Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

More About Soaking Grains (or not)

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Thank you all for a wonderful discussion on this post and through emails about whether or not soaking our grains is necessary. 

Talk about confusing. :)

After reading all of the comments, did any of you reach any conclusions?

I’m not sure if I’ve reached any definite conclusions, but I’ve been researching it more and talking with my husband about it.

I also decided to try emailing Sally Fallon, author of Nourishing Traditions. Guess what? She wrote me back!

Here’s the main part of my email to her:

Recently on my blog I posted about whether or not it is necessary to soak grains in order to break down the phytic acid and aid in digestion. There are differing ideas out there and I’d love to help my readers be well informed.

This is the post I wrote. Because of reading Nourishing Traditions, I’ve believe that it is important to soak my whole grain before cooking. However, I’ve never found any other
information that recommends soaking grains (aside from Dr. Mercola who simply recommends not eating them at all!). I even found an article suggesting that soaking is completely unnecessary.

And here is Sally’s reply:

Before yeast became available, the only way to make bread was by fermentation–sourdough fermentation. Also, if you look at Handbook of Indigenous Fermented Foods, you will see that the practice of fermenting grains–for breads, porridges and beverages–is practically universal.
 
Fermentation/Soaking not only neutralizes phytates (which DO block mineral uptake), but also tannins, enzyme inhibitors, etc, all things very irritating to the digestion. Also, there is recent research on gluten intolerance, showing that sourdough fermentation makes bread tolerable to those with celiac disease.
 
Personally, I get very sick if I consume unsoaked/unfermented whole grains, but do fine when they are properly prepared.

Best, Sally

I felt it interesting to note that some of you mentioned that healthier or not, soaking whole grains can help breads to have a nicer texture. 

Here’s where I think I’ve landed on this issue:

As much as I can, I will soak my grains. I truly can tell a difference in the way my stomach responds. I love my soaked pancakes and waffles and biscuits. Soaking homemade tortillas is easy. Soaking my breakfast cookies and breakfast cake adds great flavor and isn’t any trouble. I’m working on perfecting my sourdough bread which is the most traditional way of baking bread. 

But, if I don’t get around to soaking every single muffin or cookie, I’m not going to sweat it. It’s still whole grain (since I use freshly ground whole wheat flour) and it’s still better than white flour. 

One thing I’m going to work on is simply not eating as many grains in the first place. Fruits, vegetables, grass fed meats and raw dairy give us more nutrition and should be more of a focus than grains in our diets. 

I’d love to hear where you landed on this issue. What do you think will be best for your family?

Now, regarding all of this talk about grains, I’ve received TONS of emails asking me to recommend a grain mill. That post…coming up soon.

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My Favorite Flower…I Mean Flour

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I receive lots and lots of emails asking about my whole wheat flour. What kind do I use? Where do I get it? Is it course? Do my recipes turn out heavy from using 100% whole wheat? Do I grind my own  grain? What kind of grain do I use?

I decided to tell you about my whole wheat flour preferences. (Some people have a favorite flower…I have my favorite flour. I’d say my husband has it made.)

My favorite flour is freshly ground from organic white wheat berries. I saved up and bought a “Nutrimill” about three years ago. Definitely one of my favorite kitchen tools. If you’re planning to “go whole wheat” I highly recommend investing in a grain mill so that you can grind your own flour. You will never find whole wheat flour as good as the kind that you grind yourself. IT IS SO GOOD. It is also healthier because it is fresher.

I prefer hard white wheat berries over red wheat berries. There is no nutritional difference…I just find that the white wheat berries make a nicer flour and create nicer, lighter loaves of bread and such. My Nutrimill grinds the flour nice and fine so my flour isn’t course or rough, like some might picture whole wheat flour.

I order my wheat berries from Azure Standard…usually 25 pounds a month. We don’t always go through that many pounds each month…but sometimes we do depending on how much baking I do. (25 pounds may sound like a lot of wheat…but we are a family of six big eaters…and I make everything from scratch. We can easily go through more than one loaf of bread at a time. No wonder I always have flour in my hair.)

If you don’t have a grain mill…I recommend trying to find whole wheat flour made from white wheat berries. I’ve been happy to see the Montana brand of whole wheat flour at my Walmart ground from white wheat. Montana brand is also “chemical free”.

You need to store your flour in the fridge or freezer, especially your freshly ground flour. It has a tendency to go rancid quickly if you don’t.

Occasionally I use soft white wheat berries, instead of hard white wheat berries. (You know, occasionally, like when I accidentally order soft white instead of hard white?)  I prefer hard white berries…but you can grind the soft white berries for making pancakes, waffles and muffins. For making bread, you need to use hard wheat berries.

What else?

