I mentioned yesterday that until a reader pointed her virtual finger at the word “BLEACHED” on the big bag of flour I was buying from Costco, I had no clue we were eating bleached flour.  Yes, sometimes I am THAT oblivious…

I also had no clue it was dangerous.  Or if it really was?  With so many other things going in life, both in AND out of the kitchen, looking up the dangers of bleached flour wasn’t high on my priority list.

I blindly trusted this dear reader, because I know you guys won’t steer me wrong.  I made it a goal to finish the flour we had in the house and from then on, buy unbleached flour.  This also bought me some time to give serious thought to the bleached vs. unbleached flour issue, beyond those few moments of quiet thinking time in the shower.

Eight months later and I finally know what the difference is.  And I’m glad we switched.  Because I also know the answer to this question…

Is Eating Bleached Flour Dangerous?

The short answer, I think so.  Yesterday’s post contained a whole schlew of chemicals that could be used in the bleaching process (although color is only part of the issue).  Here’s the damage that they can do.

Potassium Bromate – Classified as a complete carcinogen, causing tumors to form and grow in the kidneys, thyroid and mesothelium of all mice when tested at various level of drinking water.  Lesions were found when the potassium bromate levels were as low as 1.5mg per day. (source)  Potassium bromate is nephrotoxic in humans, meaning it has a poisonous effect on the kidneys when it’s taken orally. (source)  It’s banned from being used in food in the European Union, Canada, Nigeria, Brazil, Peru, Sri Lanka and China.  In the U.S., bromate was approved to be used before 1958, when law was created to ban potentially carcinogenic substances, so the FDA now urges bakers to voluntarily stop using it. (source)

Benzoyl Peroxide – During processing, benzoyl peroxide is almost always converted to benzoic acid, which in most cases isn’t harmful.  However, it could be unpleasant for those who have a digestive system that isn’t in good working order.  When the stomach is more base than acidic (leaning towards black coffee instead of lemon juice), absorption of benzoic acid decreased the natural breakdown and fermentation of glucose (the sugars that our bodies need to function properly) is decreased by 95%.  (source)  Researchers have also speculated that benzoyl peroxide may interfere with how the body converts linoleic (omega-6) and linolenic (omega-3) acids.  How the addition of this chemical effects other essential nutrients found in flour, i.e. vitamin A, thiamin, riboflavin,etc. is still not known.  (source)

Azodicarbonamide – Scientists in the U.K. believe that azodicarbonamide is a possible cause of asthma and have banned its use.  It’s also banned in the European Union and Australia, and Singapore has penalties of 15 years in prison and a $450,000 fine for using it. The U.S. hasn’t banned its use because the FDA doesn’t believe anyone is currently using it… although many fast food chains use it in their breads. (source)

Calcium Peroxide – I wasn’t able to find much on calcium peroxide, but it is listed on an Australian  food additives guide with the following next to it:  synthetic, bread enhancer, bleaching agent for flour, asthmatics and people with a history of allergies BEWARE.  Yes, “beware” is in all capitals on the list.  Maybe that’s why it’s banned in the European Union, Australia and New Zealand?  It’s on Whole Foods’s “unacceptable ingredient” list (bromated flour is listed too), and it’s listed as an ingredient in the world’s oldest hamburger.  Even without additional research, that seals the deal for me!

Chlorine Dioxide – This chemical completely destroys any vitamin E that remained after the milling process and slowed growth rates over multiple generations. (source)  The FDA lists chlorine dioxide as a toxic substance, although it must be proven that it is harmful before it can officially be banned.

Related side note:  white  flour used to be treated with nitrogen trichloride, also known as agene,  until the late 1940s when scientists proved that the chemical caused fits similar to epilepsy in dogs.  That’s when the FDA finally banned it from its use in flour. (source, and a really entertaining read when you have a few moments)

What causes the most alarm with chlorine dioxide is how it reacts with flour.  When the chemical responds to the proteins in flour, the contaminant alloxan is created as a by-product.  Alloxan damages the cells of the pancreas, causing the body to stop producing insulin.  When the body doesn’t produce insulin as it requires, type 2 diabetes is the result.  (source)

The harm that these chemicals have the potential of causing is pretty scary in my opinion.  Considering it’s really easy to make your own flour, and make your own bread, makes all of these chemicals seem pointless… other than to make the flour business more profitable.

