Wheat - The Staff of Life

You can't beat wheat for nutrition and long term storage. If stored correctly it will keep almost indefinitely. The uses for wheat vary widely from bread to wheat grass juice to sprouts. We have been buying wheat in bulk and grinding it for bread for over 30 years. For us, it's the only way to go.

First up, nutrition. It's packed, including calories and carbohydrates for energy and vitality. This is a link to the website I use to compare nutritional values for all kinds of foods.

Wheat flour, whole-grain

We haven't ever eaten wheat sprouts, or wheat grass, or wheat juice, but we have read about it. When it comes to wheat, the sky is the limit. In years past we cracked the wheat and cooked it for a breakfast cereal. Here are a couple of links that may give you some new ideas about how to add wheat, or more wheat, to your diet.

Wheat Berries - 7 Recipes You Have to Try

Wheat Sprouts: Health Benefits and How to Grow Them

Wheatgrass Benefits: The Superfood that Boosts Immunity & Nutrient Absorption

Bulk wheat is getting a little hard to find right now, but if you look, you can still find some. And if you do find some, I would highly recommend buying all you can. Wheat berries store much better than flours and they contain the nutrients of the entire berry, unlike any flour you can buy. For years I thought the whole wheat flour I was buying was just that, whole wheat. It is not. Some of the most nutritious parts of the wheat berry are removed to increase shelf stability and prevent rancidity. By the way, a wheat berry and a wheat grain are one and the same thing. I've always wondered why it's called a berry....

We have gone from making yeast bread to sourdough bread. The fermenting process of making sourdough releases more nutrients, lowers the carbohydrate count, and forgoes the necessity of having yeast on hand. For us that has been the way to go. Here are some past articles we have written using wheat.

Making Whole Wheat Bread

100% Fresh Whole Wheat Bread

Got Wheat? Fern's Sourdough Bread

Grinding Flax & Other Bread Making Lore

If you want to make bread from wheat, you will need a grain grinder of some sort. There are many different kinds and most folks have their own preferences. Here is our manual variety if we ever have the need to use it as opposed to our electric model shown in the previous articles.

Grain Grinder, Manual Type

There are other things you can do with wheat besides make bread. Such as.......

Making Graham Crackers & Pie

Fern's Low Carb Meat Pie

We consider wheat to be a very important part of our food storage. We eat bread everyday. If a collapse scenario occurred, making and eating bread would be one of the things I would try to maintain, for our nutrition, health and peace of mind. One of our newest traditions is having a fresh tortilla every afternoon with a cup of coffee. Now when I make bread, I freeze a large portion of the dough to use for daily tortillas. I keep a bowl of thawed dough in the refrigerator, set some out on the counter in a bowl to come to room temperature for use each afternoon. A fresh, hot tortilla with a little butter and salt is a very welcome part of our diet.

Folks, it is indeed a very hot summer. The 'events' in our country appear to wax and wane, but overall the heat and intensity of our nation's discontent cannot be overlooked. Food prices continue to rise. Growing conditions around the country are strange this year, with food production being impacted in very unusual ways. It appears that the days of taking for granted the fully stocked shelves at the grocery store may become a thing of the past. We seldom go to a store, but lately the shelves appear to have fewer thin or bare spots. The increase in prices, though continues to surprise us every time we go.

Think nutrition. Think calories. Think how deep you need to stock your shelves to provide for you and yours for the long term. We don't know how the plandemic will turn out. We don't know how the communist, anarchist attempts at overthrowing our government will turn out. We don't know if a war will break out. We don't know what is going on anymore, what is true, what is total lies, smoke and mirrors. What we do know is that there is a good probability that we will be on our own, left to our own devices. And in that case. You need food. You need nutrition. You need calories. For everyone within your realm of responsibility. None of us ever want to be in the situation where our loved one looks us in the eye and says, "Daddy, I'm hungry." Not when we had the opportunity to do something about it ahead of time. Folks, don't be too late. The consequences will be too much to bear if you are.

