Magic flour

Modern farm equipment allows livestock farmers to do some or all of their own milling when it comes time to convert their own grain crops to coarse meal for livestock feed. This capability is economically important because the profit margins are often thin enough in commercial farming that saving expenses is vital to staying in business.

Corn flour has been important in Mesoamerican cuisine since ancient times and remains a staple in the Americas. Rye flour is a constituent of bread in central and northern Europe. Archaeological evidence for making flour (wheat seeds crushed between simple millstones) dates to at least 6000 BC. In 2018, archaeologists reported finding evidence[3] of bread making at Shubayqa 1, a Natufian hunter-gatherer site more than 14,000 years old in northwest Jordan. The Romans were the first to grind seeds on cone mills. In 1786, at the beginning of the Industrial Era, the first steam-powered flour mill, Albion Mills, Southwark, was completed in London.[4] In the 1930s, some flour began to be enriched with iron, niacin, thiamine and riboflavin. In the 1940s, mills started to enrich flour and folic acid was added to the list in the 1990s.

Cereal flour consists either of the endosperm, germ, and bran together (whole-grain flour) or of the endosperm alone (refined flour). Meal is either differentiable from flour as having slightly coarser particle size (degree of comminution) or is synonymous with flour; the word is used both ways. For example, the word cornmeal often connotes a grittier texture whereas corn flour connotes fine powder, although there is no codified dividing line.

The CDC has cautioned not to eat raw flour doughs or batters. Raw flour can contain bacteria like E. coli and needs to be cooked like other foods.[1]