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Table of contents :
Title Page
Contents
Chapter 1: Where Does Wheat Come From?
Chapter 2: The History of Wheat
Chapter 3: Who Grows the Wheat We Eat?
Chapter 4: How Is Wheat Grown?
Chapter 5: How Does Wheat Get to Your Plate?
Words to Know
Find Out More
Index
About the Author & Picture Credits
Blank Page

Citation preview

NHMC13_8HBK_FeedngWorld_NHMC13_8HBK_FeedngWorld 4/27/13 2:04 PM Page 1

Wheat is a plant that most of us eat every day. The flour used to bake bread, cookies, and cakes is made out of wheat. Pasta and pizza crust are made from wheat flour too. We eat wheat in cereals and in snacks. Discover how all this wheat is grown — and how it gets from the field to the factory. . . and then to your kitchen. Discover the story of your food—where it was grown, who grows it, and how it gets to your plate.

BE SURE TO READ OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES

ISBN 978-1-4222-2749-7

EAN

90000

9 781422 227497 Cover images: Shutterstock.com

Feeding the World

Wheat

Feeding the World Corn Dairy Products Eggs Farmed Fish Meat Rice SoyBeans Wheat

Feeding the World

Wheat Jane E. Singer

Mason Crest

Mason Crest 450 Parkway Drive, Suite D Broomall, PA  19008 www.masoncrest.com

Copyright © 2014 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher. Printed and bound in the United States of America. First printing 987654321 Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-2741-1 ISBN: 978-1-4222-2749-7 ebook ISBN: 978-1-4222-9081-1 The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcopy format(s) as follows: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Singer, Jane E. Wheat / Jane E. Singer. p. cm. — (Feeding the world) ISBN 978-1-4222-2749-7 (hardcover) — ISBN 978-1-4222-2741-1 (series) — ISBN 978-1-4222-9081-1 (ebook) 1. Wheat—Juvenile literature. 2. Food supply—Juvenile literature. I. Title. II. Series: Feeding the world. SB191.W5S614 2014 633.1’1—dc23 2013004743 Publisher’s notes: The websites mentioned in this book were active at the time of publication. The publisher is not responsible for websites that have changed their addresses or discontinued operation since the date of publication. The publisher will review and update the website addresses each time the book is reprinted.

Contents 1. Where Does Wheat Come From? 7 2. The History of Wheat 15 3. Who Grows the Wheat We Eat? 23 4. How Is Wheat Grown? 31 5. How Does Wheat Get to Your Plate? 39 Words to Know 45 Find Out More 46 Index 47 About the Author & Picture Credits 48

Chapter One

W

Where Does Wheat Come From? e eat food all the time. Each of us has to eat every day to stay healthy. But even though we see and taste food every day, we don’t always know much about it.

Have you ever thought about where your food comes from? You might think it just comes from the refrigerator or cupboard. Or that your family buys it in the grocery store. Food has a longer story than that. All that food had to get to the grocery store somehow. Where does it come from?

From the Earth All food comes from the earth. Most food starts out in the ground. Fruits and vegetables grow in the ground. They are plants. Farmers grow them and pick them for us to eat. Grains grow in the ground too. Grains are foods like rice, wheat, and oats. We make them into bread, oatmeal, and pasta. Farmers grow all these grains.

From corn to milk, cookies to potato chips, almost all food started out on a farm.

Meat, milk, and eggs come from animals. Farmers raise cows, chickens, pigs, goats, and other animals. Farmers kill their animals for meat. They milk them to make foods like cheese and butter. Or they collect eggs from their chickens. It’s harder to figure out where processed foods come from. Processed foods are foods that are made in factories. Someone has to put a bunch of ingredients together to make a processed food. Chips, cookies, and other snack foods are processed foods. Mustard, cereal, and crackers are processed foods. Juice and soda are processed drinks. There are lots and lots of processed foods in the world. Cereal and juice don’t grow in the ground or on trees. But the ingredients in them do. Cereal is made from wheat, corn, and other grains. They are grown by farmers. Juice is made from fruit. It also has sugar in it, which we get from plants called sugarcane or sugar beets. Farmers grow all the ingredients. Then they send them to factories. The factories make them into cereal and juice through processing.

