving has 8% of the daily value of iron, and 15% of the daily niacin, and some other stuff too. Maybe you can give us a better example of your question? ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-enrich-wheat-flour-to-such-a-pitifully-small-degree/852661/4 "2020-04-27T12:33:46Z")
Processing a ‘natural’ food may well remove some important minerals and other nutrients. This is particularly important if the food was a good source of a nutrient before processing. For example, by law in the UK, iron, thiamin and niacin must be added back to white and brown flour (but not wholemeal) as they are removed with the bran during the milling of wheat to make all flour (except wholemeal). Folic acid is added to many breakfast cereals. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-enrich-wheat-flour-to-such-a-pitifully-small-degree/852661/5 "2020-04-27T14:22:48Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > I’m holding a bag of enriched flour, and the label says that each serving has 8% of the daily value of iron, and 15% of the daily niacin, and some other stuff too. Maybe you can give us a better example of your question? Yeah. OP, what is the product you are looking at? Is it something with very little flour in it? ---
**Author:** ![jjakucyk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3d9bf3/32.png) [@jjakucyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjakucyk)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-enrich-wheat-flour-to-such-a-pitifully-small-degree/852661/6 "2020-04-27T15:19:14Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > Processing a ‘natural’ food may well remove some important minerals and other nutrients. Removal of those nutrients could also affect taste, so it’s better to add them back in, even if nutritionally they don’t make up a large part of the daily allowance. That said, bread played such an important role in historical diets compared to today that those nutrients added up a lot more than they do now. There was a scandal in the mid to late 1750s in the UK about adulterants in bread. Things like chalk, bean flower, alum, and even ground up bones were being mixed in with flour to add bulk. Whether intentional or not, mixing alum and chalk (an acid and base respectively) helped leaven the bread, requiring less yeast and mitigating some of the problems of poor wheat harvests. So it’s entirely possible some other enrichment is done more to aid in the production process, and the added nutrients are just a bonus. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-enrich-wheat-flour-to-such-a-pitifully-small-degree/852661/7 "2020-04-27T15:37:48Z")
> [@penultima\_thule](#): > > It turns out there was a secondary source of iodine. For many years the dairy industry used iodophors as the preferred means to clean and sanitise equipment. They have been banned for a few years now. Iodophors are iodine based and they produced very low level iodine contamination of fresh and processed milk which had the serendipitous benefit of preventing goitre. IIRC, that’s how they figured out the utility of flouridating water; someone connected the dots that people from certain areas with higher levels of naturally occurring flouride in the water had less tooth decay than people from elsewhere. Anyway, the point of enriching flour as I understand it isn’t so much to be a primary source of iron/vitamins, but to simply enhance the availability of those nutrients in people’s diets, as they’re things they might be deficient in if they eat a flour-rich diet (like people who ate biscuits and bacon all the time like cowboys). ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-enrich-wheat-flour-to-such-a-pitifully-small-degree/852661/8 "2020-04-28T11:16:57Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > I’m holding a bag of enriched flour, and the label says that each serving has 8% of the daily value of iron, and 15% of the daily niacin, and some other stuff too. Maybe you can give us a better example of your question? Almost **every** product I encountered that has ‘enriched’ wheat flour in it reads that way. Are you perhaps reading the labels in another country?🙂 ---
**Author:** ![kferr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@kferr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kferr)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-enrich-wheat-flour-to-such-a-pitifully-small-degree/852661/9 "2020-04-28T11:29:45Z")
**Keeve** is looking at the label on a bag of flour - just flour. You’re looking at label on a product that contains _some_ flour. Big difference. ---
**Author:** ![Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d9b06d/32.png) [@Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boozahol_Squid_P.I)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-enrich-wheat-flour-to-such-a-pitifully-small-degree/852661/10 "2020-04-28T12:31:16Z")
> [@penultima\_thule](#): > > You might care to ponder on how flour might taste or bake if it contained over 1% metallic iron. > > Food is being fortified with trace elements, dietary components which are required in parts per million or parts per billion in a balanced diet. Work out the percentages. There was no suggestion that enrichment would create 1% of the total being the enriched elements: as you say, it’s percentages of the daily quota per serving that are being measured on containers. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-enrich-wheat-flour-to-such-a-pitifully-small-degree/852661/11 "2020-04-28T13:06:35Z")
