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Wheat
Nutrition
100 grams of hard red winter wheat contain
about:
12.6 grams of protein,
1.5 grams of total fat,
71 grams of carbohydrate (by difference),
12.2 grams of dietary fiber, and
3.2 mg of iron (17% of the daily requirement);
100 grams of hard red spring wheat contains
about:
15.4 grams of protein,
1.9 grams of total fat,
68 grams of carbohydrate (by difference),
12.2 grams of dietary fiber, and
3.6 mg of iron (20% of the daily requirement).
Gluten,
a protein found in wheat (and other Triticeae), cannot be tolerated by
people with celiac disease (an
autoimmune disorder).
Much
of the carbohydrate fraction of wheat is starch. Wheat starch is an
important commercial product of wheat, but second in economic value to
wheat gluten.
The
principal parts of wheat flour are gluten and starch. These can be
separated in a kind of home experiment, by mixing flour and water to
form a small ball of dough, and kneading it gently while rinsing it in
a bowl of water. The starch falls out of the dough and sinks to the
bottom of the bowl, leaving behind a ball of gluten.
Related
Links:
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Did You Know?
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Roughly 1% of the
population has coeliac (also written as celiac) disease—a condition
that is caused by an adverse immune system reaction to gliadin, a
gluten protein found in wheat (and similar proteins of the tribe
Triticeae which includes other species such as barley and rye). Upon
exposure to gliadin, the enzyme tissue transglutaminase modifies the
protein, and the immune system cross-reacts with the bowel tissue,
causing an inflammatory reaction. That leads to flattening of the
lining of the small intestine, which interferes with the absorption of
nutrients. The only effective treatment is a lifelong gluten-free diet.
While the disease is caused by a reaction to wheat proteins, it is not
the same as wheat allergy.
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