Wholesome Ingredients

To most everyone in the western world whole grains are always better for you than refined grains. To all it’s really clear, black-and-white. The only real argument that exists concerning grains is over whether or not we should be eating them at all. Some say they are allergenic to pretty much everyone. Some say they are unnatural, not in alignment with what man has evolved to eat. Some say that grains have changed too much through hybridization and now we should avoid them completely. You’ll find many voices making these arguments all over the web. Most everyone assumes that if you’re eating grains and you’re concerned about health you will be eating whole grains exclusively.

Have you considered that historically people ate grains that weren’t really whole grains? Nor were they completely refined in the modern sense? That perhaps the traditional processing of grains was done with the goal of a highly refined product but that goal could not be reached given the technology? So throughout history people ate grains that were somewhere in-between modern bleached enriched flours and rough coarse 100% whole grain flour? My research leads me to believe that this is the case.0

Great-Great-Great Grandma ate a kind of mid-level sifted grain … not really whole grain but not thoroughly milled and sifted like white flour either.

If that’s the case, how did this idea that people ate whole grains from the advent of agriculture all the way up to the industrial revolution come about?

The Sketchy History of Whole Grain Promotion

Let me introduce you to the two main characters in this little drama. Both of them have household names, though you might not have ever heard much about them as individuals. I mentioned them briefly in my post on flour some time back.

The first actor to enter the stage is the Reverend Sylvester Graham, the inventor of the graham cracker. He was about the first popular health food reformer in American history. He promoted a vegetarian diet as a cure for alcoholism and sexual urges. He had many followers who treated his dietary teachings as a form of religion. They became known as Grahamites. He was an early campaigner against additives in flours … a good thing, so his efforts weren’t totally off. Still, his outlook was fueled by a strong desire to eliminate desire … ironic, huh ;-).

Next we have a man powerfully influenced by Graham’s beliefs Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, the very same brother of the founder of the cereal brand, Kellogg’s. Dr. Kellogg was also a supporter of vegetarianism like Graham. He promoted and experimented with a very wide range of treatments. Things like electro-hydric bathes … water and electricity! He applied electricity to the body as a treatment, as was popular at the time. He also recommended ingesting paraffin wax as a laxative.

Famous and Influential

Both of these men were famous and influential. They were not unknown cranks with an axe to grind. They spent their lives hard at work to change peoples diets. In both cases the central message concerning grain was that people needed to turn from eating sifted flours and instead eat flours which included the whole grain.

Pause and think about that for a second … if people were eating whole grains, had always eaten whole grains would this message have been necessary at all? The mere fact of all the preaching on the benefits of whole grains tells us that eating whole grains was not widespread up till this time. Clearly then people did not normally eat whole grain products if getting them to consider it required such vigorous efforts.

In fact people typically ate sifted flours. This flour was then sold according to the fiber content, the most heavily sifted and free of bran being the most expensive. It’s important to note that this sifted flour wouldn’t be like modern bleached white flour. The technology involved wouldn’t allow the miller to reach such a level of purity. All the flours contained some bran and germ unlike modern white flour. But you couldn’t exactly call it 100% whole wheat either. It’s also important to note that this sifting went on all the way back to antiquity. A little more on that in my post on flour.

A vegetarianism that includes a lot of whole grain foods was promoted by both of these men. In Graham’s case it was for largely religious reasons. His audience was well aware that whole grain flour wasn’t traditional. Kellogg believed that all disease begins in the bowels so his diet and methods were designed to cleanse the gut of putrification. He made very extensive use of enemas. The added fiber was seen as an aid to this vigorous intestinal cleansing.

Both men argued powerfully not for a return to a traditional diet but for a massive change from it. Their ideas were widely circulated and influenced a generation of doctors, particularly Kellogg as the head of a famous hospital. Thru them the thought of whole grains as an ideal gained a foothold and continued to more deeply establish itself. A few generations came and went and now pretty much everyone believes that whole grains are the traditional way to eat grains.