8 Wheat

You can’t pick a bag of chips or can of soup from a tree. But many of the ingredients in the packages on your grocery store’s shelves are grown on farms. Almost all the food we eat comes from the earth in some way.

Where Does Wheat Come From?

9

Food Stories Every food has a story. It starts out somewhere on a farm. Then it often goes to a factory. Then it travels to grocery stores. Finally, that food ends up in your home. Not all food has the exact same story. Food travels in different ways, depending on where it comes from. Let’s think about a banana’s story. Some food is local. That means it was grown near where you live. If a banana is local, it was grown close to you. A farmer in the same town as you grew that banana. You can buy local food right from the farmer. You could go to the farm and pick some bananas, or buy some from a store on the farm. You could buy bananas at a local farmers’ market. Farmers’ markets are places where local farmers can sell what they grow right to the customer. You could also grow your own bananas. Picking a banana from your own banana plant is as local as you can get. Bananas don’t grow everywhere. They grow in hot places. You have to live in a place where bananas grow to get a local banana. A lot of people in the world don’t live where bananas grow.

Bananas may not grow in your town, or even in a town near yours. Still, you can buy bananas because of the people who work to grow and move fruit from a farm to the store.

10 Wheat

Maybe you live somewhere that gets cold. Bananas don’t grow near you. But they may grow in your country. They might grow 500 miles away, where it’s warmer. Bananas that come from a little farther away (outside your town or the towns nearby) are from your region. Your region might be your country or the places near where you live. We call food that has to travel a little farther to get to you regional food. Regional food doesn’t come from the other side of the world. But it doesn’t come from next door either. You could probably buy a regional banana from the grocery store. Banana farmers from 500 miles away have to send their bananas to you. You wouldn’t want to drive all that way for a banana! Some countries don’t grow bananas at all. The whole country is too cold. But people still want to eat bananas there. Stores in the country have to bring in bananas from other, hotter countries. Bananas from other countries have to travel a long way to get to you. They could come from India. Or China. Or Brazil. If you don’t live at all near where your banana grew, you’re eating food from another country. That banana might have come from somewhere very far away! Food from another country is called international food. We eat food from all over the world. The next time you got to the store, take a look at the labels on your food. They might say where it came from. Your food could have come from 10 miles away, or 1,000 miles away!

Wheat Wheat is a food you might eat all the time and not know it. Wheat is one of the most important plants in the world. Most of the wheat you eat is probably in flour. Flour is just ground-up wheat. Bread is made out of wheat flour. Pasta is made out of wheat flour too. Wheat is a grain. Grains are the seeds of certain kinds of grass plants. Other grains are rice, corn, and oats. Wheat plants look like giant grass. We only eat the seeds that grow at the top of the plant. The seeds are the grains of wheat. Farmers grow the wheat. There are huge fields of wheat all around the world. Farmers plant the wheat seeds. They take care of the plants. And they harvest the wheat.

Where Does Wheat Come From?

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Farmers around the world grow wheat in huge fields. Next time you’re eating bread, remember the wheat farmers who helped bring it to your plate!

12 Wheat

After that, farmers send their wheat to a factory. Factories make wheat into flour and other processed foods. Then the flour is made into bread or pasta. Wheat is also a part of lots and lots of processed foods. Cereal, flour tortillas, and crackers all have wheat in them. Cookies, pizza, and hamburger buns are made with wheat. Wheat is even hidden in things like ketchup, soy sauce, canned soup, and meat. Wheat is in many foods!

