Milling Flour at Home
Well, I'm considering getting a grain mill.
There's a family-run business that sets up shop at the vendor hall every year that sells the wheat and the mills, and coach people in baking their bread. The mom claims that the bread has provided many health benefits to their family, not the least of which is the complete elimination (no pun intended) of constipation.
As many of you know, my 5yo son has been going through the misery of chronic constipation for the last two years. He's been to a specialist, the whole 9 yards. The result of all this expense and bother has been two daily doses of milk of magnesia. (I couldn't have come up with this treatment on my own?) I thought the specialist would try to get to the root causes of the problem, but she seems to be treating symptoms. Basically, my son is either completely constipated, or soiling all day long. There doesn't seem to be any happy medium for him.
Now, I have always avoided going to this bread-baking family's booth because I don't need the added guilt and pressure of feeling that I am not providing the top-quality, nutritious (read VERY EXPENSIVE and TIME-CONSUMING) food that I can for my family. I am not a health-food nut or an organic foods fanatic. I just don't have the budget for it.
Therefore, I avoided them again this year. However, one of my friends picked up a free tape of their seminar, so I figured I'd give it a listen with an open mind.
The thing that caught my attention was that they didn't change their diet at all when they first started making their own bread with home-milled wheat flour--all they did was add the bread, and the health benefits started showing up.
I'd love to hear from you if you have experience with baking bread this way. A couple of my friends at church do it. I guess it's the stereotypical homeschool-mom thing to do, but I don't care about that. All I care about is helping my boy. One of my friends told me I could get the model previous to the whisper mill model for about a hundred bucks. Is it worth the investment?
Thanks in advance, and sorry for rambling. It's been a long weekend.
Susannah
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Grinding grain
Josie has just turned out to be wheat-intolerant, so I may be doing a lot of this soon if we're going to have bread. This actually isn't expensive--certainly not as expensive as buying "good" bread at the store, and certainly better-tasting! Once you get into the rhythm of it, it's not that big of an addition to your day.
Personally I got a grain mill attachment to my KitchenAid. It works great especially if I do it in stages--run it through once just cracking the grain, then grinding it a little finer, then finer still until it's flour. Usually takes three-four passes but it goes fast and I can do other things in the kitchen while it grinds. I would say don't buy a handmill. It takes a LOT of cranking to grind the flour by hand. I can't speak to whisper mills etc; I just don't have the experience with those.
As for the wheat, you can buy it in bulk fairly cheaply; we usually buy our grain in 25 lbs sacks at Bobs Red Mill pretty cheaply even for organic (we are lucky to live nearby) and you can probably find someone around there that carries it in bulk if you feel that what this family is providing is very expensive. Keep in mind that unground grains last longer than flour--MUCH longer.
Poor little guy. Best of luck.
Lynn Siprelle, Editor
probably wouldn't hurt
You could give it a try, and re-sell it if it doesn't help. But I can't see what harm it would cause as long as the problem is chronic constipation rather than diarrhea.
If you decide to go for it, I would strongly suggest introducing it to the family with the section about wheat-grinding in the coffee grinder in The Long Winter.
The Long Winter
Exactly my thoughts! We just recently finished that book ourselves. I have a hand-crank coffee mill like the Ingalls did and when I think about what it must have taken to grind flour in that thing...well, you'd have to be pretty desperate...and it's why I suggest electric-run mills.
Lynn Siprelle, Editor
What are the benefits of home
What are the benefits of home ground wheat flour in relation to chronic constipation? Does it have lots of fiber to counteract the constipation? I never went this route before with my DS. We did the bowel training and Miralax route which got the colon back to it's normal size so that it couldn't hold stool too long. Thanks for any info,just curious...
Heidi
whisper mill
Susannah--
Before bedrest, I was making all my family's bread with fresh ground wheat. I am like you, not really totally into the whole foods thing, but I loved the bread. It just tastes so good. I use a Whisper Mill and I love it. Once when I had a problem with mine, I called them. They told me to ship it to them. I expected them to hassle me and try to say that I had done something to void the warranty, but they just sent me a brand new one, no questions asked. I have never had any problems since. I highly recommend it.