Do Something:  Review the past few “do somethings” and do another one, still heading in the direction of “better, more nourishing” food.  Buy unenriched, unbleached, unbromated flour instead of the standard bleached white.  Buy wheat flour over white flour.  Even better, start making your own whole wheat bread.

What do you think – is the potential harm of these chemicals worth the convenience of bleached flour?

The post Is Eating Bleached Flour Dangerous? The Low-Down on Bleached Flour, Part 2 appeared first on Don't Waste the Crumbs!.

You know those “preparing for baby” lists that you can find out there on the web?  The lists that are supposed to help parents-to-be prepare for what lies ahead?  Yeah well, just like most of society’s norms, we didn’t follow them very well.  We didn’t wash every article of clothing before wearing and certainly didn’t use special “baby” detergent, never bothered putting child locks on cabinets or drawers, or the corner protectors on tables, and we completely skipped protecting outlets with my son.

Part of our rule-breaking can be blamed on the learning curve of balancing caring for a new baby with no sleep with washing clothes and unexpected blow-out diapers.

The other part is because there simply was no need.  My son didn’t crawl until he was six months, and by then I had learned to live on less sleep AND how to keep him out of cabinets.

The first time he reached for an outlet he got a very stern warning (and a small “zap” demonstration) and he never reached again.

He’s a good kid.

My daughter on the other hand… she’s a whole ‘nuther cookie.  It must be opposite day every day in that cute little head of hers, because she reached for those plugs over and over and over again… despite demonstrations and warnings.

Those plugs sat unopened in our junk drawer for over two years, until we finally installed them when The Girl was 4 months old or so.  They’re STILL faithfully installed to this day.  (She’s almost 4.)

One thing we DID follow was the advice to put toxic cleansers out of reach of little hands, and not just behind a cabinet door.  I moved everything that was toxic and could possibly be ingested up high – requiring a stool for my own reach – and behind a closed door.  That door now has an oversized plastic ring that makes for a great conversation piece when guests are trying to leave.

We’re slowly moving to a greener way of cleaning, like using cloth napkins instead of paper towels and homemade citrus vinegar instead of a store-bought all-purpose cleaner, but there are still a few things hanging out on shelves leftover from my couponing days that we haven’t completely used up yet.  Included in that small stash is a half-gallon of bleach.

Last September, a reader asked me in the comments of this post if I was using bleached flour (she noticed I was buying flour in bulk at Costco).  I don’t know… I remember thinking.  Immediately followed by, Does white flour contain bleach? 

At the time, I was so new to eating more wholesome foods that whether or not my flour was bleached was far off on the radar.  I was working hard at finding organic milk, eggs and butter (although I lean more towards grass-fed butter than organic nowadays).  Dealing with flour was a “we’ll cross that bridge when we get there” type of issue.

Well folks, it’s eight months later and we’ve officially reached the bridge.

What is Bleached Flour?

Bleach flour is refined white flour that has been artificially aged using a bleaching agent, a maturing agent, or both.

WHY WOULD FLOUR NEED TO BE BLEACHED? 

Because people are vain.  In our minds, flour should be white.

Freshly milled “white flour” (made using only the endosperm, remember?) isn’t really white.  It’s on the yellowish side, the depth of color depending on how much germ and bran still remained after the milling and sifting.  But people didn’t want to use yellow flour 100 years ago and they still don’t today.  Yellow flour is not attractive to buyers.

Bleaching is no good to anyone except to the miller who wants to deceive his buyer…

Color is an important characteristic in determining the commercial value of flour and because of this, processes have  been devised for bleaching and improving the color of inferior flours…

The chief advantage is that it enables the miller to sell the flour made from the cheaper and undesirable grades of wheat as flour made from higher priced grain…

The process is not beneficial, and while a majority of mills bleach, 99 in every 100 are sorry that bleaching was ever invented… (source from 1906) 

WHY WOULD FLOUR NEED TO BE AGED? 

Imagine a ball of dough containing a bunch of tiny little rubber bands.  Those rubber bands get stretched and stretched during the kneading and rising stages, and then they’re baked and forced to be still.  The end result is a springy bread that doesn’t crumble.  Those rubber bands are glutenin, a protein that when reacts with oxygen, becomes gluten.  Gluten is what gives bread elasticity and structure.  For the baker who doesn’t have allergies or sensitivities to gluten, the more the better.