So there you have it

The whole sketchy history of how we got started down the road of believing whole grains to be traditional. I’d like to leave you with a few links to some excellent articles questioning the wisdom of eating modern 100% whole grains. Mind you, not the wisdom of eating grains period but just 100% all of the grain whole grain products. I myself eat a moderate amount of grains, mostly rice. When eating grains with any fiber content at all I soak it first. The flour I grind and sift at home still contains bran and germ, just less of it than commercial 100% whole wheat. I’ve found it to be the closest to traditional flours from an old-fashioned mill that I can get. I talk some about how I make it in this post on flour.

I used to, till I learned the facts I’m about to convey to you :-).

Odds are you eat white rice. And if you’re concerned about health I’d bet you feel kinda bad about it too. It started in the 70’s I think, the belief that brown rice was the way to go, or maybe a little earlier with Adelle Davis and her faith in whole grains. Gotta love Adelle for her early stance against processed foods but she wasn’t right in everything :-).

I’m here to tell ‘ya that you can feel good about eating white rice again! I’ve never cared much for brown rice and I bet you feel much the same. I’ve had maybe one or two good plates of brown rice in a lifetime. Most brown rice in the US is rancid long before it gets to you. That’s why it generally tastes rather bitter not nutty as it should if it were fresh.

Brown Rice Isn’t Traditionally Eaten

Traditionally, people have tried to remove as much of the hull and the bran of the rice as their processing tools would allow. When I researched traditional grain flours I found the same to be true of them as well. Is this just pure ignorance on the part of our ancestors? Or is there some wisdom at work in this traditional foodway.

In Asia for instance, Wikipedia has this to say:

“Brown rice is associated with poverty and wartime shortages, and in the past was rarely eaten except by the sick, the elderly and as a cure for constipation. This traditionally denigrated kind of rice is often now more expensive than common white rice, partly due to its relatively low supply and difficulty of storage and transport.”

Storage and transport, eh? Think about that for a second. In modern times this rice needs to be refrigerated or even frozen to get even a 6 month storage lifespan out of it. What would our ancestors have done? And we know rice as the staple food for millions was stored for long periods of time … since it’s an annual crop in many regions it would need to last at least a full year. How did they do it? They simply removed the part of the rice that would spoil. That would be the bran.

What About Beriberi?

But don’t we need to eat the bran to get the vitamins and nutrients found there? Isn’t the removal of the bran the source of the discovery of the first nutritional deficiency disease?

The removal of the bran has been tied to beriberi in Asia, ’tis true. But upon closer inspection we find that we haven’t really heard the full story. It’s true that removal of thiamine from rice causes beriberi in peoples that are living on extremely restricted diets. We’re talking about people whose only source of thiamine is in the bran of the rice they are eating. In Asia beriberi has been relatively common in prisoners, sailors and other people on far less than ideal diets. In fact you might say these folks were close to starvation.

The vast majority of people eating large amounts of traditionally de-hulled and de-branned rice did not acquire beriberi and in fact were rather healthy 🙂 If you need more proof simply look to modern populations that eat tons of white rice and ask yourself if they to have any wide-spread symptoms related to beriberi?

Antinutrients in Brown Rice

Phytic acid is very high in brown rice. This is the big anti-nutrient we are seeking to neutralize as much as possible when we soak grains in an acid liquid or ferment them prior to cooking. Soaking is pretty unsuccessful at reducing phytic acid in brown rice. What works then? Removing the bran which is the part with a great concentration of phytic acid.

Brown Rice Has PUFA’s

That’s the number one big reason it goes rancid so very readily! We could all do with less polyunsaturated oil in our diets here in the western world. And particularly rancid PUFA’s which virtually all brown rice in the US contains.

What About Arsenic?

