Flour-based foods

Foods, Culinary bases

Availability: Earth

Introduction

In the language of food science, flour-based foods are defined as foods in which flour—typically derived from wheat, rice, corn, or others is the main component. This is a broad and diverse category, so widespread that it forms one of the dietary staples in almost every culture across the globe.

The success of these products is easy to explain: they offer a high energy yield at a low cost, and from a nutritional perspective, they are not generally associated with significant health risks, unlike certain processed meats, for example. When included in a balanced diet, their consumption does not promote the development of chronic or degenerative diseases.

Classification of flour-based foods

We primarily divide flour-based products into:

• Bread and related doughs and their derivatives (e.g., bread, focaccia, pizza dough)
• Cookies and related doughs and their derivatives (e.g., crispbreads, shortbread)
• Crumbly fat-based doughs and their derivatives (excluding cookies) (e.g., pâte brisée, pâte sucrée)
• Dehydrated or dried doughs and their derivatives (e.g., crackers, taralli)
• Fluid or semi-liquid non-whipped doughs and their derivatives (excluding cookies) (e.g., crepes, waffles)
• Laminated doughs and their derivatives (e.g., croissants, puff pastry, pâte feuilletée)
• Shaped unleavened doughs and their derivatives (dried pasta, fresh pasta, soba, udon, wonton wrappers)
• Structured non-laminated leavened doughs and their derivatives (excluding bread and related) (e.g., brioche, panettone)
• Unbaked fermented doughs and their derivatives (e.g., dosa, injera)
• Whipped or aerated doughs and their derivatives (excluding cookies) (e.g., sponge cake)