> **[Enriched flour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_flour)** > > Enriched flour is flour with specific nutrients added to it. These nutrients include iron and B vitamins (folic acid, riboflavin, niacin, and thiamine). Calcium may also be supplemented. The purpose of enriching flour is to replenish the nutrients in the flour to match the nutritional status of the unrefined product. This differentiates enrichment from fortification, which is the process of introducing new nutrients to a food. > 79 countries have fortification or enrichment for wheat or maize fl... > [@](#): > > According to the U.S. FDA, a pound of enriched flour must have the following quantities of nutrients to qualify: 2.9 milligrams of thiamin, 1.8 milligrams of riboflavin, 24 milligrams of niacin, 0.7 milligrams of folic acid, and 20 milligrams of iron. The first four nutrients are B vitamins. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-enrich-wheat-flour-to-such-a-pitifully-small-degree/852661/12 "2020-04-28T13:29:11Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > Almost **every** product I encountered that has ‘enriched’ wheat flour in it reads that way. Are you perhaps reading the labels in another country?🙂 Give us some examples then. There’s no way for us to guess if you are looking at something that is mainly flour, like bread, or a sauce that has a tiny amount of flour as a thickener. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-enrich-wheat-flour-to-such-a-pitifully-small-degree/852661/13 "2020-04-28T14:21:10Z")
Here’s some USDA data on a plain donut made with enriched flour: [https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/444979/nutrients](https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/444979/nutrients) Only Iron is listed in the nutritional info, but one 71g donut gives you 1.08 mg which is 6% of DV. Here’s the data from the legacy database which has more detail: [https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/174990/nutrients](https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/174990/nutrients) It gives data on more nutritents, and is for “Doughnuts, cake-type, plain (includes unsugared, old-fashioned)” NIACIN 2.91 mg 18 % of DV IRON 2.53 mg 14 % of DV THIAMIN 0.39 mg 18 % of DV RIBOFLAVIN 0.301 mg 23 % of DV FOLIC ACID 76 ug - 20 % of DV (or 7.6 % if you’re a pregnant woman) Based on the disparities in iron the first one would not be ideal, but it looks like you could still meet your requirements for these nutrients on a all donut diet, which handily disproves the OPs premise. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-enrich-wheat-flour-to-such-a-pitifully-small-degree/852661/14 "2020-04-28T14:42:31Z")
Gold Medal Flour - Iron is 8% of Daily value. > **[All Purpose Flour - Bread Flours - Gold Medal Flour](https://www.goldmedalflour.com/our-flour/all-purpose-flour/)** > > Our All Purpose Flour is ideal for almost all recipes, we think it works best with white breads and cakes! Visit Gold Medal Flour to learn more today. ---
**Author:** ![icbm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@icbm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/icbm)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-enrich-wheat-flour-to-such-a-pitifully-small-degree/852661/15 "2020-04-28T15:46:36Z")
Someone on Wikipedia using milligrams per pound makes me just a tiny bit upset. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-enrich-wheat-flour-to-such-a-pitifully-small-degree/852661/16 "2020-04-28T17:26:47Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > Gold Medal Flour - Iron is 8% of Daily value. > > [All Purpose Flour - Bread Flours - Gold Medal Flour](https://www.goldmedalflour.com/our-flour/all-purpose-flour/) Per 30 g of flour. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-enrich-wheat-flour-to-such-a-pitifully-small-degree/852661/17 "2020-04-28T18:06:57Z")
I can only hope **Jim B.** wasn’t planning on eating all of it. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-enrich-wheat-flour-to-such-a-pitifully-small-degree/852661/18 "2020-04-28T19:26:14Z")
> [@icbm](#): > > Someone on Wikipedia using milligrams per pound makes me just a tiny bit upset. That’s not Wiki - it’s the way the federal regulations are written. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-enrich-wheat-flour-to-such-a-pitifully-small-degree/852661/19 "2020-04-28T22:41:41Z")
Well, iron as a fortifier could just be a result of the mill wearing down. How about those other bits? They’re not used to make steel, but is there any possibility that they’re side effects of production, rather than something deliberately added? ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-enrich-wheat-flour-to-such-a-pitifully-small-degree/852661/20 "2020-04-29T12:36:56Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > Well, iron as a fortifier could just be a result of the mill wearing down. How about those other bits? They’re not used to make steel, but is there any possibility that they’re side effects of production, rather than something deliberately added? No. They are all added do restore nutrients lost when removing the bran and germ, and/or to increase the intake of essential nutrients that our diets are often low in (folic acid to prevent birth defects).