There's no regulation enforcing enriched flour. It's just so much cheaper than the alternatives, that it's the default choice for most bakeries to keep the sale price competitive. I'm sure it comes a ...
You sent me down the rabbit hole. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK208880/
It was required for interstate commerce at one point but that was repealed. It also only applied to sufficiently processed flours, which I knew but didn’t say.
So, if we went back 80 years, I would have basically been right.
Also, it sounds like many states do require white flour, or other sufficiently processed flours, to be enriched.
That makes market reach the most plausible explanation to me, because it’s cheaper to just make white flour without adding nutrients back in.
It was required for interstate commerce at one point but that was repealed. It also only applied to sufficiently processed flours, which I knew but didn’t say.
So, if we went back 80 years, I would have basically been right.
Also, it sounds like many states do require white flour, or other sufficiently processed flours, to be enriched.
That makes market reach the most plausible explanation to me, because it’s cheaper to just make white flour without adding nutrients back in.