Staying Away from Wheat Not everyone can eat wheat. Some people’s bodies can’t digest it. The problem is that wheat has something called gluten in it. Gluten is what makes bread chewy. People who can’t eat gluten have to stay away from wheat. That means they can’t eat bread, baked goods, or anything with wheat flour in it. Some people have a sickness called Celiac disease. That means that eating wheat makes them sick. They can’t have anything with gluten in it.

Where Does Wheat Come From?

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Chapter TWO

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The History of Wheat heat is an important food today. Pretty much everyone in the world has eaten wheat at some point. But that’s nothing new. Wheat has been one of people’s main foods for thousands of years!

The First Wheat Wild wheat first grew in the Middle East. It grew in places we now call Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran. These countries were once called the Fertile Crescent. These places had really good soil to grow food. People didn’t always know how to farm. They went out in the wild to pick things to eat. They hunted wild animals. Some people still do this today. Harvesting wild food worked a lot of the time. But sometimes the food was far away from where people lived. Or it was hard to find. People had to move around all the time to figure out where food was.

Wild wheat was the first kind of wheat people started eating. After some time, people learned to grow wheat on farms. Farming changed the way people ate. After they started farming, people didn’t have to hunt for their food.

16 Wheat

After some time, people learned that they could grow wild plants themselves. They collected the seeds from wild plants. They planted them in special places that were close to where they lived. They could give the plants water to help them grow even better. Wheat was one of the first plants that people grew like this. People found wild wheat plants. They liked to eat those so much that they figured out how to grow them. Wheat grew on the very first farms in the world. That was over 10,000 years ago. At first, only people in the Middle East grew wheat. People in the Middle East were the first to find out how to grow it on farms. Then more people learned how to grow wheat. People who grew wheat taught other people who didn’t know how to farm it. Soon, farmers in Asia, Europe, and North Africa could grow wheat too. For a long time, people grew more wheat than any other crop. They spent a lot of time and energy growing it. Wheat was an important part of many people’s diets. Wheat helped people stay alive and stay healthier. Once they started growing wheat and other plants, people usually had enough to eat. More people stayed alive longer. The number of people on Earth started growing.

Old Ways of Eating Wheat People used to eat wheat in a lot of different forms. We still eat many of these different foods today. Wheat berries are the whole wheat seeds. They’re what wheat looks like when it’s picked from the plant. You can cook and eat them just like that. Bulgur is another form of wheat that was first eaten a long time ago. First, you soak the whole wheat seed in water. Next, you cook it. Then you dry it and take out part of it, called the bran. The rest is pounded up into tiny pieces. Maybe you’ve tried bulgur in tabouli, a kind of salad with parsley and tomato in it.

The History of Wheat

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Today, farmers use machines like this one to harvest lots of wheat at once. Farmers didn’t always have machines to help them farm. Wheat once had to be planted and harvested by hand. That’s a lot of work!

18 Wheat

Changes For a long time, people grew wheat in the same way. There weren’t a lot of changes. They planted by hand. They watered the plants by hand. They picked the wheat by hand. Growing wheat was a lot of hard work. Then people started using animals to help them farm. Cows and horses pulled tools that dug up the earth, which is called plowing. That made it easier to plant seeds like wheat. After animals came machines. People came up with new machines to help farmers plant seeds. The machines could plant seeds faster than a person. They could water seedlings . They could pick lots and lots of wheat. They could take the seed we can eat out of the shell around it that we can’t eat. Splitting the seed and the shell takes a lot of work when people do it without machines. Over time, the farm machines got better and better. Farmers could plant more wheat. The amount of land that was used for wheat farming grew every year. All around the world, people were growing more wheat. Scientists came up with different kinds of wheat, too. They created wheat that was better at dealing with droughts . Or that could grow in warmer or colder places. Or that had bigger seeds. Today, people are always coming up with better ways to grow wheat. And the world still grows a lot of wheat. But it’s not quite as important as it used to be. There are other crops that we eat a lot of too. We grow more corn and rice today than wheat. But wheat is still an important crop.

