With so much to say about wheat, it’s hard to know just where to start!
As I mentioned in an earlier post, wheat has been called the Staff of Life, and with good reason. It’s been one of the foundations of the human diet since early in our history, providing the calories and nutrition that took humanity from the hunting stage of our development to the agricultural stage. We’ve taken full advantage of its ability to store well; wheat from the pyramids has been successfully sprouted by modern archaeologists seeking to test its viability.
As you start to look at purchasing wheat for your long term food storage, you will find that there are six types of wheat: Hard Red Winter, Hard Red Spring, Soft Red Winter, Hard White, Soft White and Durum.
Until the development of Hard White wheat, Hard Red wheat was the type of wheat found in most food storage supplies. It has a high protein content, which makes for good bread. It is, however, also very dark, with a strong flavor. This is the type of wheat most of us are familiar with when we think of wheat bread. Between them, the winter and spring types of hard red wheat comprise about 60% of U.S. wheat production.
The difference between a soft wheat and a hard wheat is the amount of protein found in the grain. Soft wheats, such as Soft Red Winter and Soft White, have a lower percentage of protein than hard wheats do; this makes them very good for pastry flours, used to make cakes, biscuits, crackers and noodles.
Durum is the hardest of all wheats and is indispensable to commercial pasta manufacturers. The major producer of this variety of wheat is Canada.
Hard White is a relatively new wheat. It has the high protein content of Hard Red, making excellent breads, but without the strong flavor and dark color that turns some people off to wheat products. Because of this it is becoming increasingly popular with home food storage consumers.
Coming up: The nutrition of wheat, best ways to store it