More recently there has been a lot of concern about arsenic in rice. There are good reasons for concern here, mostly related to modern agriculture. In the not too distant past it was common to treat cotton fields with arsenic as a pesticide. Many of those treated fields are now growing rice instead. So the plants take up the arsenic.

Brown rice contains larger amounts than white rice.

Getting the Best Rice for your Budget

Excellent – Organic white rice grown on a field known to have never been used for cotton production. Some small artisan growers, perhaps would be a source or someone local.
Great – Organic white rice is the best commercial choice, preferably grown outside the US. While I haven’t found a lot of evidence that arsenic levels are lower in organic rice certainly other pesticide/herbicide levels would be. And the US grown rice has some of the higher arsenic levels.
Good – Conventional white rice.
Limit – Brown rice. Note that this isn’t an “absolutely avoid” rating here. I’m simply saying that you probably don’t want to eat a diet heavy in brown rice.

When you think of healthy eating what does your mind visualize? If you’re like most people it is a pile of fresh fruits and vegetables in glorious variety! And, wow does this ever make for a gorgeous picture. Who doesn’t feel inspired to eat well after imagining that? Most likely your mind moves on to imagining beautiful salads along with a few lightly steamed sides with lush sauces. These kinds of dishes are very popular on cookings shows and that makes sense. TV is a visual medium and these dishes look so good you just want to jump thru the screen and grab them :-). So these technicolor dishes made from bold, fresh vegetables and fruits tend to make up the lions share of recipes we see both on tv and in print.

Sounds pleasant enough, right? Could there be any harm from this?

Imagine this …

An average joe watching a tv cooking show and thinking, “Man, I’ve gotta do something about my diet.” Then he goes to the store and heads straight for what section? The produce section of course! So he loads up on asparagus, artichokes, broccoli, carrots, melons, tangerines and those cute little miniature onions. Feeling adventurous he moves on to grab a few unfamiliar things like kohlrabi, bok-choy and Italian cauliflower. All organic since the plan is to get healthy, and hey produce is cheap right? What else to get that’s healthy, our average joe thinks. Hmmm, chicken breast and pasta or rice? Pick some of that up. Then head to the checkout and receive the shock of a lifetime. Your food budget is blown my friend, and you only have enough calories in your cart to keep you going a few days not the 2 weeks you’ll need to make it to your next payday. So our imaginary friend goes home with his produce, makes a couple of meals with it that don’t turn out to be very filling or satisfying. Much of the produce goes bad cause he didn’t feel like making it since the last meal just left him hungry for something else. After that he tells everyone that eating healthy just costs too damn much! If he ate that way every day his food bill would quadruple! And he’d be hungry all the time too on this high produce diet. And so sadly, he gives up on buying healthy food and goes back to his old processed food ways.

This sad tale plays out all too often I think. Everyone and I do mean everyone has gotten the message that a processed food diet is killing them. Lots of folks have tried to do something about it too, but I think the overwhelming message to eat tons of produce is stopping their efforts to change dead in their tracks. And this message is wrong, dead wrong. Veggies and fruits are a part of a healthy diet. They are not the be-all-and-end-all of a healthy diet. Produce should not cost you a hefty part of your food budget and volume-wise they should not be the biggest part of what you eat.

So what part does produce play in a healthy diet then?

Fruits and Veggies Add Flavor and Variety to your Meals

There is really nothing like the tangy zip of a fresh orange, or the mellow rich flavor of a just perfectly ripe avocado. Fruits and vegetables are the little something extra that enliven your meals, giving them new flavors and textures. In a way you could think of them as being like spices :-). And as Sally Fallon Morrell has said on many occasions, “Vegetables are a great vehicle for serving butter.” 😉 .

Contrary to popular opinion fruits and vegetables are not particularly nutrient dense. For instance, Vitamin A can only be found in animal foods. In produce you’ll only find vitamin A’s precursors and not the vitamin itself. In fact all the fat-soluble vitamins are found most readily in animal products. Grains, raw milk and meats are the best sources of B vitamins. And liver has a surprisingly large amount of vitamin C comparable to many vegetable and fruit sources, even citrus. If your goal is to eat a nutrient dense diet too many veggies will actually impede your progress by displacing more nutrient dense food, with the exception of fermented produce. Fermented produce can be very nutrient dense.

