Monday, March 23, 2009

Sprouted Whole Wheat!

OK! So, i have been trying to lose weight for about 3 months now. And i have lost about 10 lbs. not so great, considering i keep fluctuating up 2 lbs and back down 2 lbs. So this week i am up the 2 lbs and maybe next week i will be down the 2 lbs. I can't seem to break through the barrier. I have never been able to lose weight before when I am nursing, so the fact that i lost 10 lbs is a huge feat for me! I should be so pleased, i know, but i am not. All i can see is the 35 lbs i still need to lose and that i am not getting any closer to my goal and i am very discouraged!
So what does that have to do with Sprouted wheat you ask? Well in an effort to become more healthy and to live a Heather life, i decided to try and eat more naturally. And in doing so I came upon a blog that was totally cool. It talked about eating More "whole foods" not processed prepackaged foods. And how making things from scratch was better for you. So i thought, yeah that makes total sense! So about 2 months ago i started making soup stock and soups from scratch. Then i got a Bosch mixer and started making breads from scratch. And i have been playing with the bread recipes a bit, since they are VERY dense and use bread flour as well as wheat flour.
Then i kept hearing about this book called "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon. And how she talks about Lacto fermented foods and how eating More naturally is so much better for you. She even talks about how pure saturated fats, from grass fed animal sources is really healthy for you. It is an excellent read and i would recommend it to anyone! She also talks about sprouting your grains and beans before you eat them. How soaking them gets rid of the acids that are in the grains preventing them from allowing the nutrients in the grains to truly be accessed. So i decided to soak my wheat for 24 hours and then to make bread from it. IT sounded like an easy plausible idea, but when i went to grind the wheat, i found it didn't grind so well because it was so wet and squishy. I also realized that the recipe called for 1 cup of water, which was fine before. But when the grains were already soaked and full of water, it was too much water for the bread and it looked like soup. So i had to modify the recipe and add a bit more of the dry ingredients to get the dough to form a bit better. So here is the recipe i used.

4 cups soaked and drained wheat grains sprouted
1 cup bread flour
1 1/2 cups oats
1 tsp yeast
1 cup warm water
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup of butter

I will try and see if this turns out OK, if it doesn't i will start again and omit the cup of water and instead do 1/4 a cup of water for the yeast to rise in.

I also decided to use my soaked wheat to make pancakes. These turned out a bit mushy in the middle, but they were still good.

3 cups of soaked wheat with a bit of the water still in the cup
1 tsp. baking soda
3 ripe bananas
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Then i cooked them up and the girls put cinnamon sugar on them. They were super yummy and very filling.
So i feel like i am on my way to making better healthier meals for my family. As soon as i get some raw yogurt I am going to start making my own Youghart and Keifer and doing more lacto fermented vegetables and fruit! Now i am off to make some homemade jam :)

5 comments:

R. Hansen said...

Is it true that some wheat is sprayed so it won't sprout? Is this the wheat from the storehouse, or somewhere else? We have the storehouse wheat and would like to try sprouting it, if it will.

Amanda said...

Hey! I bought four pounds of wheat this week, but I still need a grinder!

We've been doing the sourdough starter which is supposed to help make the wheat easier to digest, too. But our first loaf was totally flat. We're going to keep trying.

I think I'm going to start soaking my oats for making granola, too. You'll probably love this blog!
http://healthbeginswithmom.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-to-make-soaked-granola.html

Julie said...

Sit down, you gotta hear this! Last year I found Shiloh Farms organic sprouted wheat flour on my store shelf. I baked bread using just the sprouted flour and it was amazing tasting. I was so impressed that I started to read about it and found out that they make this flour with 100% of the organic sprouted grain - so it digests as a vegetable not a starch. The company that makes the flour is Essential Eating - check it out at EssentialEating.com. I now use this flour exclusively for my baked goods and feel so much better and have lost weight! Please let me know what you think if you try it.

HAPPYHANERHOME said...

Can't wait to try it!

PixiesAndPrincesses said...

Rachel, I am using the hard white wheat from the storehouse. I am sure some wheat is sprayed to not sprout but I am not sure about this one. It worked great for me!

Soaked granola, I will have to look into that one Amanda, since I thought granola is baked and if you soak the oats they become mush. Sounds yummy though, and feel free to come grind your wheat here with my blender! My MIL uses a coffe grinder that would be cheaper I am sure, but feel free to pop in and use mine :)