Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Fresh Whole Grain Flour


In my bio I mention that I make my own flour but I don't think I have ever broached the subject beyond that. I have been milling my own flour for years now. (The mill in this picture is the one I use.) My sister was a part of a grain coop called the Bread Beckers. I ordered a mill and have been doing it ever since. Grains are so high in nutrition that they oxidate and loose their nutritional value fairly quickly. The whole grain flour you buy in the store has already lost 90% of its nutritional value. Just today I made banana bread with freshly milled spelt and brown rice flour.

When I first joined the coop I bought one of Sue Becker's cds and she told a story about the origins of white flour. It came to be because someone discovered that flour had a longer shelf life if you removed all the bran from it (where all the nutrition is). This made white flour. Well, then they realized that there was no nutrition in it now so then they started "enriching" it. Can you make any sense out of that logic cause I can't. Anyway, they had all this leftover bran they had to do something with so they starting giving it to livestock. Sue Becker goes on to tell a story about a farmer. I can't remember if it was her or someone else who asked the farmer what would happen of you gave the livestock the white "enriched" flour rather then the bran. He chuckled and said they would die of course! So how sad is that, we eat the stuff that other living creatures would die if they ate....Great... Another bright idea from our industrial nation.

Here is a link to the Bread Beckers site if you want to see about getting a mill or joining a coop near you.
http://www.breadbeckers.com/index.html

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