Do fruits and veggies have to be fresh to be good?

What about frozen or canned? Many people must travel far to buy vegetables and so need them in a form that will keep for a little while. Freezing I find affects the flavor of many vegetables but by no means all. Generally though frozen veggies have a similar nutrient profile to most grocery store fresh produce. This is because of the long travel and storage times much fresh produce that goes thru the grocery store distribution chains must endure. At the largest chains it’s often easier to find variety in the frozen food section. I found this to be true of the produce at Walmart. If you can find local produce it will mostly likely be more nutrient dense than frozen or grocery store produce.

Commercially canned food is pretty low on the nutrient scale. The high temperatures used in canneries is pretty damaging to both flavor and nutrients. And the BPA issue is ever present with cans. I recommend avoiding them as much as you are able to.

Fermented Fruits and Vegetables are Rich in Flavor and Nutrients

By far the most nutritious way to eat fruits and vegetables is in fermented form. The fermentation process greatly increases the nutrients available in foods and make them more easily digested. And the flavors achieved are remarkable! Many think they don’t like fermented foods but for the most part people haven’t had any fresh, unpasteurized fermented food ever. If they had real sauerkraut or relish I think they could be swayed.

For fermenting you’ll want to find the freshest most chemical-free produce you can get.

Does it Have to Be Organic?

Ideally you will want to buy chemical-free produce, yes. Is that necessarily organic? No. There are a number of problems with organic labeling at this point, not the least of which is the difficulty small producers have in gaining the right to use the label. If you go to a farmers market for instance, you are likely to find few sellers whose items are marked ‘organic’ but many who do not use any commercial pesticides or fertilizers.

Now, if you are buying at a large grocer that organic label is probably all you will have to base decisions on. My feeling is that it just doesn’t tell us enough at this point. This produce comes from all around the world where organic standards may not be what you think they are. A lot of it comes from China which aside from the nutrient loss while traveling you also need to consider the serious problems with food quality control they have in China. Rarely is there a sign to inform you of the source of the produce. Sometimes the food may have a sticker with it’s origin stated. If you want clean organic food you are much better served by buying it locally.

And there is the GMO issue to be concerned about. According to Dr. Mercola’s GMO Shopping Guide only

“Small amounts of zucchini, yellow crookneck squash, and sweet corn may be GM.”

If you are concerned buy organic for these. Personally, I only buy sweet corn from someone I know, or organic at this point.

Should High Quality Produce be the Topmost Priority in my Food Budget?

In a nutshell, no. Good quality fats and oils should be your number one priority. Next high quality meat, fish and dairy. Next comes produce. Keep these tips in mind while buying produce and you’ll have all the benefits of great flavor and rich nutrient dense ferments without breaking the bank.

Getting the Best Vegetables and Fruits for your Budget

Excellent ($$) – Fresh produce bought directly from the grower. This grower used organic methods to enrich the soil and defend the plants from insects and disease. Used very quickly, either eaten or fermented.
Very Good ($$) – Fresh produce bought directly from the grower. This grower used organic methods to enrich the soil and defend the plants from insects and disease. Stored with care for a time.
Good ($$) – Fresh produce bought directly from the grower. This grower occasionally uses conventional methods to enrich the soil and defend the plants from insects and disease.
Good ($$$) – Fresh or frozen organic produce bought from a grocer with a reputation for verifying their providers methods or a trustworthy brand.
Okay ($$$) – Organic fresh or frozen produce bought from a large grocer or unknown brand.
Okay ($$) – Conventional fresh or frozen produce bought from a large grocer.
Avoid ($) – Canned produce both organic and conventional.

