The workers who built the pyramids in Egypt were paid in bread. Wheat is the only grain with sufficient gluten content to make a raised or leavened loaf of bread. The American Institute of Baking is located in Manhattan, Kansas. In 1998, the United States added folic acid to all enriched grain foods, including bread.
Folic acid is a key ingredient in preventing serious birth defects.
A family of four could live 10 years off the bread produced by one acre of wheat. In 1943, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture banned the sale of sliced bread in an effort to hold down prices during a period of wartime rationing. A 30 foot tall statue of Johnny Kaw stands in Manhattan, Kansas, representing the Kansas wheat farmer. Assuming a sandwich was eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, it would take 168 days to eat the amount of bread produced from one bushel of wheat. The wheat grown in Kansas in a single year would fill a train stretching from western Kansas to the Atlantic Ocean.