Your flour changed. Nobody announced it. I pulled 8 bags of all-purpose flour off the shelf — premium, mainstream, store brand, and regional — and did the homework most of us don't have time for. I compared the prices. I read every ingredient panel. I looked up who actually owns each brand. And I baked with four of them, same recipe, same water, same yeast, same oven, same afternoon. Two bags. One had 2 ingredients. One had 7. Both sold to you as the exact same thing. Whether you bake every weekend or buy one bag a year for Thanksgiving gravy — by the end of this you'll know what's in your bag, what you're actually paying, and which ones I'd still put in my cart. FREE: THE FLOUR AISLE CHEAT SHEET I scored all 8 bags and turned it into a one-page printable — the exact words to avoid on a panel, which brands had the cleanest ingredient lists, and a 30-second "read any bag" checklist you can pull up on your phone in the store. This video gives you my verdict. The cheat sheet is the tool you take shopping. Grab it free here → [ AVAILABLE JULY 13] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ THE 8 BAGS I TESTED King Arthur · Bob's Red Mill · Gold Medal · Pillsbury · Great Value (Walmart) · Wise (store brand) · Arrowhead Mills · Washington (regional to MD/PA/VA) WHAT I ACTUALLY USED - Ingredient panels and nutrition facts printed on the bags themselves - Corporate ownership records - USDA wheat reports - Months of my own grocery receipts - A 4-loaf bake test in my kitchen — one recipe, four flours ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CHAPTERS 0:00 Two Bags. Two Ingredient Lists. 1:22 What Actually Changed (Two Waves) 2:34 The 8 Bags on My Counter 3:59 Price: A 253% Spread 5:24 The Panel: 2 Ingredients vs. 7 6:19 Bleached, Enriched, Bromated — Decoded 7:40 The Protein Number Nobody Checks 9:59 Who Actually Owns These 8 Brands 13:35 The Bake Test 17:44 The Loaves, Ranked 20:06 It Wasn't Me. It Was the Flour. 21:50 The 3 Tiers + How to Store It ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CORRECTION At 10:24 I misspoke. Pillsbury's baking line is owned by J.M. Smucker (acquired from General Mills in 2018). Gold Medal is General Mills. Two different parent companies — the consolidation point stands, but I want the record accurate. I read the back of the bag for a living; I'll hold myself to the same standard. — Cassandra ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TELL ME IN THE COMMENTS Go pull whatever flour is in your pantry right now — baker or not — flip it over and count the ingredients. Drop the number and the brand below. I read every one, and some of the best grocery intel I get comes from you noticing what I missed. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ MORE FROM THE GROCERY INVESTIGATION SERIES I Tracked 20 Groceries for 90 Days. They're Vanishing. → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLSn0zR694M&t=1592s I Only Grocery Shop Once a Month, Here's How→ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NIQp_GLNPA I Don't Buy These 12 Foods Anymore → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ-CHbW478o&t=561s MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO Wye Mill (Maryland) — one of the oldest continuously operating grain mills in the country, milling since 1682 Azure Standard · Pleasant Hill Grain — where to source wheat berries KitchenAid grain mill attachment — the one I thrifted for $75 *Not sponsored. No affiliate links in this video. Just the receipts.* ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHO I AM I'm Cassandra. I take one ordinary thing out of the grocery store every week and do the homework most of us don't have time for — the receipts, the panels, the ownership, the real test. Cook smarter, shop sharper, and feel less owned by your grocery store. Blog → becomingafarmgirl.com #flour #groceryprices #shrinkflation #breadbaking #kitchenintelligence #groceryhaul #foodsystem #kingarthurflour #frompantrytotable #becomingafarmgirl Chapters: 0:00 Two Bags. Two Ingredient Lists. 1:22 What Actually Changed (Two Waves) 2:34 The 8 Bags on My Counter 3:59 Price: A 253% Spread 5:24 The Panel: 2 Ingredients vs. 7 6:19 Bleached, Enriched, Bromated — Decoded 7:40 The Protein Number Nobody Checks 9:59 Who Actually Owns These 8 Brands 13:35 The Bake Test 17:44 The Loaves, Ranked 20:06 It Wasn't Me. It Was the Flour. 21:50 The 3 Tiers + How to Store It
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I have a table top stone mill, I grind my own organic wheat berries and control what I put in my body. It took some practice to learn how to bake well with freshly milled flour, The health benefits and flavor are why I love it
Folic acid is bad for anyone with the MTHFR genetic issue. Natural folate is fine. Bromide has also been linked to thyroid issues. No wonder hypothyroidism is a silent epidemic.
Dont forget the glyphosate they use to desiccate the wheat and dont wash off before milling.
I use King Arthur for all my baking. I have used Bob's Red Mill and it's good but I love King Arthur the best!