Practically everyone eats beef, except vegetarians :-). Most of us have very little idea of how that beef was raised. What I’ve found researching this post is that there is even more confusion than I expected. Keep clearly in mind though that cows are fed and brought to slaughter very differently now than they were in Grandma’s day. Since World War II cattle are generally grain finished, a very unhealthy diet for the cow. And that’s only part of the story.

[Read more…]

There is nothing more down-home delicious than a breakfast of eggs. Just picture it: Think of Granny’s house in the fifties. Imagine it’s early in the morning and the kids are not up yet. But Granny is and she’s getting breakfast ready. Is it cold cereal? Is it granola? Is it even yogurt or a smoothie? Nope, it’s eggs, always eggs! Now don’t get me wrong there may have been some yogurt, cereal or a grapefruit on the table. But these were side-dishes to the main event, eggs! And bacon, sausage or even steak.

[Read more…]

Over the past few weeks I’ve been talking a lot about how to save money on your real food bill. There can hardly be a better place to start when considering ways to fit real food nutrition into your budget than the humble bean.

Inexpensive Nourishing Food

Legumes have been a staple of the diet of many different cultures back to the beginning of agriculture. They are commonly thought of now as “peasant food”. This is largely because they are cheap! And for that reason poor folks the world over eat a lot of them. That and that they are delicious and filling. For very little money the cook can provide plenty of calories along with a heaping dose of protein, minerals and B vitamins. And that makes for satisfied eaters!

Legumes are popular in vegetarian diets as a hearty source of calories and proteins. They make a great replacement for meat dishes as a means to stretch those pennies till old Abe screams ;-). If you are eating quite a lot of legumes you will want to take special care to ensure that they are properly soaked and the pytates within them are neutralized. Even if eaten only occasionally the home cook would be well advised to handle beans properly to avoid well, hmmm, embarrassing situations ;-).

In my Pantry Principle series I talk about eating beans for a meal or two each week and saving the difference in cost between the cost of beans and the cost of whatever else you would have had. This savings can go toward purchasing a freezer that can help reduce the cost of grassfed beef and pastured poultry and pork by making bulk buys possible. Beans can play an important role in the effort to reduce your overall food bill.

Fresh, Dried or Canned Beans

Which to choose? Many home cooks go with canned beans for convenience sake and they certainly do help out in a pinch. I usually have a few on hand for emergencies myself. But there are drawbacks to eating canned beans. First, canned beans haven’t been soaked properly to ensure the reduction of phytic acid in the beans. The Weston Price Foundation had the following to say about whether canned beans can be considered soaked:

… that is the problem with canned beans, they are softened without the soaking so all the inhibitors are there.

One of inhibitors mentioned is phytic acid. Phytic acid is an anti-nutrient that binds with minerals in your gut making the minerals unavailable for absorption. So while beans are an excellent source of minerals those same minerals will not be available for use by your body if the beans are not properly soaked. This is true of grains as well, by the way, making legumes and grains some of the more difficult to digest foods in our diets. Proper preparation though takes care of the phytates and makes these foods very nutritious and easily digestible. Beans are famous for causing bloating and gas, side affects everyone is anxious to avoid. Proper soaking will help eliminate these digestive difficulties.

Proper Preparation of Beans

Legumes need to be soaked and/or sprouted to reduce the amount of phytic acid present in the bean. Luckily, both of these are super easy to do! They just require a little thinking ahead of time. A easy way to prep beans is to soak them directly in your slow cooker with a little acid. I prefer to use apple cider vinegar with the mother present. Any acidic liquid will work. About 1 tablespoon of acid per cup of beans. Put it all in at night when you finish the dinner dishes and then in the morning just plug-in the cooker and let it go all day. You’ll have a fresh batch of beans for dinner. If you make a large batch, just freeze the rest in portions that are about the size of cans. Then you have a lot of ready-to-cook beans whenever you need them!

