My King Arthur flour question today

Elisabeth: Hello. How may I help you today?

you: As you probably know, whole wheat flour has a lower glycemic index than plain white flour. As a rule of thumb, what percentage of admixtures such as wheat germ or gran, etc. would significantly affect the glycemic index of white flour.

Elisabeth: I am not fully educated on the glycemic indexes. I will take a look and see what I can find.

you: Thanks. I accidentally sent my message before I corrected my typo. "Gran" is bran. And, BTW, I really like your flour. I also attended a King Arthur presentation here in Albuquerque a few years ago. Very interesting.

Elisabeth: Not a problem, I knew what you meant.

Elisabeth: I am not "super" familiar with the glycemic index

Elisabeth: That being said

Elisabeth: To recalculate white flour with additives, you would need to calculate the percentage of increase from each addition

Elisabeth: Does that make sense?

you: And my name is Larry. I keep hitting the return key for another paragraph before I mean to send the message. An old typewriter habit. I can calculate the percentages by using the baker's formula, but what is the percentage number itself?

Elisabeth: That nubmer is the variable

Elisabeth: number

Elisabeth: you would need to add up everything in the "blend" then divide back to portion size

you: I know how to do that. We're getting in a circular discussion. For sake of discussion, let's use wheat bran for example. What is the percentage of wheat bran to white flour to significantly lower the glycemic index of the flour?

Elisabeth: I have no idea

you: Okay, thank you. Over and out.

Elisabeth: That would be a question for your dietician.

Elisabeth: Thank you for chatting. Good-bye.

[David M. Bueker]

What do you mean by significant?

Somewhere in the vicinity of whole wheat flour. Not something like a one-point drop. To be technical about it, preferably in the 50-60s range.

Are you always this mean to a $6/hr phone jockey?

Are you always this mean to a $6/hr phone jockey?

Minimum wage is $7.25.

Are you always this mean to a $6/hr phone jockey?

Minimum wage is $7.25.

$8.40 out here.

Are you always this mean to a $6/hr phone jockey?

Minimum wage is $7.25.

$8.40 out here.

Ok, Federal minimum wage is $7.25

I should ask what happens when a 4 year old Labrador Retriever removes a new 5# bag of King Arthur whole wheat flour from the counter and takes it outside to enjoy the contents. I am grateful that he (Gus) did not enjoy the contents inside the house.

[David M. Bueker]

To be truthful though, the King Arthur Flour folks are there to help with baking questions. That's what they are trained for. I've spent a lot of time with the folks from King Arthur, so I know a little bit about what they are trying to do.

Are you always this mean to a $6/hr phone jockey?

Point out a mean comment. I thought I was rather polite or do you have some kind of chip on your shoulder? Now, that's mean.

She's there to answer simple questions about the product and help people with basic "how to bake" questions. She is not a nutrition scientist, she is not a wheat scientist, she does not even need to know algebra for her job (thought she apparently does).

What was mean was no sentence of yours but simply that you asked her a question outside her ken and then pursued it when it was clear -- and she admitted -- that she was not going to be of much help to you.

Chip? Get over yerself.

I wasn't trying to torture her. Note she said she would research glycemic index. I thought she had asked one of the scientists in the firm before she got back to me (you don't realize there was a very long pause after she referred to looking into it). As soon as it dawned on me that it was beyond her ken, you will notice that I thanked her and bowed out. Now I plan to ask the same question to one of their food scientists.

I'm not into myself. It really irks me when I'm being polite and am accused of being "nasty." That's my side, and I'll report any findings to my question.

Perhaps I did not read the transcript in the way that you meant it to be read.

Good luck with the research!

Thanks. I must admit I'm rather testy today after a stressful day at the office yesterday with a surfeit of late registrants for our banquet tomorrow and a s***load of craziness. Then a NY agent turned me down, which is okay, but during all our emails, he kept referring to my biography as a novel. "Once again, it's not a novel," I replied. "It's a nonfiction biography of a real person who lived and breathed." Jeez. No wonder I'm testy, maybe even testicle.

And now we have a leak in our office roof. I need a drink or some Valium.