Bread The history of bread is almost as old as the history of growing wheat. People figured out pretty quickly that they could make bread out of wheat. People probably made bread thousands and thousands of years ago. They crushed up wheat and mixed it with water. They didn’t have ovens back then. They just put it in the sun to bake. Scientists have found bread from thousands of years ago. Loaves of bread have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs. They’re over 5,000 years old! Ovens were invented around 3,000 bce. Then people could make new kinds of bread, more like what we eat today. Bread made out of just wheat was for rich people. Poorer people ate bread made out of other grains. Or they ate bread made out of a little wheat mixed with other grains.

The History of Wheat

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People all over the world make and eat bread. The story of bread begins with wheat. Wheat is crushed up and made into flour. Flour is then used to make the bread we all enjoy!

20 Wheat

Today, wheat is for everyone. The bread you eat from the store is mostly made out of wheat. You can still get bread made out of other grains, though. More recently, people started making bread in factories. The bread you buy in the store was probably made in a factory. Machines make wheat into flour. They mix ingredients together. They bake the bread. Some people still make bread at home. It’s not too hard, but it takes awhile. Lots of people just think of bread as something you buy at the store. But that bread has a story that starts on a wheat farm.

The History of Wheat

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C h a p t e r THREE

Who Grows the Wheat We Eat?

W Farmers

ho grows the food we eat? The simple answer is—farmers! Farmers are the people who grow and take care of the plants and animals we eat. But not all farmers are the same.

Farmers can be all sorts of people. They can be men or women. They can be young or old. They can live in any country in the world. No matter how different they are, farmers all grow the things we eat. They might each do it differently, but they all have the same goal. They want to feed hungry people! Some farmers have tiny farms. They only grow enough food for their families to eat. They

The machines farmers use to harvest wheat are called combine harvesters. Combine harvesters pull the wheat from the ground. Then the harvesters pull the grain from the rest of the plant.

24 Wheat

Organic Farmers Many farmers that grow wheat or other foods use chemicals on their farms. They use them to kill bugs and weeds, and to add nutrients to the soil so that plants will get bigger and greener. But not all farmers want to use chemicals. Chemicals can get into the water and poison animals and other creatures (including people). Pesticides kill all bugs, even though some bugs are good for the farm, like bees and spiders. Farmers who don’t want to use chemicals choose to grow organically. They don’t use chemical pesticides and fertilizers that could hurt the environment. Organic farmers work with nature to grow food. Organic farms are found all over the world. They are often smaller than non-organic farms, but that isn’t always true. Lots of farmers who use old ways of growing food are organic because that’s just how they learned to farm. Some farmers are organic by choice. They grow organic vegetables, fruit, grains, meat, and more. Maybe you’ve even eaten some organic food from the grocery store or the farmers’ market. Organic food has a label that says it’s organic. Take a look the next time you’re at the store.

aren’t really trying to make a lot of money. They might not want to have to go to the store to buy food. They like growing it themselves. There are also farmers who have huge farms. Thousands and thousands of plants grow on these huge farms. Usually they’re all the same kind of plant. That makes it easier for farmers to grow so much. Grains are often grown on really big farms. Farmers make a lot more money if they can grow a lot of wheat. That means huge fields of wheat. Farmers use tractors and other machines on big farms. They couldn’t grow all that wheat without machines. It would take too long to do it all by hand!

Who Grows the Wheat We Eat?

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Farmers grow wheat around the world. This wheat field in China is just one of many in the country. China grows more wheat than any other country in the world.

26 Wheat

People make different kinds of bread all over the world. In France, bakers make long sticks of bread. In some places, the bread looks like a knotted piece of string.