Sprouting is an even more effective way to reduce inhibitors like phytate in legumes. It is a little more trouble though. To sprout beans just put the beans in a bowl or jar, add triple the amount of water and let sit overnight. Drain and rinse beans, then let sit in the colander another 12 hours. Rinse every 12 hours until you get sprouts about 1/8-1/2 inch long. Then store them in the fridge and use up within a week.

Canned Beans and BPA

Another issue with canned beans beside phytates is the likelihood that the cans have BPA. As far as I know there is only one producer of canned beans that has BPA free cans and that is Eden Foods. Last I checked Eden canned beans were about 2 bucks a can so they cost considerably more than dried beans.

Dried beans can be a wonder of convenience too although it’s convenience of a different kind. You can buy dried beans very affordably in largish quantities and keep them on hand in your pantry. For the best cooking results don’t buy more than you’re likely to make within the year. Then, whenever the unexpected strikes be it a layoff, illness, large unexpected expense or a weather emergency you will the basis for many affordable meals on hand. Sure, you can do this with cans too, though the nutrition would be less and it would cost more. So give me dried beans :-).

Then there are fresh beans. The option to buy fresh beans doesn’t come up all that often for me (except simple string beans), but when it does I often go for this. Fresh beans are easy to prepare and make for some of the most delicious bean dishes. But it is usually the most expensive option unless of course you grow them yourself!

How to Buy Your Beans

Excellent ($$$$) – Fresh Organic Beans, soaked or sprouted..
Excellent ($$) – Organic Beans Soaked/Sprouted and Cooked yourself. From this years crop preferably.
Very Good ($) – Dried beans soaked/sprouted and cooked yourself. From this years crop preferably.
Good in Moderation ($$$) – BPA free organic canned beans. These are precooked and simply need to be prepped for your recipe. As far as I know only Eden Foods makes these.
Okay in Moderation ($$$) – Organic canned beans.
Okay in Moderation ($$) – Canned beans with only beans, water and salt listed in the ingredients.
Absolutely Avoid ($$) – Canned beans with a list of additives in it. This would be some of the more popular grocery store bean brands that are basically a bean recipe in a can. Usually has HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) somewhere in the ingredients along with MSG (Monosodium Glutamate).

When we think of Grandma in the kitchen cookin’ up something good, that something good probably involves flour. Yet, people know very little about flour. How it’s made, how long it keeps or how to care for it. There are many shades of difference for the sake of flavor or cooking characteristics but for today’s post we’ll stick with learning more about the differences that affect health. The common understanding about health and flour goes something like this: whole grain is good, white flour is bad. This is overly simplistic. I thought a post going over the finer details would be helpful 🙂 . I’m certainly no expert, though over the years I’ve learned a little to help make my use of flours more healthful and tasty!

Are Whole Grains Traditional?

In short, the eating of grain and flour is traditional though I’m not sure that whole grain products available today are like flours eaten prior to the industrial era. Bread and the flour it’s created from are mentioned in writings from antiquity. The sifting (boulting) of flours to remove bran is also noted in writings as far back as the Romans. This sifting was common throughout the North America and Europe. In some places a separate building (a boulting mill) was used and a different person did the boulting. Boulting was a specialized trade … that’s where the surnames Boulter and Boulton come from. But what did primitive cultures do? The healthy primitive cultures Dr. Price studied? Weston Price simply states they ate whole grains that were soaked or fermented. Is it possible that their whole grain flour was sifted to remove bran? Rami Nigel studied primitive cultures for evidence of how they handled whole grain flours.He found that many primitive cultures also sifted out bran and recommends that we do the same.

This sifted flour would be a far cry from modern white flour. It wasn’t really possibly to create a light white flour until the industrial age when roller milling was introduced. This happened around 1870. But still prior to that mills did sift flour and charged customers according to the grade of flour received, with lighter flours being more expensive … They were regarded as a status symbol, with coarser flours reserved for poorer folk. The resulting flour would have had much of the bran removed with most of the germ remaining. The proportions would vary according to grade.

