Historically the type of flour and sugar you used was determined by your financial status (funny thing . . . in many ways it’s still the same today . . . I’ll let you know why in a minute).  If you were a peasant you used the unrefined flour.  The stuff we now lovingly call whole grain.  As for sugar . . . there was white stuff but it was out of this world expensive.  It was only found/made in Central America and had to be shipped across the seas or up the coast which back then was very costly.  Refined sugar was much too expensive for peasants so it was considered an amazing treat and, more often than not, used for preserving something.  It was much more valuable as a preservative than a sweetener.

If you were really lucky and lived in an area where you could make maple syrup and sugar or grow sugar beets you had the ultimate peasant’s version of sugar.  Again it was mostly used and wholeheartedly valued as a preservative and only occasionally eaten as a treat (yes, yes there was a purpose for it at one time.  Yes we most likely wouldn’t be this healthy in Northern regions without a way to preserve our meats, etc.  However, these days we are lucky enough to have something I like to refer to as REFRIGERATION!).  It was also frowned upon by the uppercrust as too unrefined (at least in the area it was available . . . a bit different back h0me in England and France as it was often considered a delicacy from the colonies).

So it was the Upper Class that started all the rage for “refined” stuff.  They had the money to have someone remove the bran and germ from the wheat flour.  ‘Cause heaven forbid there be roughage!  Now granted the germ is the part that spoils the fastest but . . . it’s also the part that has the majority of the nutrients.  This is something that may have been noted by the cooks but mostly it was the texture of the bread they were concerned with . . . very refined, light and fluffy.  This is all well and good as a treat but . . . there’s no nutritional value to this stuff!

They also had the money to import this crazy new stuff called “refined” sugar.  It used to come in a solid cone or block.  They hadn’t figured out how to process it into the free flowing stuff we now use.  If you were of that certain class that was slightly higher than the peasants, but certainly not upper class, we’ll call them the “Joneses,” you would display that cone of sugar proudly in the most prominent window you possibly could.  It was considered a status symbol . . . like a Jag in the driveway.  The upper classes could also afford enough sugar to have “treats” everyday.

So . . . to wrap this all up . . . we tried to keep up with the Joneses.  Someone figured out how to make the refined stuff affordable for the masses.  The pickle we find ourselves in now is that we realize this stuff has no nutritional value and most of it just lands smack dab on our hips, heart, butt, liver, stomach, you name it.  Once industry figured out how to churn this stuff out cheaply and figured out just how much money they could make with it (cause it’s kinda addictive people) we were introduced to processed “convenience” food.

PLEASE NOTE: This next sentence is way too long!  I went on many tangents you can either read it here as is or skip to the next paragraph where I’ve removed the asides and it makes sense.  I couldn’t delete it though because I think it’s important to think about . . .

[Today because chemists are developing even cheaper ways to refine and "enrich" our processed foodstuffs in order to both make money for their parent companies and provide even cheaper (re: nastier . . . I can't even call it food because there's nothing food-like about it . . . it's really just a big science experiment) products for consumers, we are suffering one of the largest health crisises (Oxford says that's spelled right!  I think . . . I also apologize for the length of this sentence!) since the plague (sad thing here . . . I'm not really kidding).]

Today because chemists are developing even cheaper ways to refine and “enrich” our processed foodstuffs, in order to both make money for their parent companies and provide even cheaper products for consumers, we are suffering one of the largest health crisises since the plague.  The market for healthy wholegrain food became increasingly smaller and drove the prices up . . . partially because it’s the only way these farmers can make a living and . . . partially because of our old friend marketing.  It’s a complete reversal . . . the thought that only rich people can afford to eat whole foods and poor people can only afford to eat processed crap.

Of course here’s the kicker . . . It’s not true!  It’s just the marketing getting into our heads.  In the end the processed junk still costs more.  For a variety of reasons including healthwise (like the cost of the meds that you’ll eventually be on if you continuously eat the processed junk) and planetwise (have you seen the packaging alone!?).