Until next time - Fern

Low Carb Fried Chicken

I think I have made a great discovery. Frank loves fried chicken, well, we both do. After we changed our diets to accommodate a low carbohydrate intake, I no longer fried chicken. But I have only found so many ways to bake or saute chicken that meets our dietary requirements and supports our weight loss.

As I was pondering new and delicious ways to fix chicken, I ran across some information about sourdough starter and it's carbohydrate content. As the starter ferments it predigests, or consumes much of the carbohydrates in flour. When sourdough bread is made and left to proof, or ferment, the starter will consume much of the carbohydrates in the wheat, creating a bread that is lower in carbohydrates compared to yeast made breads. This got me to thinking about different ways I can use my sourdough starter. I am very interested in what you think about this information. Here are some of the things I have read.
 
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From Cultures for Health: Low Carb Fermented Foods 

"One of the beauties of the fermentation process is that it actually lowers the carbohydrate count of the food you are fermenting.

Fermentation occurs when bacteria feasts off of the carbohydrates found in a food. In making kombucha that food is the sugar. In making sourdough bread that food is the flour. In making sauerkraut that food is the carbohydrates in the cabbage. In making yogurt that food is the lactose naturally occurring in milk.

In fermentation, the sugars and starches are eaten up by the bacteria cultures, and converted to lactic acid, carbon dioxide, and more bacteria. So, by definition, fermentation is a process one could use to lower the dietary carbohydrate levels found in various foods.

It is difficult to know the exact carbohydrate count of a fermented food, but there is one principle to keep in mind if you are concerned about the carbohydrates in your fermented foods:

The longer the fermentation time, the more carbohydrates eaten up by the organisms, the more sour the ferment, the lower the dietary carbohydrate count.

So by controlling the culturing, you control the carbohydrates found in fermented foods and in this way you can eat low-carb and enjoy many fermented foods."

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From Daniel Reed: Sourdough Bread and Health

"Researchers in Sweden at Lund University have noted that the fermentation process that’s involved in the creation of sourdough utilizes carbohydrates, lowering the carbohydrate level in the dough as it’s transformed to lactic acid. The result of this process means that sourdough bread can aid in ensuring that your blood glucose level remains in line, helping to guard against various diseases especially diabetes."

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With this information in hand, the question then became how many carbohydrates that are contained in fresh ground whole wheat flour are 'consumed' during the fermentation process? There doesn't seem to be a consensus on the numbers. If you look up the number of carbs in whole wheat flour, you will find that a bag of whole wheat flour at the store, and flour you just made from grinding up wheat berries appear to have a different carb counts, and quite a different amount of nutritional value. 

Nutrition Data indicates that 1 cup of whole wheat flour has 87g of carbs and 15g of fiber. Subtracting the fiber from the carb count gives a total of 72g of carbs. It doesn't indicate whether this is store bought flour or fresh ground whole wheat flour.

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The Whole Truth has an article that says, "When wheat is ground for commercial flour sales, the bran is first removed and the germ and oil in particular are separated out, since these spoil in a short period of time. The remaining endosperm is then finely ground, leaving white flour. In order to market “whole-wheat flour,” a small percentage of the bran is returned to the product, yet it still lacks the germ and thus is far from being “WHOLE” wheat flour."

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There are a few opinions out there about how many carbs are consumed during the fermentation process, but most indicate it would depend upon the length of time the flour is allowed to ferment. There are several forums that discuss possible numbers like this one. "I have done some thinking on this. The starter itself should not be high carb if you consider the example of wine. One bottle of wine contains approximately 2.6 lbs of grapes. That would make the carb load 468 grams. However we know that there only remain around 30g of carbs in a bottle. Hence we know how much the beasties eat. Essentially we are left with 7 % of the original carb count. Two problems with this. Wine ferments on average for 2 weeks. This starter takes 4 days. Second, we cannot automatically assume that the uptake of carbohydrates is the same with flour as with grape juice. If I was to make this I would assume 20% of carbs remaining to be on the safe side."

 
So, if I take the 72g of carbs in 1 cup of commercial whole wheat flour, add it to the sourdough starter and let it ferment all day, or a minimum of 8 hours, and multiply that by 20%, I get 14.4 carbs. 