Wheat Around the World Wheat is grown all around the world. You can find it on every continent, except Antarctica. Lots and lots of countries grow wheat. Some of them grow more wheat than others. Wheat grows best where it isn’t too hot or too cold. Countries that are very hot or very cold all the time don’t grow much wheat. China grows the most wheat in the world. It didn’t always grow a lot of wheat. But in the last few years, China has started to grow lots of it. China still doesn’t grow enough wheat though. It has to buy wheat from other countries to have enough for everyone who wants it. With so many people in China, it’s tough to make sure there’s enough wheat for everyone.

Who Grows the Wheat We Eat?

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There are many, many wheat farms in the United States. China and India are the only countries that grow more wheat than the United States. A farm like this has thousands and thousands of wheat plants!

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India grows the second-largest amount of wheat. India also doesn’t grow enough wheat for everyone. It has to buy wheat from other countries, like China does. The third-biggest producer of wheat is the United States. Other countries that grow a lot of wheat are France, Russia, Canada, and Australia. Wheat grows in other parts of the world, too. In South America, Argentina grows a lot of wheat. In Africa, Egypt also grows a lot. Wheat farmers really do live all around the world!

Who Grows the Wheat We Eat?

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C h a p t e r F OUR

W

How Is Wheat Grown?

heat grows in the ground. Farmers know all the steps to grow wheat. They plant the seeds. They take care of the seedlings. They protect their plants from weeds and bugs. Then they harvest the wheat. Farmers plant several kinds of wheat. They plant winter wheat and spring wheat. Winter wheat is planted in the fall and spends the winter in the ground. Spring wheat is planted in the spring. It’s harvested in the fall. Farmers also plant red wheat and white wheat. The wheat seeds are different colors. The flour that we make out of each is a little different too. But no matter what kind of wheat farmers plant, they all go through the same planting steps.

Soil To grow healthy wheat, a farmer needs good dirt. The farmer usually breaks up the dirt so it is easier to plant seeds. Most wheat farmers use a tractor to plow the dirt. The farmer might also want to add fertilizer . Fertilizer keeps soil healthy. For the best wheat, farmers need to make sure that the soil is as healthy as it can be. With healthy soil, wheat can grow up tall and strong.

Seeds Once the soil is ready, it’s time to plant the seeds. Wheat is a seed. The farmer just has to plant a grain of wheat. It will grow into a new wheat plant. Imagine small, brown, oval seeds, which are what flour comes from. This is what the farmer plants. On small farms, a farmer might plant them by hand. She will draw lines in the dirt. Then she will put some seeds in the line. Most wheat farmers plant seeds with machines. Wheat drills push the seeds into the ground. Next, farmers water the seeds they just planted. The seeds will need water and sunlight to start growing.

Seedlings Now the seeds start to sprout. Tiny green leaves poke up out of the soil. Soon, the wheat plant looks like grass.

Kinds of Wheat There are many different types of wheat out there. Hard red spring and winter wheat are used to make flour for bread. Soft red winter wheat is made into flour for cakes and other desserts. Durum wheat is used to make pasta. There are lots more too! Farmers have a lot of choices.

32 Wheat

Each grain of wheat is a seed. If you planted a grain of wheat, it might grow into a wheat plant. That wheat plant would have more seeds growing on its stalk.

It keeps growing taller and taller. If the farmer planted winter wheat, the weather will get too cold for the wheat to keep growing. Then it just stops. The wheat seedlings don’t die. They just go to sleep for the winter. When it gets warm again, the winter wheat will start growing. The seedlings grow and grow. After a while, they reach between two and four feet tall. As they get older, the plants start to fade. At first, they are green. After that, they become brown or golden. The leaves and the stems dry out. Dead plants let the farmer know that it’s almost time to harvest the wheat.

How Is Wheat Grown?

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When wheat begins to grow, it looks like short grass. These wheat seedlings will grow up to be gold and brown wheat.