I would make several loaves at once, let them cool, slice them and put them in the freezer. They store well that way and I only made bread about once a week. Obviously, you may use more or less than I did. If you have a Kitchen Aid or Bosch, that simplifies things a lot.
Grinding your own wheat is much, much cheaper than buying whole wheat flour at the store. It's also healthier, but I'm sure you've been into all that with the video you watched. You can buy your wheat in bulk and store it for a long time, especially if you put it into the big white buckets (you can buy it that way, too). If you have friends who are interested in buying a lot of wheat,you can save money by ordering together if you don't have a nearby place that sells it in bulk. My wheat is from Wheat Montana-- http://www.wheatmontana.com/index.asp A friend of mine wanted wheat from them, so she got a bunch of people together to order from them so that we could order enough to get a discount on the delivery. They delivered to her house and everyone had to pick up from there. I'm sure there are other companies that do the same. If you get the wheat in the buckets (keeps insects out better than bags), you can store wheat from something like 25 years, so you can order a lot at once and save money that way. The buckets are reusable, so the next time you buy, you can get bags and fill up the buckets.
BTW, when you start out, if your family eats a lot of bread and isn't used to whole grain, you might want to begin with a half whole wheat/half white flour recipe to ease everyone's digestion into it. It can be a lot more fiber than the kids are used to.
I am sure this is way more information than you wanted. I just have too much time to type these days.
Lauralyn
home ground vs store bought
Flour goes rancid quickly, especially whole grain flours; the oil in the grain is locked up as long as it's whole, but once it's ground it's exposed to the air and goes bad very quickly. So if you do buy whole wheat flour at the store make sure it hasn't been sitting there since the Carter administration.
Lynn Siprelle, Editor
Thanks a bunch, everyone!
Lauralyn, I'm very glad you went into detail, thanks! The Bread Becker mom said that it cured her kids' warts! (Vitamin E?)
I believe this is quite do-able. DH is pretty open to anything that will help our DS, but he asked me to try the bread first before I buy a grinder. Well, lo and behold, today I discovered the homeschooling friends we go visiting with every Monday also grind their own flour. Her grinder is out of commission, but she offered to let me grind at her house once it's fixed. I'm sure my friends at church would let me do it too. There's a mill a couple of hours north of us (Nora Mills) where I could buy grain, or I could get it at a whole foods dealer in Atlanta, and I think there might even be a co-op in the next town. My friend today offered to give me some of hers, too. So I'm at least going to try the bread for a while to see if it helps. I never imagined myself doing this!
But I do like to bake so it won't be any imposition on me. Nothing like home-baked bread!
Lynn, what kind of Kitchen Aid do you have? I have a Professional one (5 Plus?) and my friend at church said I could probably do two loaves at once, but she felt like four might overtax the Kitchen Aid. She has a Bosch. She also said there was some sort of problem with the grain mill attachment, and I read that at Amazon, but if yours has held up, well, it's definitely a less-expensive option. If I baked twice a week, two loaves at a time would probably be all we needed. My friend today said they thin-slice theirs because it is quite filling.
Thanks again!
Love,
Susannah
ETA: I read on another board that a new model of nutrimill is supposed to have a hand crank on it just in case of power failure. Anyone know about that?
Not to do with the bread thing, but...
Have you tried probiotics to help your DS with his problem? There's a whole host of beneficial microbes that's supposed to be in your intenstines but because of our nutrient deficient food supply, courses of antibiotic treatments, or other enviromental causes often isn't. Even if you eat lots of fruit and vegetables and don't eat "junk" food, there's probably still not enough benficial microbes in your food or tummy.
I had problems with constipation for several years and drinking fermented things like kombucha and kefir and eating fermented things like unpasturized saurkraut has all but eliminated it. No pun intended. As long as I'm including one or more of these in my food intake fairly regularly, I'm fairly, well, regular. You can buy some of the fermented foods, like yogurt, cheese, but you have to make sure it says "live cultures" on it. But a lot of them at the stores have been pasturized which destroys the microbes you need.