Now, what does all of this have to do with fried chicken? I started all of this research to try to get a reasonable estimate of how many carbohydrates would be in 1/2 cup of our whole wheat sourdough starter. After all of this reading, I determined that 1/2 cup of starter should, could or probably contains about 7 or 8 grams of carbohydrates. That is doable for us on the amount of carbohydrates we are limiting ourselves to during this phase of our diet.

I mixed 1/2 cup of starter that had not been fed for over 8 hours, with one egg, cut up the chicken (which we raised; it doesn't have skin), dipped each piece in the batter, shook off any excess, and fried it up. I realized after we were eating that I hadn't thought to put any salt and pepper in the batter which would have made the chicken better. But, you know what? It was really good. Like I said before, we both like fried chicken and we hadn't had any for over four months.

When figuring our carb count for the chicken in this meal, I count it at 6g of carbs per person. That is probably higher than it actually is, but I would rather error on the high side than the low side. We only have a meal like this about once a week or less, but it does add a tasty alternative to the way we have changed our eating style.

My question for you is this. Do you think I am close to accurate in my assessment of the carbohydrate contents of the sourdough starter? I don't want to try to kid myself into thinking I am fixing a low carb meal if I'm really not. I know there are many differences between sourdough starters that are fed all purpose white flours instead of only fresh ground whole wheat. But if this really is a decent low carb way to fry chicken, then I am happy to provide an occasional tasty meal for my husband. 

Until next time - Fern
 

An Addendum; Our Journey to Better Health

Hi Everybody, Frank here.

 A couple of months back, actually February 13th, Fern and I put out a post called Our Journey to Better Health. This post dealt with medication we had taken over long periods of time, a few things we have done to reduce our exposure to chemicals, like changing toothpaste, deodorant and other things like that. We talked quite a bit about some of the prescriptions that doctors had given us over the years. Well, the reason for this addendum, is that I wanted to add one more to it, one more prescription, that is. 

In the original post, I talked about taking the prescribed medication Relafen, which I took for a pain in my shoulder blade area. Now remember, this was before the Internet. Well, after doing a little research and some experimentation, it dawned on me that the Relafen was causing the continued pain in my shoulder blade. So, what it boils down to, is that I was taking a medication for a symptom that the medication was creating. Well, that was easy enough to solve. Quit taking the Relafen, deal with the pain for a handful of days, and it's a miracle, I'm cured. Like I told you in the original article, I took Relafen for a couple of years. When I asked the doctor about it, he said, sure it could cause that pain.

Moving along here. Also in the original article, I talked about having dry itchy armpits while living in Alaska. I used steroid creams, shots, numerous different forms of medications, and finally it dawned on me somehow or another, it was just dry skin. Now these steroid creams, shots and medications all came from doctors via prescriptions. All that it was, was simple dry skin, that within a short period of time, Vaseline Intensive Care hand lotion took care of.

Well, there is one medication that I had been taking for over 20 years, that I didn't share with you in the original post. It's called Zyrtec. Most people take it for some type of allergy. I took it because I had this uncontrollable entire body itch. Like I said, I took it for 20+ years. I'd tried to quit it multiple times, but every time I tried, two or three days later, I would get this uncontrollable itch that felt like my skin was crawling.

Well, about the time I hurt my back, while in Alaska, and took pain pills for weeks, the itch would go away and I could quit taking the Zyrtec. Which, by the way, at that time, Zyrtec was a prescription drug only, now it is over the counter. But, when I quit taking the pain medication, I would start to develop the same type of itch patterns again. Then out would come the Zyrtec.

Now, let me compliment the Internet. There is a tremendous amount of data available. Some of this data is worthless, some of it is filth and trash, but it can provide you with good, solid medical data. 

Fern and I started looking back. Here is some of the data we discovered. When coming off pain pill usage for long periods of time, one of the classic withdrawal symptoms are chronic itching and the feeling your skin is crawling. Very interesting. Also included in the data is with long term Zyrtec use, the major withdrawal symptoms include chronic, unbearable itching and feeling like your skin is crawling. 