The idea of whole grain flours with the bran being healthful and desirable was introduced by the Reverend Sylvester Graham as part of a regimen designed to curb alcoholism and “lust”. He promoted a vegetarian diet and was the man who created the “Graham Cracker”. He inspired Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and his brother Will Keith Kellogg in their invention of corn flakes one of the first modern processed foods. So whole grain flours with the bran included came into awareness through the first health food movement beginning in the 1820’s. They are not traditional, really. But neither is modern white, bleached, enriched flour. So what kind of flour is traditional? What were traditional flours like?

Freshly Ground is Best

Prior to the modern era most American towns and European villages had a gristmill. This mill was the source of flour for the village. Farmers brought in their grains and the flour was sold back in differing grades according to the grain type and coarseness. This flour was sifted (boulted) to the degree it could be with a simple sifter or cloth. This process would remove much of the bran. The flour was made on demand, not stored for long periods of time. It still contained much of the germ and would go rancid fairly quickly. The modern flour most similar to this is whole grain pastry flour ground at home. This is what I use for most things in my kitchen at this point.

It wasn’t always this way though. I started out baking with store bought bulk whole grain flour, then much later moved to grinding my own. Finding wholesome whole grain flour is a bit of a chore and I found it easier to make at home. Why so difficult? White flour became wide spread due to it’s long shelf life. The converse of this is that whole grain flour isn’t shelf stable and doesn’t have a long life. But many distributors seem to treat it as if no special handling is required and many times I’d find that the flour I just bought was already rancid.

Whole Grain Flours and Rancidity

In buying whole grain flours it’s important to consider how they’ve been handled. Whole grain flours include germ which is the part of the grain containing oil. Before it’s ground mother nature has it’s own packaging to keep the germ fresh. Grinding into flour crushes this natural packaging releasing the oil. This nutritious germ oil in the flour goes rancid easily. To prevent this whole grain flours need to be refrigerated, frozen, or gas flushed and vacuum packed. This makes finding a whole grain flour that is fresh somewhat difficult.

Years ago, back when I made bread very regularly I generally bought whole grain flour from the bulk bins at Whole Foods. I wondered why some batches seems sweet and others kinda bitter. I mentioned this to the owner of a health food store in Houston, and he told me how he kept all his flours and nuts in refrigerator to prevent rancidity. He also went the extra mile to ensure they were refrigerated on the way. Well, after that I bought my flour from him and my loaves were uniformly sweet.

Now I had become aware of what that rancidity tasted like. I found it in a number of whole grain products. I had learned that that flavor was not “just how whole grains taste” but was in fact rancidity. After moving from Houston I found it hard to locate any flours that seemed fresh to my palate.

How I Make Flour

So, in the pursuit of freshness, I bought a grain mill of my own 🙂 . At first, it was just a simple cheap hand mill which just didn’t make flour fast enough for me and was tiring to use. Then, I lucked upon a Diamant Grain Mill on ebay at a fraction of it’s cost new. I love the old fashioned look of this thing … it still makes me smile everyday :-). We used it for several years, though it is still tiring to use you can produce much more flour with it than my old mill. Production of flour though was still lower than I liked though.

After many years of use I retired the Diamant, made it into a conversation piece and bought a Nutrimill which I’ve been thrilled with. It grinds many cups of flour very quickly. From this I get a fresh ground flour complete with bran. This is what I used for most purposes up till last year when I learned a little more about the history of flours and bran from reading a couple of books namely Cereal Killer and Fiber Menace. Now I go one extra step. I bought the new sifter attachment for my Bosch Universal Kitchen Machine and use it to sift this flour into a healthy, freshly ground whole grain pastry flour with much of the bran removed. It has a 16-opening per inch mesh filter which only removes the bran. I do this in batches and either freeze or refrigerate the resulting flour. Adding this extra step removes much of the phytic acid present in the flour even prior to soaking or fermenting. The greatest concentration of phytic acid in grains is in the bran. Reducing phytic acid is the main reason for the soaking and fermenting of grains.