34 Wheat

Saving Seeds The farmer might want to save some of the wheat she grew rather than sell it. That way, she can plant it next year. Remember, wheat is a seed. If you plant it in the ground, it will grow into a new wheat plant. Farmers who don’t want to buy new seeds save some of the wheat they grew. Then they can plant it next season to grow even more wheat.

Harvest Farmers harvest winter wheat in the summer. After the winter, the wheat grows all through the spring. Then, at the beginning of the summer, it’s time for harvesting. If the farmer planted spring wheat, he harvests it in the fall. It grows during the spring and summer. The farmer can harvest wheat in two different ways. She can do it by hand. Or she can use a machine. To harvest by hand, the farmer uses a scythe. A scythe is a large, curved knife. He cuts off the stems of the wheat plant. The wheat seeds are on top of the stem. Harvesting by hand can take a long time. It only makes sense if the farmer has a small field, or has a lot of help. Farmers can also use a combine machine. The combine can harvest lots of wheat in a short amount of time. The farmer drives the combine over the field. It splits the wheat seeds from the rest of the plant. Then the combine puts seeds into a big bin to keep until it’s time to move the wheat. When the bin is full, the farmer has to empty it and start again.

Keeping the Wheat Sometimes the farmer doesn’t want to sell all the wheat right away. Instead, he might keep the wheat for a little while. Wheat can be kept for a long time. It doesn’t go bad right away.

How Is Wheat Grown?

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Farmers keep their grain in silos like these. When a farmer harvests his wheat, he may want to keep some in silos before selling it. Silos keep grains like wheat dry.

36 Wheat

The farmer might keep all the wheat in a silo on the farm. It will stay dry in there. He might send it to a grain elevator. Grain elevators are really big buildings that are used to keep wheat and other grains. The farmer can keep his wheat there until he’s ready to sell it. Once the farmer chooses to sell the wheat, it’s ready for the next steps!

Growing Your Own Wheat If you want to see how wheat grows, try it yourself! Ask your parents if you can put dirt in some big pots, or start in a garden. If you want, add some fertilizer or compost. Take a handful of wheat seeds in your hand and throw them out onto the dirt. You want the seeds to be pretty close together, but still have enough room to grow. Then you should cover up the seeds with a very thin layer of soil. You can either rake the dirt over them, or sprinkle some dirt over them with your hand. Now, make sure your seeds get enough water. After seedlings come up, keep watering if they get too dry. Watch your plants. When they get dried out and dead looking, it’s time to harvest. Cut the top of the stalks (with the seeds on them). Lay them out somewhere to dry. They can lie in the sun if it won’t rain, or inside. Now you have to get the seeds out of their shells. Knock them against a rock or step on them over a sheet. The seeds will come out. You’ll have a big pile of seeds and extra stuff. You can throw everything into the air over a sheet on a windy day. The wheat seeds are heavy and will fall down. The shells will blow away. Now you’re ready to use your wheat!

How Is Wheat Grown?

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C h a p t e r F IVE

T

How Does Wheat Get to Your Plate?

he wheat has been planted and harvested. Now what? How does all that wheat become the food you eat?

To the Factory The farmer decides to sell his wheat. He sells it to a company that makes food out of wheat. In order to become a different food, wheat has to go to a factory. A truck driver comes to pick up the wheat from the farm or the grain elevator. The truck loads up the wheat and takes it to a factory. The factory could make bread. It could make pasta. It could make cookies or any other food that has wheat in it. Sometimes there is more than one factory involved. First, the wheat could go to a factory that makes it into flour. Then it goes to a different factory. The second factory makes it into a new food, like crackers or tortillas.

You can see each kernel on this stalk of wheat. The kernel’s covering is called the germ and bran. The seed inside is called the endosperm.

40 Wheat

At first, wheat kernels are on a stalk like the one at the top of the picture. Then, the seeds are pulled from the rest of the plant, and they look like the seeds in the top spoon. Those seeds are then crushed into flour (like in the bottom spoon) used to make bread and other kinds of food.