Let me digress a little. I do not know the exact reason why I started taking Zyrtec. Fern and I changed our bar soap, laundry detergent, I quit wearing polyester type clothes and went to strictly cotton with a minimum amount of dyes, we changed everything we could change, and I cannot tell you exactly why I started taking the Zyrtec. I took the Zyrtec for the itching sensation, but we could never determine what caused the itch, not even with allergy testing. But the prescription Zyrtec took away the symptoms, or removed the itch. Wouldn't it be ironic if that itch was caused by something as simple as dry skin? But I honestly do not know what caused it.

Going back to the original article, Fern and I have been trying to remove chemicals from our lives, and unnecessary medications. Now I still take a handful of vitamins daily, but I was also taking that one last medication that I couldn't quit. Zyrtec. Back in January of this year, before we wrote the piece on February 13th, I had gone to my family doctor for some reason. While I was there, I asked him about some help for quitting Zyrtec, and his answer astounded me. "Why not just keep taking it? It doesn't hurt you."

You see, I had used the Internet to also study the side effects of Zyrtec, and one person had mentioned that he used a steroid medication for short term, to counter the effects of the Zyrtec withdrawal, so he could cease his addiction. That day at the doctor's office, I asked him for a prescription of a steroid dose pack. At first he said the side effects of the steroids were worse than the long-term Zyrtec side effects. But with a little prodding he wrote me the prescription. It's one of those things where you start off with a large dosage and for three, four and five days, gradually take less and less. Fern had an old prescription of this same type of steroid that she keeps around for poison ivy outbreaks. I used it to extend my daily steroid intake for a couple of weeks. Also, the day the doctor gave me the prescription, he gave me a steroid shot.

Well, that occurred back in January. Three months later, I am happy to say that I have not had a Zyrtec since middle January. I am not addicted to the steroids, I haven't had one of those in two months. But after 20+ years, I'm off of the Zyrtec. You see, the Zyrtec was causing the itching. Now I have taken one of those things, either every day or every other day for over 20 years. I tried to get help to quit the Zyrtec multiple times over the years from numerous different doctors. Why is it that I, a retired educator, can figure out how to get myself off of a drug, when the medical profession can't figure it out? And the doctor's comment still plagues me, "Just keep taking it. They don't do you any harm." 

It bothers me to not trust the medical profession. It bothers me to not trust my government. It bothers me just to not trust. Period. But it seems that I have good solid reasons not to trust. That saddens me. It saddens me a great deal.

Now, on to happier things. In the original post, Our Journey to Better Health, Fern and I mentioned that we had also started a weight loss program. We started it December 3, 2014. Fern has now lost 26 pounds, and I have lost 30 pounds. We've done this by reducing our carbohydrate intake. We have had no sugar and almost zero processed foods. We have lost inches and reduced a couple of sizes in our clothes. I'm happy to say that we both feel much better. 

Other good news. Fern has ceased all prescription medications except one, and that is a thyroid medication. I am a 65 year old man, that a few months back was taking four or five prescribed

medications on a daily basis. I have, one at a time, quit all of them, without any negative side effects. Actually, I feel much better. So, why was I taking four or five prescribed medications if I really didn't need them? Now, I know there are lots of folks that have to take medications, like Fern does. But, how many of us are taking medications that were administered originally for a short-term problem, that continue to take them for the long-term? How come our doctors, that we trust with our lives, keep us on medications that we don't really need to take? Yes, I know there are lots of reasons why, but I don't want to believe that my doctor would do that to me.

We all know that big business pharmaceuticals control the medical profession. Just like big business agri-chemicals control the food industry. I really don't believe that any of them care about the people any more at all. So much for the doom and gloom.

If you would like, please read the original article. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope it causes some serious thought. In the meantime, I am now Zyrtec free after 20+ years. Now, if the world, for whatever reason were to collapse, then I would not scratch my skin away from Zyrtec withdrawals. Imagine that 20+ years. I'm happy. Hallelujah! Free at last, free at last!