If allowed to sit in the open for a period of time, flour will oxidize, glutenin will become gluten and the flexibility and composition of quality baking flour will be created all on its own.  The typical time frame is 10 days or so but some bakers who prefer to mill their own flour will let it age for 4-5 months.

Typical modern-day mills don’t have the physical storage capacity to repeatedly hold tons of flour for more than a week.  If they stored flour, they wouldn’t be able to produce it.  Not producing flour means a loss of money.  Instead, mills now use chemicals to speed-up the aging process in order to keep producing more flour and in turn, creating more profit.

Does White Flour Contain Bleach?

If it were 100 years ago, the answer to that question may have been yes.  Fortunately you won’t find “bleach” listed in the ingredients of flour currently sold in supermarkets.  Unfortunately, you may find a few other things listed instead.  There may even be chemicals in your flour that aren’t listed.

Potassium Bromate – This is what’s added to bromated flour.  It doesn’t change the color of flour, but it artificially ages it through oxidation.  It’s very powerful, sometimes going to the extent of damaging flour cells during the oxidation process.  Potassium bromate will be listed as an ingredient or additive, or otherwise noted on flours that contain it.

Benzoyl Peroxide – This bleaches and has no effect on glutenins nor the creation of gluten.  It’s the most common bleaching agent in the U.S. (often added with other stabilizing chemicals) and it’s the powder version of the same ingredient many of you may have in your bathroom cabinets.  It’s often used as an inexpensive way to lighten hair and it’s the key active ingredient in many whitening toothpastes.

Azodicorbonamide – This is used as both an aging and bleaching agent in flour, although it’s more commonly used to make foam plastics.  It turns into biurea in raw dough and baked bread and biurea is quickly excreted via urine. (source)

Chlorine Gas – Used as both a bleaching and maturing agent, although it weakens the development of gluten instead of strengthening it.  It’s nearly always used in cake flours since it allows the fat in baked goods like cakes, cookies and biscuits to distribute more evenly, thus creating a better rise and reducing the chance of collapse.

Nitrogen Dioxide – One of the first agents used to bleach flour, but also acts as an aging agent.

Ascorbic Acid – This is primarily used as aging agent, but can also be used as a dough enhancer .  Like potassium bromate, it should be listed as an ingredient or additive, but you won’t know for sure what purpose it was used for.

Those are just the chemicals associated with bleaching flour that I could find information on.  There’s a few more out there where information in scarce, other than they could potentially be in your flour too:

• nitrogen tetroxide (used in bleaching and aging)
• nitrosyl chloride (used in bleaching and aging)
• chlorine dioxide (bleaching only)
• calcium iodate (aging only)
• calcium peroxide (aging only)

So now what?  We know bleached flour could potentially be treated with any of the eleven chemicals above, and possible others that didn’t surface during my research.  What does that mean for us?  Should be we concerned that bleached flour is harmful?  More on that coming tomorrow in part 2.

Do Something:  Start making your own bread.  The ingredients are likely already in your house and none of the above chemicals are required.  It may take a few hours and some planning ahead, but at least you’ll know exactly what’s in your food.  Check out the recipe page for some yummy ideas to get you started.

The post Does White Flour Contain Bleach? The Low-Down on Bleached Flour, Part 1 appeared first on Don't Waste the Crumbs!.

There was one day last week (or maybe the week before) when I stole 15 minutes and started to soak some grains and make yogurt in preparation for the days coming ahead.  When it was all said and done, four different recipes were going at the same time.  Since they need to sit unbothered for a day or so, I put them all on the same counter and pushed them to the back, declaring the area off-limits to little reaching hands and curious eyes.

I distinctly remember the first time I tried soaking something (the wrong way, might I add) and Mr. Crumbs asked me, “What are you growing?”  He’s stopped asking so many questions about what I’m growing or sprouts or soaking nowadays, but I thought it would be fun to give the area its own little moniker.  You know, ’cause I’m kinda nerdy like that.

Allow me to introduce, “Fermentation Station!”

You’ll see the cooling yogurt on the stove, kefir in the quart mason jar with coffee filter, the container with the green lid has wheat soaking for pancakes and my Kitchen Aid mixer bowl is holding soaking flour for yeasted buttermilk bread (both the pancakes and bread are Nourishing Traditions recipes, by the way).

