Flushing Your Health Down The Toilet: What happened to the wheat?

A while ago, I wrote a post about grain mills.  For Valentine's Day, my hubby bought me the long sought after object of kitchen desire: the Komo medium mill.  I had been staring, drooling and dreaming of a grain mill for a few years, and finally the day came when I heard the blessed words, "Honey, you may order your grain mill now."

I think I waited eleven whole seconds to call up the company and place my order.

I am a woman of action.  And words.  But I like action better.

So anyway.

You may be thinking I'm quite the weirdo to have a grain mill - what on earth would I want one of those things for?  Isn't it just easier to go to the store and buy a bag of flour?

Rays of sunshine + angels singing

 = KoMo

Well, I suppose - yes.  BUT.  (Don't you know by now that I really can't do things conventionally, anyway?  But that wasn't exactly why I was interested in doing so.)

There were three main reasons for me wanting to get a grain mill.  Drumroll, please!

Reason #1:  Food Deliciousness
I have spoken with a couple people who have their own grain mills and they've all told  me the same thing: the flour you buy at the store is rancid (we're just used to it and think that's normal flour) and when you use actually fresh flour, you will become a bread and food snob and be so totally in love with the taste of fresh flour bread that your whole life will be better and you will essentially ascend to heaven with one taste.

I'm in!  I've always wanted to add to my food-snobbery and who wouldn't be interested in heavenly ascent!

Reason #2:  Saving Money
I don't know how it is around where you live, but around here, I buy a bag of (usually King Arthur) flour that costs about an average of $1/pound.  Organic flour costs more, of course.  If you buy bulk wheat berries to grind, even when it's organic, you can get your price to at least 1/3 of what you might buy (conventionally) in the store.  That means I can get at least 3 pounds of organic flour for about a dollar.  I am so on that.  The other good thing is that wheat berries are good indefinitely if you keep them dry and free of rodents.  This means you really can buy 50 pounds of it and not worry about it going bad before you have the chance to use it up.

Sign. Me. Up.

Reason #3:  After I saw this picture, I kind of FREAKED OUT

Picture courtesy of Pleasant Hill Grain's website.

I know, it's not a super high quality picture, BUT OH MY GOODNESS.  Okay.  Here's what we do here.  Do you see the vial on the left?  Do you know what it is?  Does your neighbor or co-worker know what it is?  Most people have NO IDEA.  If you would have asked that question 100 years ago, people would have thought you were kidding. Everyone knew what that was.  It's a wheat berry in its natural state.  Look all the way to the right.  Do you know what that is?  Yep, it's flour.  Or what we call flour, anyway.

So what on earth are the four vials in between?   Oh, those silly things?  Those are all the things that are taken out of the original wheat berry.  They're called the nutritious parts.  If you can't clearly read the labels, it says, "Whole Grain...Bran...Middlings...Wheat Germ...Wheat Germ Oil...White Flour - End Result".

Why would they take those out?!  Oh.  Because if you leave them in, you get a rancid stench and no shelf life if you take longer than 10 days to use it from being originally ground to flour.  Do you know that wheat germ is so lacking  from our modern diet that Standard Process (a supplement company that I totally recommend) makes capsules of wheat germ for people to take?!  This is how pathetic we've become.  I mean, I'm thankful they have it, but seriously - that is where we are as a society.  So weird.  SO backward.

When you cook with flour, unless you can get your hands on some crushed  wheat berries, you are missing just about everything good for you and necessary for your body.  I saw this and it was so disturbing  to think I was feeding my family dust that I couldn't get it out of my head.  And some companies go so far as to even pour BLEACH on their dust  flour to make it even worse than it already is.  Bleached flour?!  FOR REAL?!  Okay, yeah.  Messed up to the extreme.

The reason I got a Komo mill (I'm not advertising for them nor have I been asked to review for them, but oh my goodness, they so should like give me a million dollars because I am going to say such favorable things about them right now) was because they are the bomb, baby.  I was looking for a mill that did not have plastic.  I was looking for a mill that did not use metal burrs to grind their berries to flour.  I really don't want to eat aluminum flour - the old bleached stuff is bad enough and I'm trying to go toward health instead of back around the other way.  I found a milling company that uses fantastic German engineers and is backed by decades of experience.  These dudes use actual milling stones (STONES!) and their housing is all beech wood.  It's so beautiful I am happy to keep it on my counter.  (And I am a minimalist so this is kind of a big deal.)  Yes, it's something you ought to save up for, but it is so worth it.  They have a 13 (I think?) year warranty on their mills.  This is something I will be using for my whole life.

Anyway, if you can't get a mill, do you know anyone who has one?  Maybe you could see if they might grind some flour for you to try.  I think you will be totally amazed.

Peace, love and go grind some berries!
Ms. Daisy