Monday, September 03, 2012

Good News! Trader Joe's Now Offers White Whole Wheat Flour - Here's How It Measures Up.


White Whole Wheat Flour at Trader Joe's.
Grown on the high plains of the Midwest and Colorado.

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Finally, More Choices!
For years I've been baking with King Arthur's White Whole Wheat Flour. This type of flour is milled from hard white spring wheat instead of traditional red wheat. The beauty of white whole wheat is that it is delicate like white flour (in fact you wouldn't know you're eating whole wheat!) AND it has the fiber and other nutritional benefits of whole grain. Unfortunately King Arthur is sometimes hard to find and is twice the price as conventional all-purpose flour.

A few weeks ago I noticed that Trader Joe's had their own brand of white whole wheat flour, "Baker Josef's",  so I picked one up to try. I'm excited to report that it bakes as well as King Arthur's. Here's how else it compares:

Price
A 5-pound bag of King Arthur's white whole wheat flour costs $4.95. If you buy King Arthur's organic white whole wheat flour, it costs $7.95. 
Trader Joe's Baker Josef's white whole wheat flour costs $2.99 for a 5-pound bag. Unfortunately, organic is not available.

Nutritional Content in 1 Cup of Flour
* White, all-purpose flour has 455 calories, 4 g of fat, 13 g of protein, 95 g of carbohydrates and only 3 g of dietary  fiber.

* King Arthur's white whole wheat flour has 400 calories, 2 g of fat, 12 g of protein, 72 g carbs and 12 g of dietary fiber.

* Baker Josef's white whole wheat flour has 440 calories, 2 g of fat, 16 g of protein, 92 g carbohydrates and a whopping 16 g of dietary fiber!

Bottom line, Baker Josef costs about the same as conventional all-purpose white flour and is 40% cheaper than King Arthur's white whole wheat.

Baker Josef has 23% more protein than all-purpose white flour and has 33% more protein than King Arthurs's white whole wheat.

Baker Josef has 433% more dietary fiber than all-purpose white flour and 33% more than King Arthur's. 

Remember, dietary fiber from whole grains can keep your regular and may lower your risk of colorectal cancer.  Fiber also lowers cholesterol and helps control your blood sugar levels. 

If there's a Trader Joe's near you, I suggest you give Baker Josef's white whole wheat flour a try, especially if you are still using white flour. If you use and enjoy King Arthur, it's still a great product and a great choice. Trader Joe's is just giving us another option.


King Arthur's is still a great product and a great choice!


Baking with White Whole Wheat
White whole wheat flour bakes like white flour. Start out by substituting it for 1/4 or 1/2  of your white flour but eventually I'm sure you'll use it for the entire recipe. It absorbs a bit more moisture than white flour so add a little more liquid to your recipes. All of my baked recipes on the blog (except for those that are wheat-free) assume the use of white whole wheat flour so there's no need to add additional liquid to these. 

White whole wheat flour can be used for bread, pizza dough, pancakes, muffins, breading, stuffing, biscuits, to thicken gravy or anywhere else white flour is used. I promise you, your kids won't even know you snuck in all this fiber and nutritional goodness into their diets!


1 comment:

MK said...

Hi,
Thanks for the update! I've used this flour a few times and really like it as an alternative to white flour.