To Sift or Not to Sift?

First, let me start by saying that I LOVE when people leave me advice (thanks mama Lewis)!  Here is the skinny on sifting:

-          It is kind of an outdated thing in terms of its original intention.  My contessa research led me to find that packaged and stored flour used to (like a long time ago) get clumpy or have “foreign bodies” (aka bugs, dirt, etc…ew!) in it.  Sifting was a necessary means of getting rid of these things.

-          The sites Straight Dope and Joy of Baking both say that today, the only real concern is that flour compacts during shipping and storage (Joy even goes as far to say that there is “pre-sifted” flour, but don’t believe it because, again, it compacts during shipping), so if a recipe calls for sifting, you better do it for a higher quality baked good. 

-          I have to agree with Straight Dope in that I did feel more like a profesh baker when I sifted together the dry ingredients in my vintage sifter.

Just like the room temp eggs, I am now a firm believer in sifting when it calls for it. 

Ps: the motto for the Straight Dope site is “fighting ignorance since 1973: it takes longer than we thought”.  Ha!