Milling Factories that make wheat into flour are called mills. Big machines in mills grind the wheat seeds into powder. The powder is flour. The wheat needs to go through a few steps to become flour. First, the wheat is cleaned. There could be bugs or dirt in there. After the wheat is cleaned, big rollers crush the wheat into tiny pieces. This is where wheat is made into either white or whole-wheat flour. Each kernel of wheat has three parts. It has a germ, endosperm, and bran. The germ and bran are around the endosperm. They are like a shell around the middle of the seed. Whole-wheat flour is made from all three of these parts. White flour is made from only the endosperm. For whole-wheat flour, grinders pound the wheat kernel into flour. For white flour, machines take out the germ and bran. Then it pounds the endosperm into flour. The germ and the bran get sent somewhere else. Usually they become animal food. Cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals will eat the leftover wheat parts.

How Does Wheat Get to Your Plate?

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The rest of the pieces of wheat are crushed over and over again. They might go through the grinders up to 25 times. If a factory is making white flour, there’s an extra step. The factory adds vitamins to the flour. Lots of vitamins were taken out with the bran and germ. The factory adds some of them back in. Finally, the flour has to be packaged. It’s put into small bags for people who want a little flour. It’s also put into bigger bags for bakers who need a lot of flour all at once. In a few places, people grind their own flour. It takes a long time to grind wheat into flour. But people have done it for a long time. And some still do it today!

Bread Some factories make flour. But that isn’t the end of wheat’s story. Lots of flour is made into other foods, like bread. Sometimes factories make bread. Sometimes it’s made by neighborhood bakeries. You might even make it at home, if you buy some flour. Bread is mostly made out of flour. It can be white or whole wheat. Other things are added to the flour. Water and salt are added in. So is yeast. Yeast helps bread rise and get soft. It also gives bread a good flavor. Factories and bakeries mix up bread. They have their own special recipes. There are many kinds of bread out there. The bread has to be baked after it’s mixed up. In factories, huge bowls of dough are made. Then the dough is broken into small pieces. Each piece is put in the oven. Then it’s packaged up and is ready to go!

Whole Wheat And White Flour Why are there two different kinds of flours? Each one is good for different reasons. Wholewheat flour has a lot of vitamins and minerals in it. It’s healthier for you. It also has a stronger taste, so some people like it more (and some like it less). White flour stays fresh in your kitchen longer. It won’t go bad as fast as whole-wheat flour. It’s also better to use in baking. But it’s not as healthy for you as whole wheat-flour either.

42 Wheat

Pasta Some factories make pasta with flour. Pasta is made from a different recipe than bread. It is made by mixing up flour, water, eggs, and salt. First, the flour is brought to the factory by a truck. Then big mixers mix the flour and other ingredients together. Then the dough is rolled out flat. It has to be really thin. Next, it’s cut into pieces. How the dough is cut depends on the kind of pasta. Lasagna noodles are cut very wide. Dough for spaghetti noodles is pushed through small holes. That way, the spaghetti comes out thin and round. Next, the pasta has to be dried. It will go bad if it’s too wet. The pasta is put into drying machines that dry it in a few hours. Last, it’s put into packages and sent off to its next stop.

This machine is making spiral pasta. The dough is pushed through holes.

How Does Wheat Get to Your Plate?

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The Grocery Store The flour, bread, pasta, or other wheat food is sent to a grocery store next. The factory could be really far away from the store. Or it could be pretty close. If it’s far away, the wheat has to go on a plane, or a boat, or a train. Maybe the factory is in China, but the grocery store is in South Africa. If the store is closer to the factory, the wheat probably gets loaded onto a truck. Then the truck drives to a warehouse that’s owned by the grocery store company. Warehouses sort all the food that is going to the stores. They’re big buildings with lots and lots of different kinds of food. Some of the food with wheat in it will get sent to your grocery store. Then you and your family will go shopping. You might pick up a bag of flour. Or a box of pasta. Or a package of cookies. Or breadcrumbs. Or any of the other hundreds of foods that have flour in them. Chances are, your cart will have something with wheat in it! From seedlings to flour to pasta, wheat has a long journey. It starts on farms and goes to factories. Then it ends up at grocery stores and in your home. The next time you buy something with wheat in it, you’ll know how it got there! You’ll know the story of wheat.

