Wheat, enriched or enervated?

… If someone stole your wallet with $200 in it, your favorite snap shots, credit cards, and driver's license, and returned your emptied wallet, license, and 20 cents for car fare to you, would you consider yourself enriched? There are 33 nutrients in the wheat germ that have been removed from the flour and every one of them is essential to the assembly line that keeps your body running on all cylinders. In the so called “enrichment” process, only three of these nutrients are put back—and these in only one-third of the original amount, and in a synthetic form which is not well utilized.

… wheat germ is full of life-giving nutrients that, before flour was refined, made bread the staff of life.

… It's been removed from your bread, cakes, crackers, cookies, bagels, noodles, and dry cereals. You know why? Because wheat germ supports life. Therefore, it spoils more readily. Without the wheat germ, flour has longer staying qualities, longer shelf life, and can be shipped more readily all over the world. It is commercially expedient to remove the wheat germ from the flour.

Kinderlehrer, Jane. (1971/1972). Confessions of a Sneaky Organic Cook or, How to Make Your Family Healthy When They're Not Looking! (1^st ed.). New York: The New American Library, Inc.

I usually try to avoid store bought or commercially made bread. I make bread at home so my children can take sandwiches to school. I figure that even though my homemade bread isn't full of nutrition, it has no preservatives or additives either. When we eat out, I am the weird one who eats her sandwich inside out. I leave the bread or the bun for last, then don't eat it at all if I'm full. Sometimes I exchange calories. I leave the non-nutritious calories of the bread, and instead enjoy the fries (which are potatoes and might have a little bit of nutrition) or a small dessert or anything else yummy that I like better than bread.