Fresh-ground grain and whole food thinking puts the goodness back into baked goods

Modern food processing has turned baked goods into a nutritional nightmare, creating “food” that is filled with calories yet nearly empty of nutrients. And worse, chock full of very unhealthy stuff: white flour, highly refined fats, mega-doses of sugar and preservatives. Hardly food at all.

ancient grain muffins

For us, this was a problem that needed to be solved. We wanted to create baked goods that are actually real, nutritious food — not simply “less bad”. We found our solution not with any extreme nutritional philosophy, but in the artisan bakeries of Europe, where they grind and blend their own whole grain flours daily. Once we tried it, we were sold. The baking results you get with fresh-ground grains are amazing: delicious and satisfying, dense with nutrients and bursting with complex flavors and textures that satisfy your cravings and nourish your body. Here’s a little background:

whole food philosophy

The whole food philosophy says: mother nature knows best. After all, we are creatures genetically adapted over the eons to a certain diet. Yet, just in the last century, we have gotten away from this traditional diet.

Now the Standard American Diet (SAD) provides the bulk of calories through sugar, denatured white flour, highly refined oils, and processed foods in general. Only a small fraction of calories comes from foods close to nature. This diet delivers tons of calories, yet, ironcially, precious little nutrition that your body can use (no wonder it’s always hungry!). It seems self-evident that our chronic health and obesity problems are a result of this modern, dysfunctional new diet. It also seems clear that the closer we stay to a fresh, natural diet, the healthier we will be.

Scientifically, we’re just beginning to understand that here’s more to nutrition than carbs, fats, proteins and “8 essential vitamins”. Hundreds of “micro-nutrients” exist in natural foods, many critical to the function of the human body. We do know that, in general, the closer a food is to its natural origins, the richer in micro-nutrients.

For health conscious people, processed junk foods are easy to spot, but the problems with modern food processing can be more insidious, and grain is a good example. Until the industrial age, man ate freshly prepared grains. In our lifetimes however, at least in North America, practicaly all the grains we consume — even “healthy” whole grains, are nutritionally compromised through over-processing and over-storing. In other words, we’ve turned a traditional life-sustaining staple into junk food. Read on:

why we grind our own grain

Grain has been at the heart of man’s diet for many thousands of years. It stores well in kernel form, and is very nutritious when freshly prepared as breads, porridge, etc. And this is how grains have been consumed for eons — stored in whole kernel form and milled fresh for each meal, or at least each day. The industrial era however brought an end to home storing and milling (too laborious for moderns). So now, our grains are milled many miles and many months from the point of consumption. And this is a problem, because grain, once milled, doesn’t keep well at all — delicate fatty acids start to degrade in hours. The solution to this problem was, of course, white flour. Stripped of germ and bran, cleaned and bleached, it keeps almost indefinitely. Of course, the reason it keeps so well is that it has been stripped of vital organisms. Even bugs won’t eat it, and neither should we.

Unfortunately, simply rejecting white flour isn’t often enough. Any whole grain flour you buy at grocery stores will likely have been sitting around oxydizing for months, turning rancid and destroying micro-nutrient content. Of course you can taste this. It’s that bitter unpleasantness that we so often associate with “healthy” whole grains. (Which is ironic, because that flavour signifies that nutrients have been lost!) No wonder so many people thnk they don’t like whole grains! Some “whole wheat” flours avoid this problem by creating white flour and then adding back the bran portion (but not the essential germ). It’s not whole food, so it keeps.

By grinding our own grain on cool millstones and then vacuum-packing it, we preserve the fresh-ground character of the grains. This, happily, results in both superior nutrition and superior flavor. Perhaps for the first time, you’ll taste whole grains as they have been enjoyed through the ages. And you can feel great about the natural nutrition your body is receiving. BTW, if you’re looking for a little scientific shock data to support the value of fresh-ground grains read this.

