If you wish to experience the flour’s power with its entire nutritional value, you need to get whole grains and grind them freshly at home.
With grains and flour it is as with most foods that we eat: the “fresher” and more natural the better for your health and taste buds. This holds true for grains too. While grains usually can only be harvested once a year, they can be stored for months if not years, without losing almost any of their nutritional value and “freshness”.
The degradation of nutrients occurs primarily after the grains have been processed into flour, kibbles or flakes. Oxidation begins, a process that quickly starts to break down many of the nutrients found in whole grains. Therefore, flours, flakes and kibbles should not be stored for longer periods of time. It is always best to process the grains shortly before they will be used and consumed.
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Unfortunately, most people have never tried a truly fresh bread or muesli prepared from FRESHLY and locally processed grains. With our range of mills and flakers this is easily brought to an end. You will not only benefit from increased nutritional value, but you will also taste the difference. This we guarantee. There is nothing compared to an oven- fresh bread using only the best organic flours prepared freshly from grains. The same holds true for muesli, cake, pastries, Bircher muesli, patties, pasta, you name it…
The endosperm, which is the part of the grain that white flour is made of, consists of carbohydrates and protein; whereas you find fibre, vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids and phytonutrients in the bran layer and in the germ; therefore you find it in wholemeal flour.
The listing below shows the average loss of vitamins, minerals and trace elements that goes along with the choice of white flour products compared to a wholemeal loaf.
Vitamin B1/Thiamine: 77%
Vitamin B2/Riboflavin: 80%
Vitamin B3/Niacin: 81%
Vitamin B5/Pantothenic acid: 50%
Vitamin B6: 72%
Vitamin E: 86%
Calcium: 60%
Phosphate: 71%
Magnesium: 84%
Potassium: 77%
Chromium: 40%
Manganese: 86%
Iron: 76%
Cobalt: 89%
Zinc: 78%
Copper: 68%
Selenium: 16%
Sodium: 78%
Molybdenum: 48%
This represents an overall loss of more than two thirds of the benefitial components found in whole grains. In order to keep up with the loss of nutrients, some producers of flour and pastry products fortify their dough with isolated, synthetic additives that can cause problems in sensitive persons or sum up to an uncontrolled toxic dose when using supplements at the same time. This practice of fortification reflects the scientific-industrial approach to “food design”.
Meanwhile, you may find the fibre, the “waste product” in the production of white flour, in health food sections of supermarkets to fix bowel ailments (e.g. constipation) – next to the germ isolates (e.g. ground wheat germ), the other common “by-product” of “refined” flours. The germs of grains are valuable because of their high concentration of essential nutrients like Vitamin E, folic acid, phosphorus, zinc, magnesium, essential fatty acids, thiamine etc. Unfortunately, these products can become rancid quickly and lose their nutritional value while being stored on the shop’s shelf.
Even the “whole wheat flour” that one can buy in supermarkets and stores is often highly processed and its main components are first separated and then subsequently recombined according to a standardised formula.
So why not using whole foods in the first place, for them being packed with goodness, protected against degradation by the natural packaging of the whole grain?
There is not only a depletion of micronutrients in normal, packed (white) flour – it is also highly processed in various stages of production, commonly including a bleaching process in which chemicals such as chlorine dioxide, which is a biocide and greenhouse gas, nitrogen peroxide, chlorine, benoyl peroxide, or acetone peroxide are being used.
Processed rolled oats are usually neither raw nor fresh since they are heat treated to facilitiate the rolling process.
Mass-produced bread and the flour used by most of the baking industry is often far away from being fresh, nor are their products when they are eaten. Many products produced from grains contain preservatives and additives; for example in form of calcium propionate – a carcinogen – or ascorbic acid. The latter does not hold any value after being heated.
The list of (hidden) ingredients in our daily loaf can be a long one, starting with emulsifiers that can be made of genetically engineered soy, flavour to keep up with non-freshness of a bagged loaf, agents that keep toast soft for days and enzymes that do not require labelling since they are a “processing aid” and so on.
As soon as you start making your own bread and baked goods, you regain control over what you eat. You can choose every single ingredient and you can choose from a great variety of organically grown whole grains and seeds in your local health food shop or online. The grains store for months at home and can be ground as needed.
We know the mills and flakers we offer at Flour/Power/Mills are not “cheap” – and we don’t want them to be. We want them to be “affordable” and offer you only lasting quality mills and flakers that you will enjoy for years and decades to come, providing you with healthy flours, flakes and kibbles day after day after day.
At the same time you know that you are buying from manufacturers that take social and ecological responsibility in the manufacture of their products – from industrial grade motors, to sustainably harvested, natural wood, from a 12 years warranty on all electric mills to the programmes initiated and supported by us and the manufacturers – you can be sure to buy not only a “product”, but quality, durable mills and flakers that, we believe, are “essential” for those wishing to have a healthy, wholesome and flavourful diet of grains.
At the same time you are supporting sustainable, fairer and low-scale solutions to current ecological, health and social problems and through home milling lessen the transport, packaging and industrial manufacture of grain products. Home milling gives you the power to decide what enters your diet and how your diet affects our environment.
But there is also a sound economical reason to home milling. An electric grain mill will typically have made up for its purchase costs after 1.5-2 years, saving you hundreds of dollars throughout the years thereafter.
Additionally, from a more “(w)holistic” perspective, you are likely to feel better and healthier, are significantly less likely to develop certain health problems when consuming freshly prepared wholesome organic grains, and your food will taste better while you are enjoying it more. At the same time you are lessening the impact industrial food production and transport has on our planet and environment. These are good reasons that cannot be simply measured in money. We believe there is no good reason not to become a home grain miller – we have been doing it for more than 15 years – easily!
A great discussion of the value of freshly ground grains and how to use them on a daily basis is provided in the book FlourPower. A Guide to Modern Home Grain Milling by Marleeta F. Basey.