That's a grate microphone 😂
Cassandra! Sistah, Darling! I absolutely LOVE when you do things like this! You are so in depth in all you do. I, myself, have been making my own bread products for years. I cannot remember when I last bought a bread product. I also don’t get my flour from the grocery store. I was gluten free for about ten years. But as it turns out, I wasn’t gluten intolerant or sensitive. I was synthetic sensitive. I now source my flour from a company in the Midwest who started the company when they realized the difference between the flour in the USofA and Italy. I’ve been using this flour for probably 5-6 years. I would dearly love to mill my own wheat grains but I, like you, do not have the storage room. I did not know there’s a KitchenAid mill. I will have to start searching Marketplace and thrift stores for that little goodie. Thank you so much for all you do, Cass. I love watching your videos. ❤
Go get the flour in your pantry right now. Flip it over. Count the ingredients. 🌾Drop it below → BRAND · INGREDIENT COUNT · YOUR STATE. Pssst-- I'm asking for your state because "all-purpose flour" doesn't mean the same thing everywhere — Washington is regional to me here in Maryland, and my grandmother's Louisiana recipes only ever called for White Lily. Same three words on the front of every bag. Very different things inside. I want to see how far that goes, and I can't do it without you. 📄 Free cheat sheet — all 8 bags scored, plus a 30-second checklist for the aisle: /2n5223bj ⚠ Correction (10:24): Pillsbury's baking line is J.M. Smucker, not General Mills. Gold Medal is General Mills. I read the back of the bag for a living — I'll hold myself to the same standard!!! So what's in your bag? 👇
Thank you for all your efforts.
Since 2018 I buy organic wheat berries from bread beckers and azure standard and I grind my own fresh ever time I need it. No additives, no chemicals and all the nutrition. I did this research back in 2018 and realized I could no longer buy the stuff on shelf. You would be surprised but this is true about every product in the grocery store they are all owned by a select number of companies . Why do chemical and pharmaceutical companies own food companies, seed companies? The answer will change the way you shop.
Now throw in dynamic pricing at wal mart and Kroger …
Faithful user for many years of my fellow New Englanders’ flour from King Arthur. And yes, I regularly bake my own bread — it was kind of a no-brainer decision when I realized my bread cost about a dollar a loaf. Thanks to Christine over at Frugal Fit Mom, it’s even pretty easy to do. Thanks for doing the research, Cassie — we appreciate it! 😊
This is exactly what I did.... I had the KitchenAid and bought the attachment. Was so excited when I was able to purchase my first grain mill, which lasted close to 20 years before it died.
General Mills and Pillsbury were both flour mills based in Minneapolis. Pillsbury got bought out by Grand Met/Diageo in the 80s. They got bored with it and they put it up for sale. General Mills wanted it for a few of their products, but the FTC objected because of anti-trust issues. General Mills had to spin out cake mixes and flour (baking goods/dry mixes line) to another owner. That stuff originally was spun out to Smuckers. But, they got bored with it, and sold it to a private equity company who operates it under Hometown Food Company. In addtion to Pillsbury, Hometown Food Company also makes White Lilly and Martha White.
Hi Cas, I’m a 30-year-old Indian woman who has been living in the U.S. for the past 12 years. We make a variety of flatbreads, and I’ve baked bread here and there. Recently, I’ve been thinking that I should start making bread regularly. Your video came at the perfect time!
I love Cas and her channel! I was a version of her 30-40 years ago. Over the years and different living situations I've adapted to, be flexible in how I can accommodate to changes, and knowledgeable in how to apply basic knowledge (like grinding wheat berries,with a certain blade in your food processor versus in your stand mixer with thrifted attachments!) I can see is becoming important again with the way our economy is going. Like Cas,I feel I have to find a way to spread my knowledge. For me, it's to inform the next generation. Leisa at Sutton's Daze is warning about the spring wheat crop failure, the cattle herd shrinking, how culling hens from an Avian flu epidemic takes 5-6 months to reztart the supply because the chicks have to mautre into laying hens, and how the supply chain lags 3-6 months for most grocery items, so we will start feeling the problems hit in late August or September. Between Cas and Liesa, if you follow both you will be prepared for the shortages and much higher prices that will hit this early fall. It's like a master class in home economics!
I order from Sunrise Flour Mill. They are non GMO and Glosophate free. I've noticed a difference in how my stomach feels when I eat homemade bread.
Organic all the way. Otherwise you have round-up flour.
Bob’s and King Arthur are probably fresher.
I get a 50# bag of flour from Azure Standard and price per pound is cheaper than the non organic King Arthur. Brand is Central Milling and it is organic. This is for the all purpose. I also get white hard wheat and soft wheat berries and grind my own. I keep everything in five gallon buckets and use Gamma Seal lids.
My flour didn’t change. It comes out exactly the same way it always does when I’m done milling 😁