We'll talk more later, Frank

Homemade Sauerkraut

We finally took the initiative to learn how to make fermented vegetables. I have read about it for years. The more I read, the more I realized how good this process is for your health, and it is another way to preserve foods. This is our first, well second, but I'll get to that in a minute, batch of fermented cabbage. Let me back up and start with the books I have acquired so far. Here is the beginning of the story.

A few years back, I got this book. I had read little bits here and there over the years about fermented foods, but what I really wanted to be able to do is make a crunchy pickle. How are these two related? Well, I looked up how to brine pickles, and that led to pickle crocks, which led to other things to do with crocks, which led to sauerkraut and fermenting cabbage. So here we are, trying out our first home made sauerkraut. We bought the cabbage since ours is still in the seedling stage. But let me get back to this book and several others that I have bought recently, which include Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition and Craft of Live-Culture Foods and Real Food Fermentation: Preserving Whole Fresh Food with Live Cultures in Your Home Kitchen.

The more I read about fermented vegetables and their health benefits, the more interested I became in trying them. Then after we changed our eating habits to include less carbohydrates, more nutritional vegetables and better protein sources, I learned more about how fermenting foods such as kefir, sourdough and sauerkraut lowers the carbohydrate content of foods. Thus, the motivation for learning how to ferment vegetables increased even more. An article over at Cultures for Health describes some of these benefits in this article: Low Carb Fermented Foods. "Fermentation occurs when bacteria feasts off of the carbohydrates found in a food. In making kombucha that food is the sugar. In making sourdough bread that food is the flour. In making sauerkraut that food is the carbohydrates in the cabbage. In making yogurt that food is the lactose naturally occurring in milk."

All of my reading and research lead me to use a crock made for fermenting. Some of my fermenting books indicate that there is no need for a special crock, while others recommend it. I chose this kind of crock so I wouldn't have to deal with the scum, or bloom, that typically grows on top of a crock of vegetables and has to be removed periodically. Or that is what I have read anyway. I didn't want to have to guess whether it was the good scum or the bad scum. I was leery enough as it was without wondering if what I had perking away in the crock would make us sick. I liked the idea of having the crock closed. 

A side note here. I found out the hard way to keep sourdough and kefir across the room from each other so their yeasts and bacteria don't have a little competition. The sourdough won at that time, and the kefir just about quit working all together. That meant that a week or so ago when I had all three out 'working', I placed them at the farthest three points on my cabinet that I could. The sourdough ended up stuck in the corner on top of the chicken scrap bucket, but it seemed to work and they all kept perking along.

We have hesitantly wanted to try fermenting vegetables for quite some time. I say hesitantly, because like anything, you have to be careful to produce a healthy instead of a deadly product. There are guidelines to follow when fermenting anything to make sure your finished product is edible, not something that will cause food poisoning. Neither one of us has ever eaten fermented vegetables before, and don't know anyone that does, except through things we have read both in books and on the internet. That goes back to why this isn't the first batch of cabbage we fermented.

 The first batch I started went like this. Chop up the cabbage very fine. Put in a the crock in layers, sprinkling it with salt, and pounding it down to compact it and release some of the juices in the cabbage. I used one full head of cabbage. The crock will hold much more, but it was an experiment, so I didn't want to over do it. I followed the directions in one of the books that said to wait 24 hours, then check and see if the cabbage juices had covered the cabbage and the stones used to weigh it down. There wasn't enough juice, so I added some filtered water, then let it sit and do it's thing for several weeks. The problem I ran into was having baby goats and getting busy with other things. This allowed the

water in the 'moat' to evaporate, thus allowing oxygen to enter the crock. When this happens, as it would if you used an open crock, scum or bloom as some folks call it, forms on top of the liquid. As long as this bloom is white, it is supposed to be okay. You can skim it off and let the cabbage continue to ferment. Well......... I just couldn't bring myself to trust that this was healthy instead of unhealthy bloom. Even though when I opened the crock, outside since I didn't know if the smell would knock me down or smell good, it had a nice tangy smell, we still didn't eat it. I just dumped it out in the garden. Nothing else ate it either, it just sat there.