Well, this doesn’t have to do with whole wheat flour…but I also use my Nutrimill to grind corn into cornmeal. Makes the best cornbread ever. And I’ve used it occasionally to grind rice when I want to experiment with rice flour just for fun.

What kind of flour do you prefer? Do you have a grain mill? What kind do you recommend? Do you also often have flour in your hair, or is it just me? I personally think it is a lovely accessory.

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Soaking Those Grains…What is THAT about?

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I’ve had tons of emails lately asking if I soak my grains and how I do it and why I do it!

Most of the recipes on my site have not shown that I soak my grains. Mostly I did that because I know that many of my readers are just beginning to look into making changes toward healthy eating. I decided…if you are just starting out trying to switch over from fruit roll-ups to real fruit…from white flour to whole wheat…from boxed foods to foods made from scratch…it would be very discouraging to hear that you also should “prepare your grains 12-24 hours ahead of time by soaking them in something that is lacto-fermented in order to break down the phytic acid…”

It’s overwhelming enough sometimes just to try to get your kids to eat a green bean…and to wrap your brain around the fact that almost every food on the shelves that we might be used to eating has a no-no ingredient in it.

So, if you’re just starting out on the healthy eating trail…read over the information in this post and tuck it away for whenever or if ever you’re ready. Continue to take baby steps and make small changes. Read the Getting Real with Food series here to give you some basic ideas of where to start and what to do.

But, if you’re eating a lot of whole grains already and are used to baking from scratch anyway, and you want to take this nutrition thing one step farther…here’s some information for you about soaking grains that I am paraphrasing from Sally Fallon’s book “Nourishing Traditions”:

Eating whole grains is important because they provide vitamin E, B vitamins, many important minerals and fiber. But the phytic acid in the grain combines with the iron, calcium, magnesium, copper and zinc in the intestinal tract, blocking their absorption. They also contain enzyme inhibitors that can interfere with digestion.

So, Nourishing Traditions recommends that we soak our grains in either whey, cultured yogurt, kefir, cultured buttermilk…or in lemon juice or vinegar if you can’t tolerate milk products. Soaking them for at least seven hours allows the enzymes to break down and neutralize the phytic acid. Then, more of the good nutrients in the grain are released and all the good stuff is more readily absorbed in our systems and the grain is digested much more easily.

Okay…so quick re-cap. Eating whole grains is so, so much better for you than processed grains that have almost all of their nutrients stripped from them. Eating whole grains that have been soaked is even better.

How do I do this?

It’s really not hard…I just have to plan ahead a little more. And I don’t always soak everything even though I know I should. I try to just do the best I can. (That’s the goal right?)

So, here’s a quick run down of the basics of how I soak my grains when preparing recipes:

Pancakes and Waffles…I stir the whole wheat flour and the buttermilk together, cover it with a cloth and let it sit overnight. The next day, I add the remaining ingredients and cook the pancakes or waffles. They are SO YUMMY made like this!

Quick Breads and Muffins…I mix the flour with the butter (melted and cooled) or oil that the recipe calls for and add enough buttermilk to make it “soakable”. I let it sit overnight, then mix in the remaining ingredients.

Giant Breakfast Cookies and Breakfast Bars…I mix the melted butter, flour and oats with enough buttermilk to soak then let it sit overnight. I have found these to be VERY HARD to stir the next morning, so putting the soaked mixture into my food processor with the other ingredients so that it doesn’t take me 45 minutes (or until lunchtime) just to stir the silly things. Yea for food processors.

Tortillas…I mix up the tortillas as the recipes says, only I put in 1/4 cup less water and add 1/4 cup yogurt, kefir or buttermilk as I’m making the recipe. Then, I let them sit for the day, and roll them and cook them that night for dinner. They roll out so nicely after they’ve been soaked.

Breads, Rolls and Pretzels…These belong in the “I don’t soak these but I should” category. When I’m really on the ball, I make sourdough bread…but my sourdough starter isn’t starting anymore, so I need to get a new one going. In the meantime, I’m compromising and making Honey Whole Wheat Bread, and that’s okay with me. After I get my sourdough going again, I’ll post about it. Sourdough bread is so tasty!

Cookies and Brownies…I rarely soak these either, mostly because I’m lazy about it. When I do soak them, I mix the butter and flour called for in the recipe with a few tablespoons of buttermilk, kefir or yogurt…allow them to sit for a few hours, then add the remaining ingredients and bake.

I hope that helps. I’ll cover soaking other grains like rice and oats in the future. And, as I slowly but surely get around to it…I’ll go back through each of my site recipes and blog recipes and add a brief explanation of how to soak the grains if you choose to do so. That way, you have the option if you’d like!

And now, I think I’ll go grind me some flour and soak something. Because looking at all these recipes put me in the mood to bake.

(Like I’m ever not in the mood to bake?!)  :)

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