Let's see what different Whole Food Plant-Based doctors and organizations say:

Forks Over Knives: See the 3-column food guide from Forks Over Knives — Diet webpage. "Whole grain flours and breads" are listed in the middle yellow column titled "ENJOY IN MODERATION". In other words, we should eat flours (and breads) sparingly, not as a staple in almost all meals. Flours are not essential, so we may choose to de-flour our diet completely, as encouraged by Dr Greger and other WFPB advocates.

Dr Greger's 21 Tweaks: These tweaks are listed in the book How Not To Diet (608 pages, 2019) by Dr Greger. Also listed in Daily Dozen app on iPhone and on Android as follows:

Dr Fuhrman: Nutritarian Bread Primer summarizes Dr Fuhrman's guidelines around flours and breads.

Why do so many WFPB practitioners recommend minimization or elimination of flours? Please see The Science Underlying Whole Grains Hierarchy.

Chef AJ: Chef AJ mentions flour addiction in her talk From Fat Vegan to Skinny Bitch (51 mins, YouTube). She turned vegan many years ago but continued to be overweight. So she worked closely work WFPB doctors and cut out oils, nuts & seeds, avocados, sugar, flours, and so on, to arrive at a healthy weight for the first time in her life! She now runs a Chef AJ Ultimate Weight-Loss Program to help others lose weight with WFPB Diet. She has also written a book called The Secrets to Ultimate Weight Loss (318 pages, 2018) in which she encourages sugar-free and flour-free lifestyle.

An excerpt from the article interview with Chef AJ published in Forks Over Knives, 2018:

Susan Pierce Thompson: In her book Bright Line Eating (320 pages, 2017), Susan Pierce Thompson emphasizes no-sugar & no-flour lifestyle! Why? Because both sugar and flour are addictive. Susan is not WFPB though.

Whole vs Refined: Whole grain flours have all three parts of the grain: bran, germ and endosperm. Refined grains or degerminated grains are missing bran and germ. Whole grains are nutritionally superior to refined grains. If we wish to consume flours, we must strive to consume whole grain flours and diligently remove refined grain flours from our food system.

Sprouted: Whole grain flour can also be made from sprouted whole grains! Sprouted grains also have all three parts: bran, germ and endosperm. Sprouting improves the nutritional profile of grains: see How To Eat Whole Grains? Sprout Them! Sprouted whole grain flours are nutritionally superior to regular whole grain flours.

Hulled vs pearled flours: For grains like barley and millets, we use the terms 'hulled' and 'pearled'. See the articles Barley: Hulled or Pearled? and Millets Magic! to understand the difference between hulled and pearled. Hulled grains are considered whole grains. Pearled grains are not whole grains. Flours made from hulled grains are preferable.

How may we know if flour is made from whole grains or refined grains or hulled grains or pearled grains? To distinguish between whole grains vs refined grains, see How To Identify Whole Grains in Food Labels? for details. In brief, we should look for the word 'whole' in Ingredients section of Nutrition Facts label. But there are some exceptions — it's all these exceptions that make food labels confusing! For example, 'pumpernickel flour' is whole rye flour. So it's not labeled as 'whole rye flour' or 'whole pumpernickel flour' — it's simply 'pumpernickel flour'. And 'pumpernickel' is not the name of a whole grain, it's the name of a flour made from rye. Oh, well!

How to distinguish between flours from hulled and pearled forms of barley and millets? I don't really know.

Coarsely ground whole grain flours are preferable to finely ground whole grain flours. For the underlying scientific reasoning, browse through two articles: What is Whole Grains Hierarchy? and The Science Underlying Whole Grains Hierarchy.

Coarsely ground flours were produced by traditional grinding devices in various civilizations. For example, In India, we have 'hand chakki', a hand-operated grinding device. Over the last hundred years, industrial milling machines make it easy to produce finely ground flours!

How may we know if flour is coarsely ground or finely ground? Particle size is not part of nutrition labels! But we can infer particle size from the final food preparation (the recipe) for which a flour is intended! Flours meant for pastries and cakes are definitely finely ground. For details, see

• Every type of flour: From All-Purpose to Type 00 is an excellent article that explains which flours are best for which recipes!
• All You Wanted To Know About Wheat Flour (2019): good article.
• Pizza Lab on Flour: Foams and Dough (2011) is also a great article.
• The Scoop on Flours (Ornish.Com) by Carra Richling (nutritionist) is a nice article that lists all sorts of whole grain flours. It also lists flours made from beans and tubers (like arrowroot) as well! All these flours are made from whole foods (grains, beans or tubers)! Unfortunately, this article does not focus on particle size; it does not emphasize that coarsely ground flours are healthier than finely ground flours.

Traditionally, flours were prepared from whole grains. Over the last hundred years, industrial milling machines have made it easy to carry out refining (separating the endosperm from the bran and germ). So refined grains and refined grain flours have gained in popularity.

Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food (330 pages, 2009) traces the history of industrial milling nicely. A short summary of problems introduced by industrial milling may be found here.

If we adopt WFPB guidelines through a program like Chef AJ's Ultimate Weight Loss Program, we remove flours (both refined flours and whole grain flours) from day one! Personally, I feel that's best.

In practice, many people adopt WFPB guidelines in stages. Initially, they adopt WFPB guidelines by retaining whole grain flours & whole grain breads in their food system (and some people continue to consume them in abundance). However, if they don't experience sufficient weight loss or sufficient relief from conditions like diabetes, they clean up their food system through flour reduction or flour elimination. So we could see 'flour elimination' or 'de-flouring our diet' as an advanced WFPB step.

As Dr McDougall mentions, "compared to animal-foods, free-oils, and plant-parts processed beyond recognition, whole wheat bread is definitely health food!" So when we transition to WFPB from a food system dominated by non-whole foods and non-plant foods, whole grain flours and whole grain breads are awesome! But over time, as we progressively adopt better and better WFPB guidelines, we may choose to minimize or eliminate all flours and breads.