Wheat is a worldwide cultivated grass from the Levant area of the Middle East. Globally, after maize, wheat is the second most produced food among the cereal crops; rice ranks third. Wheat grain is a staple food used to make flour for leavened, flat and steamed breads; cookies, cakes, breakfast cereal, pasta, juice, noodles and couscous; and for fermentation to make beer, alcohol, vodka or biofuel. Wheat is planted to a limited extent as a forage crop for livestock, and the straw can be used as fodder for livestock or as a construction material for roofing thatch.

Nutrition

100 grams of hard red winter wheat contain about 12.6 grams of protein, 1.5 grams of total fat, 71 grams of carbohydrate (by difference), 12.2 grams of dietary fiber, and 3.2 mg of iron (17% of the daily requirement); the same weight of hard red spring wheat contains about 15.4 grams of protein, 1.9 grams of total fat, 68 grams of carbohydrate (by difference), 12.2 grams of dietary fiber, and 3.6 mg of iron (20% of the daily requirement).

Wheat -- Different Classes for Different Uses

Hard wheats contain more protein (11 to 18 percent) than soft wheats (8 to 11 percent). Hard wheats also contain more gluten. These different quality factors make each class of wheat desirable for specific -- but different -- foods:

* Hard Red Winter Wheat and Hard Red Spring Wheat produce a high-grade flour used to make bread, hamburger buns and biscuits.

* Soft wheat produces a flour that is desirable for baked goods that have a tender, flaky or crisp texture, like cakes, doughnuts, cookies and crackers.

* White wheat is a soft wheat that produces flour used for cereals, cookies and cakes

* Durum -- which contains more protein than any other class -- produces a coarse, golden amber product called semolina that is mixed with water to form a dough that then is forced through dies that shape it into pasta products like spaghetti, noodles and macaroni.