Beyond Food Wheat is actually used to make things that aren’t foods too. You can find wheat in makeup, soap, newspapers, concrete, glue, oil, and more. Wheat is also an ingredient in some pet food. Wheat is everywhere!

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Words to Know: droughts: Times when no rain falls and the land gets very dry. fertilizer: Animal poop used to keep dirt healthy for growing plants. grains: Plants like corn, wheat, rice, and oats. Grains are small seeds. harvest: Gathering plants grown on a farm. ingredients: Foods that are mixed with others to make new foods. international: To do with more than one country or something from a country outside your own.

kernel: A seed of wheat or other kind of grain. processed: The way ingredients are mixed or changed in a factory to become the food we eat. seedlings: Very small plants just starting to grow out of the ground. silo: A container used to keep grain (like wheat) on a farm before it goes to factories or stores. soil: Dirt. stems: The long, thin part of plants. vitamins: Important chemicals found in food that people need to eat to stay healthy.

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Find Out More Online Grainchain.com www.grainchain.com/fun_and_games

History for Kids: Wheat www.historyforkids.org/learn/food/wheat.htm Tiki’s Guide to Food tiki.oneworld.net/food/home.html

In Books

Lackey, Jennifer. The Biography of Wheat. New York: Crabtree Publishing Company, 2007. Owen, Ruth. Bread! Life on a Wheat Farm. New York: Windmill Books, 2012.

Thornhill, Jan. Who Wants Pizza? The Kids Guide to the History, Science, and Culture of Food. Toronto, Ont.: Owlkids Books Inc., 2010.

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Index China: 11, 26–29, 43

machines: 18, 19, 21, 24, 25, 32, 41, 43 Middle East: 15, 17 milling: 41

dirt: 32, 37, 41

organic: 25

factories: 8, 13, 21, 41–44 farms: 9, 16–17, 25, 28, 32, 44 fertilizer: 25, 32, 37 fields: 11, 12, 25 flour: 11, 13, 20, 21, 32, 32, 39, 41–44

pasta: 7, 11, 13, 32, 39, 43–44 processed: 8, 13

bread: 7, 11–13, 19–21, 27, 32, 39, 41–43

gluten: 13 grains: 7, 11, 21, 25, 36, 37 grocery stores: 7, 10–11, 25, 43–44 India: 11, 28, 29 international: 11

regional: 11 scythe: 35 seedlings: 19, 31–34, 37, 44 seeds: 11, 17, 19, 31–33, 35, 37, 41 spring wheat: 31, 35 warehouses: 43 whole wheat 17, 41, 42 winter wheat: 31–33, 35

local: 10 United States: 28–29

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About the Author Jane E. Singer is freelance writer with several titles to her name. Singer writes about health, history, and other topics that affect young people. She is passionate about learning in and out of the classroom.

Picture Credits Dreamstime.com: Adamr: p. 41 Amitai: p. 6 CandyBox: p. 38 Danijelm: p. 33 Digitalpress: p. 10 Engel: p. 12 Focusphoto: p. 34 Geoffreybooth: p. 18 Goodluz: p. 24 Hbh: p. 26 Irishcoffee: p. 27 Jimsphotos: p. 30 Jurand: p. 36 Knowlesgallery: p. 14 Lamma: p. 16 Marina Shevchuk: p. 43 Pixart: p. 22, 28 Rolffimages: p. 8 Tonnywu76: p. 9 Viktorfischer: p. 20 Vincentmax: p. 40

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