How to Choose the Best Flour

Excellent ($$) – Whole Grain Pastry Flour made at home from organic bulk purchased grains. Bonus points for sprouting the grains prior to grinding. Organic ensures it hasn’t been irradiated. As I understand it much of the conventional grain supply is irradiated. If grain isn’t sprouted prior to grinding it requires fermenting or soaking.
Pretty Good ($) – Whole Grain Pastry Flour made at home from conventional grains, sprouted preferably. If grain isn’t sprouted prior to grinding it requires fermenting or soaking.
Pretty Good ($$$$) – Whole Grain Pastry Flour in vacuum sealed and gas flushed packages. Or if you can verify that the flour has been kept cool from factory to your kitchen. Preferably sprouted. If grain isn’t sprouted prior to grinding it requires fermenting or soaking.
Good ($$) – Whole Grain Flour with bran made at home from organic grains, sprouted preferably. If grain isn’t sprouted prior to grinding it requires fermenting or soaking. I’d recommend against eating the bran for very long though, a large capacity hand sifter would handle the problem if the Bosch isn’t an option.
Good ($) – Whole Grain Flour with bran made at home from conventional grains, sprouted preferably. If grain isn’t sprouted prior to grinding it requires fermenting or soaking.
Okay, in small quantities ($$$) – Unbleached white flour from organic grains. This flour will not need to be soaked as it’s stripped of phytic acid along with nutrients.
Okay, in small quantities ($$) – Unbleached white flour from conventional grains. This flour will not need to be soaked as it’s stripped of phytic acid along with nutrients.
Absolutely Avoid – Bleached, brominated, enriched white flour. This is the conventional grocery store white flour.

Does the Specific Grain Matter?

Wheat, corn, spelt, rye, amaranth, buckwheat, Kamut, barley, oats, etc … Does it matter which one you pick as far as nutrition goes? Well, yes and no :-). Each one of these grains has it’s own intricacies of flavor and nutrition. Some like corn need to be soaked differently and so will make a difference in your kitchen routines. There is also some controversy over hybrid strains of wheat with some arguing that we need to buy heirloom varieties or avoid wheat altogether. The jury is still out on this. Personally, I don’t have a strong opinion about it and I buy bulk organic wheat for the most part. I’m still mulling it over and so far I haven’t seen strong enough evidence to justify the difference in price.

I hope you’ve found this overview helpful!

Did you have buttermilk in your home when you were growing up? I think we did only on special occasions and holidays. Mom had a few recipes she made during these times that my Grandmother had also made. So buttermilk didn’t feature prominently in our families diet when I was a kid. But it did feature prominently in Grandma’s cooking. I had often wondered why the popularity but not looked into it very much until I started learning more about real food cookery. With that I’ve come to understand why it’s popular.

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Before entering into the world of real food you most likely never heard the words beef tallow before. Lard yes, beef tallow no. That is unless you’re:

Really interested in history.
Went to cooking school.
Getting on in years ;-).

So I thought we’d talk a little about beef tallow, what it is and how to use it.

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We, all of us have a sweet tooth, don’t we? Nature has fitted us with a strong drive to find the sweet in our food. In nature, sweet flavors are a bit rare and hard to come by. But in our foodscape sweet taste is abundant and cheap. Not only the inexpensive granular sugar which has been available in the west since the 18th century is widely available, but also aspartame, saccharine, and now sucralose or splenda. These sweeteners are all found in a wide variety of processed foods. And so our drive for sweetness is a major source of illness in our culture. We eat far, far too much sugar. Most of us are aware of this and seek to avoid sweeteners only to find ourselves in the candy aisle, again 😉

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Whole Grains Have a Sketchy Past

The Sketchy History of Whole Grain Promotion

Famous and Influential

So there you have it

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