I recently told a friend lately that I love eating bread. I eat it with nearly every meal. She looked at me in shock. How could I, a fitness lover with toned arms, pull off eating as many carbs as I do and not be overweight? The secret is that I eat real bread.
What is real bread?
Real bread is bread that I make myself, after grinding my own wheat to create my own flour. Sound crazy? It’s not as wild as you may think. Last year I was introduced to the concept by my sister, who sent our family this video of Sue Becker giving a speech about the values of grinding your own flour and it changed my entire perspective.
I don’t know about you, but for most of my life I have been hearing variations of the idea that bread is bad for you. Carbs will make you fat. If you want to lose weight, you should cut bread out of your diet. And when people do cut bread out of their diet they lose weight, so it’s good advice, right?
Well, not necessarily.
The bread you see in stores isn’t what I would call “real” bread. A loaf of Sarah Lee bread in the store lists 23 different ingredients, many of them I don’t even know what they are. A loaf of bread I make at home has six and I know what each of them mean: fresh milled flour, yeast, buttermilk, orange juice, salt, water.
But it’s not just how many ingredients there are, it’s also the flour they use. Store bought flour is what they call enriched flour. This industrial flour has been made from stripping the bran and the germ from the wheat berry and only using the endosperm inside to create flour. The flour is enriched because they add back 5 essential nutrients that are stripped from the wheat berry during processing. So why is that a problem? Because of where all the nutrients in a wheat berry are found.
The Nutritional Value of Wheat
Here is the nutritional value of each part of the wheat berry:
- Bran is the outer layer and it is an incomparable source of insoluble fiber, minerals, phytochemicals, and B vitamins complex. Bran acts like the rough side of a sponge on your digestive tract, scrubbing out all the bad stuff. Brad also has the wonderful side effect of making you feel full faster. I don’t know about you but my boys eat everything in sight so I am a big fan of high fiber content meals that fill them up and keep them feeling full and out of my kitchen.
- The germ is located inside the bran at the bottom of the wheat berry and it is a powerhouse of nutrients! The nutrients in the germ support many of your bodies vital functions. The germ contains oils, vitamins and antioxidants. Did you know that the wheat germ contains high levels of protein, iron, zinc, vitamin E and B vitamins which make it a power food for nourishing a healthy pregnancy? The germ also contains EFA’s (Omega 3 and 6) which our bodies do not naturally produce so we need them in our diet.
- Endosperm consists mainly of proteins (gluten) and starch, a simple carbohydrate. This is what white flour is made of.
Commercial millers separate the bran and germ from the endosperm but as we just learned, the bran and the germ are where majority of the nutritional benefits of flour are.
Take bran for example. Bran is separated out when flour is processed, but the bran is where all the insoluble fiber is. Did you know that constipation is the number one gastrointestinal complaint, resulting in 2.5 million doctors visits annual. Why are people constipated? Because they don’t have enough fiber in their diet. Fiber that we used to get from eating whole wheat bread.
But I Only Eat Whole Wheat Bread
Buying whole wheat bread from the store should be good enough, right?
Mmm, not really. Wheat, like many other things, loses its nutritional value the more time has passed since the grain has been milled. To get the most nutrients that you can from this superfood, the wheat needs to have been milled within the last week. Which is incredibly easy to do if you grind your own wheat.
Also, what is the requirement for calling a grain product “whole grain”? I looked on the USDA Food and Nutrition Service website and found this quote:
A whole grain is a grain that has not had its nutrient-rich germ and bran removed, and therefore does not need enrichment. Foods that meet the whole grain-rich criteria are foods that contain at least 50 percent whole grains and the remaining grains in the food are enriched, or are 100 percent whole grain.
Grain Requirements in the CACFP: Questions and Answers
My Experience
Now, there is tons of research and data about the nutritional value of whole grains, wheat berries, and things like that so I won’t go into it. (Although I will highly recommend you read this article by Sue Becker on Healthy Eating Simplified or to watch the video I linked to above, you won’t regret it!) I will tell you that in the last year of eating freshly milled flour and homemade bread, my entire family has been trimmer, have better digestive health, and we stay full longer, which is a big deal for an active family with hearty appetites.
If you want to improve the health of your family and your kids in an easy way, consider grinding your own wheat and making your own bread.
How to Get Started
How do I grind my own wheat?
You can purchase a wheat grinder on Amazon. I have a Nutrimill. My mom has a Mockmill. They both work great.
As far as actually grinding wheat, it’s as easy as putting the wheat berries into the grinder and watching flour come out. It takes 30 seconds to make a cup of flour. For the most part, you can use it in the same proportions as you do for all purpose flour in recipes however there may be some necessary trial and error because whole grain flour can be thirstier than all purpose flour.
Where do I buy wheat berries?
You can purchase them on Amazon but I find them to be expensive there. My go to supplier is Azure Standard. I particularly love their philosophy on providing natural, organic, non-GMO and environmentally friendly products at a reasonable price so more people can afford them.
Much love,
Diana James
