Why do you have so many different kinds of flour?

I mean like here in Norway we only got like one type of wheat flour. It's just called hvetemel(Wheat flour) it's not like fancy self raising or anything. I guess it's all purpose flour in your countries. When I lived in Singapore I was baffled by there being so many types of flour. Singapore import most of their products from countries like Australia or New Zealand. When we drank milk we drank Australian milk because this was fresh milk that was homogenized and pasteurized just like in Norway. The rest of the milk there was made for long term storing and tasted horrible.

Vi har mange flere typer mel enn hvetemel her i Norge................
Lurer på hvor og i hvilke butikk du handler.
Her er i hvertfall noen av melsortene vi har:
Byggmel (grovt og fint), rugmel (grovt og fint) ,sammalt hvete. I tilllegg til en del sorter ferdigblandet (grov/finbakst) mel.

Snakker da ikke om byggmel og slikt, men om vanlig hvit hvetemel. Byggmel bruker man ikke i kake ikke grov mel heller.

Here in australia we have a range of flours for varying reasons.
All purpose flour is our Plain flour, and we can add raising agents to it to make it like Self Raising Flour.
Self Raising just means we don't need any added agents when using it, so for some people it is a simpler method of cooking.
We then have Corn Flour (better for thickening as it is more colourless when cooked), Rice Flour (often used in shortbreads etc as it is lighter in texture) and of course now we also have a gluten free flour which is used by people who suffer from cealiac disease (wheat intolerance), so I guess really apaart from the gluten free which is a medical thing the other flours are jsut for convenience sake and purpose oriented.

As for milks I agree the long life (UHT) milk tastes shocking, I also am allergic to the longlife, powdered and fat reduced (skim) milks due to the processing and chemical changes that take place with the processing. I can only drink the fresh homogenised stuff, but even that some companies are starting to play around with it and adding other componenets to make more profit etc. What they don't realise is they also playing around with MY HEALTH as a result. I tried Goat's milk as an alternative but at $4 a litre, as compared to $1 litre for cows milk it becomes a cost issue also. But if they continue to play around with the cows milk too much more I may have no choice but to go with the goats milk.

If we want weird flour types like cornmeal,rice flour,gram flour we need to go to the Asian shop. They sell gluten free flour to, we also have flour made of potato that people with celiac disease can use it. That can also be used as a thickening agent or in like white cake together with plain flour. I'm not much of a baker, I'm better at cooking dinner. As for milk I tend to use the lactose free variant.

I used to get the UHT milk all the time. Its real milk, just pasteurized at a higher temperature for a longer period of time and sealed tightly. There are no taste differences between that and regular pasteurized milk. At least, here its the same taste.

As for flours, we have the same flours as you do Lyn, except we also have Cake flour.

Whatever it is they do to it Karen it plays up something shocking with my sinuses and my gut. If I have anything other than the regular homogenised cows milk (fresh) I end up with nausea and massive headaches and blocked or runny nose. Sometimes it only takes a minute amount to cause a reaction too. A g/f made me a cup of coffee one day, poured milk from a regular milk bottle (the type I use) and before I had even drank half the cup I had a reaction and said to her that wasn't fresh milk was it? My eyes were watering and my nose was blocked up and I had the start of a headache, and I had been clear of all that prior to the cup of coffee being made. She said had she not seen the reaction herself she would not have believed it. She had mixed powdered milk and placed in the milk bottle, so it definitely was not a matter of mind knowing it was different as far as the eyes were concerned she had used the same milk I use, but my body sure knew the difference. I get the same types of reaction with UHT and other fat reduced milks, some I react to worse than others. I get very wary of even trying any new milk that the companies come out with, I was even cautious at trying the goats milk.
The same thing also happens with fat reduced yoghurts, and also cheese. My dietician just pulls her hair out with me as being a diabetic I should be having the low fat types but can't.

Lyn have you checked with your GP of you might be allergic to milk? Have you tried like soy,rice,oat or almond milk? This normaly can be used by persons with milk allergy

Nina I am allergic to the milks that have been processed, I can ONLY drink the fresh homogenised cows milk, any of the others cause the reactions. The allergy to the more processed milks has been confirmed by allergy specialists, both 20 odd year ago and again only a couple of years ago when my GP asked to have it rechecked.
I can also drink goats milk but it is very expensive and while I can tolerate the fresh cows I will continue with that. But once the milk changes any further I doubt I will be able to continue with it.
As for soy cannot stand the stuff, I know they have changed it recently but the smell of it when my son was on it as a baby was enough to turn me for life.

I'm lactose intolerant but I can't stand the taste of that milk, so I have to add chocolate powder to it. The milk taste like milk with sugar, sometimes I gives a crap and drink the milk with the most fat because it taste nice. I ate salmon with a sauce made of heavy cream and sour cream last night, I should not have done that. Stomach pains are never fun. Not when they wake you up during the night.

There's whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, unbleached flour, bread making flour...the all-purpose and unbleached have "enriched wheat" and they aren't whole grain. It takes a bit of getting used to whole wheat flour, but it's better for you. Still, for baking I prefer unbleached all-purpose.