Then I started another batch of cabbage. This time, after I chopped it up, I put a little in a large stainless steel bowl, sprinkled it with sea salt and pounded the whey out of it with a wooden pestle. I used the pestle the first time, too, but didn't pound it near has hard since I didn't want to break the crock. After 24 hours I was rewarded with a good amount of cabbage juice, but not enough to quite cover everything, so I added some filtered water. Surprisingly to me, it takes about a month for the cabbage to develop a sauerkraut kind of flavor.

We had our first, small helping today. It doesn't taste like sauerkraut you buy in the store since it hasn't been heat treated. Frank said it doesn't taste bad, but it doesn't taste good either. I thought it was pretty good. Crunchy, which I wasn't expecting, tangy, and different, but good. Since our bodies are not used to consuming fermented vegetables, we will go easy on it at first, so we will have time to adjust. I dipped out about a quart for us to eat on, and left the rest in the crock to continue fermenting. This was a recommendation in the books. Since it takes about a month to get to this point, I think I will start a second crock. That will give us a perpetual supply. For now, we will stick to cabbage. Before long though, we will be trying other vegetables as well, things such as turnips, carrots, cucumbers, okra and beets.

This is yet another new food adventure we have embarked on. I'm not sure how successful or long-term it will be, but it is something I thought was worth a try. It is another way to preserve food in a very healthy way. Fermented foods can be kept for years in a cool place according to my research. If this is something we can produce in the summer, when the garden is going great guns, then it will be yet another source of very good nutrition. If you have any information or recommendations for us, we would love to hear them. We learn a great deal from our friends out there in blog world, and appreciate all you regularly share with us. 

Until next time - Fern

Some Things I've Been Reading

There is so much information out here on the internet that I could just about read for the rest of my life. The more I read and learn, though, the more I want to do and try for myself. Some of my reading teaches me how to do or understand new things. Some of it motivates me to learn, and grow more of our own food, or make more of our own hygiene products, to avoid what is out there on the market. Either way, what I am learning can be put to use. Knowledge. One of our most precious commodities. Here are some things I have read over the past month or so. I hope you learn something, too.

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Here are some things I have learned that I don't like. Some of them make me mad. How can the dollar be more important than healthy, productive people? I don't get it, and I'm glad I don't get it. That means I don't think like that.

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GM Wheat Discovered Contaminating Wheat Fields in Montana

U.S.D.A. Approves Modified Potato

Study Links GMOs to Over 22 Different Diseases

Gene-Altered Apples Get U.S. Approval

Fluoride in Drinking Water May Trigger Depression and Weight Gain, Warns Scientists

Monsanto's New 'Herbicide-Resistant' GMO Crop Slammed by Food Experts

Scientific Team Sounds the Alarm on Sugar as a Source of Disease

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And then there are those articles that give me more insight into how to improve our health with food and diet.

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Scientists Prove Organic Food More Nutritionally Rich Than Conventional, GMO Crops

Olive Oil May Prevent Cancer, Study Finds

Heart Disease and Diabetes Risks Tied to Carbs Not Fat, Study Finds

Sourdough Bread and Health

Benefits of Kefir

Low Carb Fermented Foods

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And then there are some articles that are just unbelievable.

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Officials Declare 'Eating Healthy' a Mental Disorder

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Thanks to M.E. Masterson over at Adventures of My Life! who put a link to this article, G.H.A. (Goat Haters Anonymous) from Krazo Acres yesterday, we had some very good laughs. I guess you might have to have personal experience like the folks from Krazo to truly enjoy the humor in this article. We thought it was hilarious.

There is not much going on here on the homestead. We have had steady snow all afternoon. The garden is white. The pastures are white. The roads are white. And I am rather bored. Reading is a good past time on days like this, so I hope you learn something from these links. I can't say I hope you enjoy them all, because I find some of them down right disgusting. But like any good leader, it pays to know your enemies and their tactics. Learn all you can so you can equip your mind for this battle called life.

Until next time - Fern