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Feel Bad About Eating White Rice?

by Granny Filed Under: Wholesome Ingredients

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.

Did Grandma Eat Gluten?

by Granny Filed Under: Straight Talk

Take a trip thru the grocery store and you’ll find gluten-free labels everywhere! It seems gluten-free eating has arrived and everyone is doing it. The guy in the cubicle next to you, his wife cured her allergies by going gluten-free. Your doctor suggested that you might consider it for weight loss. Your friend wants to go gluten-free but says they have an unreasoning addiction to bread that drives them eat entire loaves in the middle of the night 😉 .

Well, call me a skeptic but I remember when the idea of eliminating wheat was deemed a bit fringe. After all wheat has been a staple of the human diet for millennia. I use traditional diets as my yardstick for determining what my diet should look like. After all, it’s gotten the human race this far hasn’t it? Our ancestors survived and thrived on a traditional diet long enough to produce us!

I receive questions about gluten and breads very often and frankly I’m concerned about all those who are new to the world of real food being confused by the avalanche of negative press gluten containing products and starches in general are receiving. So let me just state as clearly as I can that restrictive diets like the gluten-free diet are not traditional! Now, I understand that there are many with genuine medical issues surrounding gluten. This post doesn’t address their situation at all. Instead I’m talking about a very modern tendency to restrict entire food groups for a lifetime based on very flimsy evidence or even worse fashion. I view this as a dangerous practice and what’s more, your Grandma would have too.

Grandma Ate Gluten and Plenty of It!

Yes, she did eat gluten. Your great grandma most likely even made her own bread every week developing the gluten with her own two hands, forming the dough into loaves and baking them in a wood fired oven. These loaves were made with a sourdough starter that she maintained and shared amongst friends. By the time the loaves went into the oven they were well fermented to get a good rise and flavor and to reduce the anti-nutrients present in the grains. This whole process was sacrosanct in Granny’s world. The dictionary defines sacrosanct as “Regarded as too important or valuable to be interfered with.” Bread making was serious business! If you could be transported back in time to Granny’s kitchen she’d offer you bread and would be pretty horrified if you refused it. She would have seen it as high foolishness on your part.

The Hype Implies that Gluten is an Unnatural Additive

Gluten is entirely natural to grains with bread grains having the highest percentages. The rise and texture of dough is greatly affected by gluten content so some commercial bakeries do indeed add even more gluten to their breads than would naturally be present. This practice requires the ability to separate gluten and is therefore modern. The presence of gluten in grain-based foods though is totally traditional.

The Hype Implies that High-Gluten Hybridized Wheat is Basically GMO

Modern wheat is hybridized wheat. Virtually all of the food supply is grown from hybrid seeds. Peppers, carrots, lettuce, beans and of course wheat found in the supermarket or farmers market are nearly 100% hybrid varieties of plants. While there may be advantages in flavor and just sheer variety in the pre-hybridized heirloom seeds no one is eating these plants in large quantities. We are all eating hybrids every day.

Man has been influencing the breeding of plants for centuries. Hybrids have been around for at least a couple hundred years and represent a more sophisticated kind of tinkering than what was done before. Hybrids became popular with farmers about 100 years ago during Granny’s time. They are produced by cross-pollinating varieties to produce a new variety with desired characteristics. It does NOT involve splicing of genes across species or any of the other Dr. Frankenstein horror show science genetically modified foods are subject to. Barring possible contamination from Monsanto’s GMO wheat experiments nowhere in the world is the wheat supply grown from GMO seeds.

You might have read the argument that since modern hybridized wheat contains considerably more gluten than ancient varieties that we modern folk should avoid it like the plague. Modern wheat does contain more gluten than old varieties, that isn’t in dispute. But does it follow that we should completely cut out this staple of traditional diets completely as a result? I don’t think so. If you feel it’s a priority in your budget to ensure your grains are as old school as possible you could consider spelt or einkorn wheat instead of the more modern hybrids. There are options other than elimination.

Many Arguments Against Gluten are Really Arguments Against Eating Processed Foods

Many of the arguments against modern wheat go on at length about modern baking methods, quick rise yeasts and dough conditioners for example. These are really not arguments against wheat or gluten but are instead arguments against eating processed foods. We all know that commercial bakeries use such things and more, like preservatives to keep the bread fresher longer, dyes and even artificial flavorings. If you want to eat breads make them at home using traditional methods or find yourself a good local bakery. Baking bread is one of those scary to do household tasks that once you try it you wonder why it was so intimidating! If you’re following The Granny Plan you could make it a kitchen project to work on over a bit of time.

What If You Are Having Trouble Digesting Grains?

Many people find that proper preparation of gluten containing flours makes them completely digestible. Really, rarely does anyone in our culture have a chance to eat properly prepared grains. It’s worth a trial run if you’re experiencing trouble. If that doesn’t help addressing problems with bad gut flora helps many to eat gluten containing foods without issues. Some of the protocols for addressing gut dysbiosis involve eliminating grains for a predetermined time while rebuilding the gut. Also worth a trial. I’d encourage everyone to give it much serious consideration before deciding to cut gluten long-term though. Like Granny it pains me to see people cut this major traditional staple out of their diet forever.

Grassfed Beef is Best

by Granny Filed Under: Wholesome Ingredients

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.

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Eat More Eggs – Easy to Make Affordable Nutrition

by Granny Filed Under: Wholesome Ingredients

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.

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Buttermilk – A Staple in Grandma’s Kitchen

by Granny Filed Under: Wholesome Ingredients

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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Why Choose Beef Tallow?

by Granny Filed Under: Wholesome Ingredients

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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Local Honey is the Best Honey

by Granny Filed Under: Wholesome Ingredients

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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How to Make Butter at Home

by Granny Filed Under: Uncategorized

First, let me say that butter is super simple to make. Ridiculously simple and foolproof. Everyone has seen pictures of great grandma slaving away at the butter churn, sweating buckets. From that we’ve all picked up the idea that butter is hard. Making butter manually is a bit tiring, though not exhausting. But making butter using a mixer, blender or food processor is easy peasy and not the least bit tiring. If Granny was making all her own butter without the help of modern tools we can make all our own butter too if we choose. At minimum all you need is a supply of cream. If you don’t have any of these tools you can still make butter with just a jar and some vigorous shaking.

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Butter – Getting the best quality you can afford

by Granny Filed Under: Wholesome Ingredients

Butter butter everywhere and not a drop that’s real! Ever feel that way staring at the refrigerated section at the supermarket? Diana at Eat More Butter definitely has. Foodie at Kitchen Drawer Online took a series of pictures showing that only about 10% of the butter-like food items in the refrigerated section is actually butter! The remainder is margarine.

Butter quality matters! Beyond the basics of simply avoiding margarine which contains hydrogenated fats, it’s important to find the most vitamin rich – least likely to be adulterated butter you can get your hands on. We’re going to talk about the determining different levels of quality in order to make the best possible quality decision each time we reach for butter.

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Healthy Fats First!

by Granny Filed Under: Straight Talk

When you have a limited food budget deciding where to put your money first can be daunting. Do you make organic vegetables and fruits highest priority? or supplements? How about free-range, grassfed meat? What comes first? If I know that I can’t afford to buy all quality ingredients right now, which items are most important? Of all the foods to buy in the highest quality possible, it’s most important that fats be of the highest quality you can afford. Why? Much of the fat available in our modern food supply are toxic fats. Avoiding these toxic fats and providing wholesome fat is first priority in maintaining health.

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“And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” – John 8:32

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