Wheat flour is the most important ingredient in home baking and is the basic ingredient for almost every commercially baked product and pasta. Of the grains available for the production of flour, wheat is unique. It is the only cereal grain with sufficient gluten content to make a loaf of bread without being mixed with another grain. Wheat is also the most widely distributed cereal grain. It is grown all over the world. In most instances, a reference to 'flour" is a reference to wheat flour.

Wheat is the only cereal grain that contains gluten in sufficient amount to make yeast breads. Some wheats contain more gluten than others.

Flour milled from each class of wheat is used for specific products. The end products are determined by the characteristics of the wheat. Milling wheat into flour reduces the protein content by about 1 percent but does not affect other nutrients in significant levels. 7-bis applies to stone grinding, commercial milling by steel rollers, or home grinding. Whole wheat flour provides basically the same nutrients as the whole wheat kernel itself.