The mainlining of glucose « Simple Living Book Club

Simple Living Book Club » In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan » Part II, 3: The Industrialization of Eating

The mainlining of glucose

(5 posts)

Tsh
Lead Reader
Thinking Reader

"'We're in the middle of a national experiment in the mainlining of glucose.'" -pg. 113

What would be different about our Western diet without the invention of white processed flour? How hard is it for you to avoid this ingredient? Would you say you (or anyone in your family) struggles with glucose addiction?

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Posted 3 months ago #

Magical rainbow ponies
SimpleBites
Member
Reader

Honestly, this is hard for me! I'm pretty passionate about baking, with a weakness for light, tender-crumbed lemon cake.

Our family has cut back, that's for sure, but 'avoid' has a fairly exclusive connotation--and we're not there yet.

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Posted 3 months ago #
tab190
Member
Reader

If there wasn't the advent of white flour, there would be a lot less items that have fiber added!

I do a lot of our baking, instead of buying it in the store. There are a lot of baked goods that made entirely out of whole wheat flour are too dense. I make a lot of the baked goods with a half and half mixture of white flour and whole wheat. I'll also add some wheat germ to it to add some of that fiber back a little. I wonder if whole wheat pastry flour might help with that problem, though.

Posted 3 months ago #
JenT
Member
Thinking Reader

I think I have the biggest glucose addiction in my family! I love anything that is sweet. I, too, try to bake most of the "sweets" that we eat, just to know what is in the stuff. There is still white flour and sugar, but all the other hard to pronounce stuff isn't there. As far as avoiding white flour..... Aimee's right, it's hard to be that exclusive. When I can I replace part or all with whole wheat (we've had a few fiascos as a result!). It really is interesting to think of what the world would be like without white flour. I'd miss the shortbread at Xmas!

Posted 3 months ago #

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FruggieHippie
Member
Thinking Reader

I'm also one of those with a "sweet" tooth :) We also do most of our baking, we rarely buy baked goods, or cake mixes and such - at least we can control what's in it. We have often substituted white flour for whole wheat, most of the time it's ok. We do have some white flour on hand, for certain things, or if I'm baking for visitors and they might not be as lenient on the whole wheat flour content ;-) I usually try to choose my recipes so that they are either made for whole wheat, or can be substituted. And everything else is all whole wheat (bread, pasta, etc.) I was mostly raised on whole wheat, and my now 2 yrs daughter knows nothing else. So the only part where we might get white four is in baked goods, and obviously we don't make and eat those daily, so I think it's good enough! Even "bad" things aren't too damaging if you don't abuse them.

So I guess the switch has been fairly easy for us.

Posted 3 months ago #

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