You may be wondering, if the nutritional value of fresh-ground whole grains is so compelling, why everyone doesn’t grind their own? Lots of bakeries and households do — in Europe. And all over the third world. Here in North America, we’re just too into convenince it would seem.

our whole food approach to baking

So we start with organic Canadian varietal grains — arguably the world’s best — and we grind them ourselves into whole meal flour using a cool millstone grinding process. There’s nothing added, nothing taken away, and nature’s subtle goodness is retained. But the grainstorm approach goes beyond that — every ingredient is a natural whole food, and all our recipes are designed to provide the best possible nutritional profile without sacrificing appeal. (After all, what’s the point of baked goods that taste bad?)

So grainstorm baking also features:

  • 50-70% less sugar than typical recipes (and more natural sugar too) — in place of excessive amounts of refined sugar why this matters
  • moderate natural fats like eggs, yogurt, olive oil and butter – rather than excessive use of cheap refined commercial oils why this matters
  • other healthy ingredients you control
– you can add your own high-quality natural nuts, fruits, etc. in place of the usual cheap over-processed ingredients commercial bakers use. We make it easy with ideas, guidelines and recipes.

For a more detailed discussion on what makes grainstorm baking healthy, see our article: whole food baking: making bad carbs good

our mission: make good health easier

Eating healthy takes substantial effort and planning, even if (or especially if) you don’t love to cook. Our objectives is not only to deliver the healthiest baked goods possible, but to provide an easy-to-use system for busy people. Our mixes are the foundation for an entire system of healthy baking that works for novices and experts alike.

So with grainstorm, healthy whole grain baking is:

  • fast — you can have a batch in the oven in less than ten minutes; and closer to five once you’ve done it a few times.
  • easy — there’s no critical measuring involved; after a few times you’ll be able to do it in your sleep.
  • neat — you need one bowl, one pan and a spatula and spoon; no need to get out the mixer and hardly anything to wash.
  • forgiving — it’s OK if you estimate a little too much one way or the other; it’s hard to go badly wrong.
  • flexible — want to use more or less fat? a little extra sugar? no problem as each mix is designed to accommodate; again, it’s hard to go badly wrong.

It’s important to remember that, as quick & easy as they are, grainstorm mixes are not about saving time — they’re about achieving remarkable healthy baking results you simply can’t get any other way.

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healthy baking and weight control

For many people, an important motivator for healhty eating is weight control. We have some experience with that. In fact, that’s how grainstorm started it’s evolution.

Successful weight loss and long-term weight control requires a strategy for dealing with sweet carbs. For most people, it’s simply not realistic to say “I just won’t eat sweet carbs”. Many of us crave them, and powerfully. It’s way too hard to deny them over and over again. And maybe not even healthy. So the trick is to satisfy them in the healthiest possible way. With our fresh-ground, whole food approach to baking, you can create satisfying sweet snacks that actually contribute to your health and weight goals, rather than sabotaging them. The same important qualities that make grainstorm recipes healthy also makes them helpful in weight loss and weight control — high nutrient density, moderate natural fats and moderate sugar.

Specifically, here’s how they help:

  • satisfies your sweet carb cravings with healthy, real food, so you’re less tempted to reach for something bad;
  • helps recalibrate your taste buds to natural, healthy foods with moderate levels of sugar;
  • delivers your sweet fix bundled with proteins, healthy fats and fiber — real food — so your body is satisfied along with your taste buds and you don’t get as hungry;
  • doesn’t spike your insulin response so you can break the destructive cycle of blood sugar highs and lows that cause you to feel lousy and crave more bad carbs.

Adopting a healthy approach to baked goods helped our founder, David Zivot, to change his eating habits and lose over 50 lbs. In fact that experience was the spark behind grainstorm; so as a company, weight-control is in our DNA. David wrote a short manifesto for people who are thinking seriously — and finally — about conquering their weight problems. It’s an intuitive, natural approach to weight control that was powerful and effective for him. If you are interested and motivated to lose weight, take a look and judge for yourself.

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what’s next?