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The Wheat Kernel
Appears in
By Paula Figoni
Published 2003
Wheat kernels are the seeds of the wheat plant, and they are the part of the plant that is milled into flour. Since cereal grains are in the grass family, wheat kernels can be thought of as a type of grass seed. In fact, when a field of wheat starts to grow, it looks like lawn grass.
Wheat kernels, also called wheat grains, have three main parts: the endosperm, the germ, and the bran (Figure 5.1). While whole wheat flour contains all three parts of the kernel, white flour is milled from the endosperm. Whole wheat flour is considered a whole grain product only when it contains all three parts of the wheat kernel in the same proportions in which they occur in the wheat kernel. In the United States, whole wheat flour is always a whole grain.