Eat Grains

Archive for the ‘Grain Resource’ Category

If you are looking for a hand powered manual mill for milling grains, and dry items into flour, but also want to mill moist, sprouted and oily seeds – there are very few on the market. The BEST manual grain mill I have EVER had the chance to get my hands on is: The Wondermill Junior Deluxe.

This mill has options that you won't find in an electric mill but is not at all hard to use. It is extremely sturdy and user friendly. With two milling head options, you can mill both a super fine pastry flour or almonds into nut butter. You can adjust the coarseness with the easy dial of a knob!

Take a look at this little short demo I made when I first got the mill and found out how very much I enjoyed it! Manual grain milling was never so easy…..

Meet my Wondermill Jr. Deluxe

Go watch the video!

The Millers own and operate Millers Grain House which offers Chemical Free and Organic Grains, Grain Mills, Bread Machines,Grain buckets, Bosch Mixers, the NutriMill, instructional tutorials, recipes and more.

The CDC, FDA and many other American government agencies are taking a serious look at supporting a plant-based diet. Why the sudden turn? Perhaps they are finally realizing that a plant-based diet has long time been recommended by experts in the fight against cancer, diabetes and obesity. All of which are hot topics and health concerns in America.

It's no secret that fruits and vegetables (in their most pure, unprocessed form) fall into the plant-based diet category (a blueberry pop tart is not a fruit). The issue gets a little cloudy with grains.

Grains are a plant and part of a plant-based diet if eaten WHOLE. Grains in the form of white, dead, processed flour are not the whole part of the plant that is meant to be consumed but only the endosperm (or starch) portion of the grain. White flour products do not qualify as part of a plant-based diet; whole grains do.

Much of the time the whole grain must be milled into flour for use, but the fact that the whole grain is being used means the entire plant is being consumed thus adding much needed nutrients to your plant-based diet. Grains used in this manner rather than white flour are the basis for the whole food pyramid.

For more information about why using the whole grain is best for your health as part of a plant-based diet, watch the following video: http://www.youtube.com/thewheatguy#p/u/42/y_GR4nLsLJs

Now that you have tried the previous tips and attempted to reason with friends and family that it is more healthy, and you can make a cheaper/healthier loaf of bread and that the storage life is longer, you may be, like I was, trying to convince yourself that you can DO this (I can, right?).

Here are a few more little tips I have learned to show myself ‘why to bother’:

• It takes no more time than grabbing a bag of dead flour. Throw the grains in the Nutrimill, turn it on and by the time I’ve gathered the other ingredients for the recipe, the mill is done.

• Even the Nutrimill has saved us money! We eat pizza every Friday night. We used to order 3 Large pizzas from Papa Johns, Dominos or Little Caesars. At the tune of between $30-$40 any given Friday. Now I make pizza crusts ahead of time and use fresh ingredients (and I might add less fats/grease) and make 3 16 inch pizzas for $10.00 total! In less than three months, we had paid for the mill on pizza nights alone!

• Last but not least, you don’t have to start our as a purist. If you HAVE to add, change or substitute a pinch here and there to get your family to eat the freshly milled grains that are so packed with nutrients, then just do that until you have experimented enough to use only the grains you mill. Using even 3/4 of a cup of freshly milled wheat vs. the usual ‘dead bagged flour’ gives your family more fiber, E and other phyto nutrients than they can get from fast foods or frozen waffles.

Relax. EnJOY it!

Now not only are you convinced because of these little tips, but your friends and family will see the confidence in you and not worry that you will soon begin brushing your teeth with sugar or go back to believing the world is flat, just because you mill grains at home. Milling grains at home is not old fashioned, it just makes good sense.

Best Blessings!
Donna

http://www.millersgrainhouse.com/store

Go Green with the WonderMill Jr. Deluxe

We can search the web, go get a million recipe books, follow around a world class chef and huddle on to Mama's apron strings but one thing that will remain a rule in baking and cooking is: Break some rules! Play with your food!

Play with your food!

Sure there are some hard and fast ones like: Yeast breads need yeast. Too much salt is pretty gross. But for many 'rules' there are acceptations.

Take things like altitude and humidity into consideration. A loaf of bread baked at 3500 feet above sea level will not be the same as one baked AT sea level. Tweak a recipe.

Most recipes are written for sea level and adjusted for differing altitudes. Don't let that keep you in a box though, break out of the rules of recipes and tweak. Just keep good notes (that's my downfall, I often play but forget what I did when it worked!).

Have fun. Learn by playing with your food.
Just be prepared to be VERY creative if it doesn't work out and not waste it by tossing it in the trash.

Best Blessings and enJOY learning more!
Donna

If you already read Part One of this tip, then you may or may not have peaked the curiosity of former nay-sayers. You may still need more explanation for why you are thinking of or currently milling at home. After all, inquiring minds want to know.

The second tip to answering the questions of why you bother to mill at home is the benefits of cost and storage. Sure, we can buy ‘whole wheat bread’ at the store. Sure, ‘dead bagged flour’ lasts for a good while. Are these reasons to dismiss home milling all together? Hardly! In fact, look closer and you can see why milling at home is better.

Health benefits aside, which is the MOST important one in my opinion, storage and cost come up on the convenience end of considering milling at home. The ‘whole wheat’ loaf of bread we can buy in the store is not only made of old, processed whole wheat, but by the government regulations only has to be at least 51% – or mostly whole wheat – to be labeled as such. I digress, this is also a health reason. The cost of said loaf is approximately $2.29. A home milled, fresh WHOLE GRAIN flour, loaf of bread costs me about $.75 to make and that is using all organic (a bit pricier) grains and sugar. Also, I know what is exactly in that loaf!

Storage is the other thought. Admittedly, my fresh baked loaf does NOT last as long , not due to shelf-life but that we eat it so fast (no one in the house can resist cutting into a warm loaf when they smell it), but the grains last for years! ‘Dead bagged flour’ can’t say that. Either weevils, mites or simply staleness can render a dead bag of flour useless in mere months. The Creator made a perfect protection for that grain, the husk. There have been grains found in pyramids that were over 4000 years old that when planted, they grew just as they were intended. How’s that for storage. Just keep the grains in a sturdy container and from getting wet and you can store them for years. I don’t think you will be needing them in 4000 years though.

Best Blessings!
Donna Miller

http://www.millersgrainhouse.com/store