It's dead easy to make most of them at home, though. You put them in a jar with the right ingredients and they ferment themselves for you. Kefir will taste like soured milk until you add brown sugar or honey, yogurt, and some fresh fruit, then you have a yummy smoothie. All you have to do in some cases is get a culture to start them, in other cases, like saurkraut, you just put them in the brine and let them go at it themselves.
Anyway, it's a thought.
______
"If you want your children to be bright, read them fairytales-- if you want them to be brilliant, read them even more fairytales" Albert Einstein
Thanks!
I recall now that someone at our church was passing around kefir at a recent women's gathering. I'll have to ask about that. I think I might be able to get him to drink a smoothie. Sauerkraut...I doubt it.
I do buy yogurt, but he doesn't eat it very well. That's the root problem, I think, his poor diet. And it's probably a vicious cycle, because being compacted takes away his appetite. He eats only a very few things. I could possibly get him to eat cheese, too. Where do I find fermented cheese?
hand-crank coffee mill
I remember from the book that they worked it in shifts, and the flour didn't turn out too well.
also
Put it in the freezer at home. If you grind your own and want to store it after grinding, keep it in the freezer.
Lauralyn
Benefits, etc.
Sue Becker (the lady on the tape) said that the vitamins in processed flour oxidize almost completely within two or three days, and obviously white flour has the bran sifted out, so the advantages would be added fiber to bulk stools (sorry if TMI) plus the bran to cleanse the colon, plus the extra vitamins to strengthen the immune system (I guess chronic constipation can weaken it). She claims her pediatrician noted that her children's tonsils were shrunk until they were not even visible, and that is unusual in today's children, but it's how they are supposed to be. (Tonsils are part of the body's defense mechanism against infection.) She also said she had not taken an antihistamine in years (at the time of the seminar, at least) and they were mostly congestion-free.
In our family, we don't tend to be allergy-prone or frequently ill, but what mother doesn't want her children to be more healthy? But the main thing for me was that she said they had no constipation anymore.
My ped. had my son on Miralax for a long time, but the constipation kept reocurring, so I don't think his bowel ever got back into shape. I know his poor diet has to be at least part of the cause...of course, the only way to find out what else might be the cause would be insisting that the specialist do further testing. She can check to see if there is an obstruction in the bowel by doing what she called a "sitz marker," in which he basically swallows a capsule filled with tiny opaque rubber-band type things and then has an x-ray done a couple of days later. ??? I haven't insisted on it yet. Don't mean to go on and on with boring details, but it's been a pretty bad problem, amazingly so. He's five years old now and it has to be embarrassing for him to have mom wiping him during the day and washing soiled underpants.
How to Grind and use
Could you post a how to on grinding grain and making bread. I need to know things like what kind of wheat (hard, soft, red. etc) to use and do I use yeast or baking power. How much do I grind? Do I need to sift or strain? I really want to learn how to do this!
Hmmm, I sell NutriMills, and
Hmmm, I sell NutriMills, and last time I called our supplier about that rumor (because I wanted a hand crank if available!) they said that they had started a prototype, but the cost of production was higher than their surveyed customers would pay for the new version of the mill.
so much easier than I thought
I was recently turned on to Sue Becker and then did some basic internet research on the subject...years ago I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia but learned that for me, I could be symptom-free (COMPLETELY) if I ate alternate grains from the health food store. Who can afford that forever??? My mill arrived just last week. I made peach cobbler that was to DIE for (my family couldn't get enough of it), and Blackberry Buckle (this was also good but I think I'd try a different recipe next time), and I've made 4 loaves of bread (although the dog snatched one while it was cooling)...anyway, it will take me awhile to perfect recipes and such, but in just a week, I'm feeling more like I did when I was really good about sticking to my anti-fibromyalgia diet. I haven't felt this good in a few years. And it's only been a week. We haven't changed our diets other than this...
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