The full Fermentation Station is set-up at least once a week, with a partial station going on ’round the clock.  The bowl of wheat for pancakes could easily be porridge (which is what is soaking as I write this post) and my next attempt at bread will be a soaked version of Rosemary Olive Oil – the one that is ALWAYS requested by Mr. Crumbs.

The neat thing about soaking grains is that the longer they soak, the better.  We’ll cover the why a bit later in the series, but knowing that the soaking time isn’t really an exact science offers a HUGE relief when you’ve got unexpected appointments (or laundry) that seem to take over the day.  I think that batch of pancakes may have soaked for closer to 36 hours instead of the average 24…

I mentioned that the pancakes were from Nourishing Traditions, and I’m sharing that recipe with you today.  So far it’s the most satisfying recipe I’ve made from the book.  The kids and I each ate two and I wasn’t hungry for well past lunch.  We served them with grass-fed butter and honey.  You could use maple syrup instead or even homemade fruit butter.  In fact, it would be wise to make a double batch of these because not only will you enjoy them immensely for breakfast, but top with a thin layer of nut butter and sliced bananas and you’ve got a “lunch pizza,” just like this week’s real food menu suggests.

Soaked Pancakes

(adapted from Nourishing Traditions)

2 cups freshly ground spelt, kamut or whole wheat flour (I used pre-ground flour since I’m not quite ready to grind my own just yet)
2 cups yogurt, kefir or buttermilk**
2 eggs
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 Tbsp melted butter

Combine flour and yogurt/kefir/butter in a large bowl and cover.  Leave in a warm place overnight, at least  12 hours, up to 24 (or 36 ).

Add remaining ingredients and combine well.  (Note:  you may lightly beat the eggs beforehand to help with the mixing, or you can just toss those and the butter un-melted in, like I did). 

If the batter is too thick, you may thin with water (I thoguht the batter to be fine).

On a pre-heated griddle or oiled cast-iron skillet, pour 1/4 cup of batter and cook the pancakes until bubbles appear on cooked edges.  Flip and continue to cook for another few minutes.

These pancakes take longer to cook than traditional pancakes, maybe 5-7 minutes or so on the first side and an additional 4-5 on the second.  Stay in the kitchen the first time you make them to get your bearings on the cooking time.

** Many individuals who are lactose intolerant are able to successfully digest homemade yogurt that has been cultured for 24 hours.  Those with severe allergies to dairy products can substitute lemon juice or apple cider vinegar. 

Recipe Tips & Variations

We made this recipe with homemade buttermilk, but it would be just as good with either yogurt or kefir (depending what you had in the fridge).

You can add whatever fruit or vegetables you’d like to this recipe.  Just add them when you add the eggs and butter after soaking.  (Read up on the best better for your buck if you missed the series on fats.)

You may have to add water to the batter depending on what fruits or vegetables you add.  I folded in chopped apple without the need of added liquid, but using pureed pumpkin would surely require a few tablespoons of water.

I mentioned this when sharing the breakfast porridge recipe, but using fresh or vegetables will naturally sweeten the pancake instead of using costly honey or maple syrup.  In fact, it wasn’t until this past year that I even offered syrup to the kids!  They grew to love the flavor of the pancake itself, without any outside help.  A mashed banana, diced strawberries and melted butter would be delicious all on their own.

What’s your favorite pancake?  Plain or with items in the batter?

The post {Nourishing} Recipe: Soaked Pancakes appeared first on Don't Waste the Crumbs!.

Two weeks ago I shared some ideas on trying new foods without overspending your budget.  It was the main portion of the meal planning post.  Actually, it was the only portion of the meal planning post.  Mr. Crumbs was out of town and the kids and I didn’t have a plan.  We just kinda ate whatever we wanted… mostly spaghetti and watermelon per the kids request, but my spaghetti sauce has beans, the pasta wasn’t enriched and watermelon is on the clean 15.  Plan or not, we survived.

With Mr. Crumbs home and a reset grocery budget, meal planning is back in full force.  So is my pile of laundry.  And the bathtubs and kitchen floor are both in need of a good scrub.  For some reason or another, all the time-consuming household chores are due and need to get done sooner rather than later.

So this week’s post is swapping places with the last one – there’s a meal plan, but there’s no big formal solution to our meal planning woes. I’ve got to get some scrubbing done or no one is going to feel safe eating at our table anyway.  What can I say – sometimes life happens!  Meanwhile browse the past meal planning problems that we’ve addressed.  Perhaps with our meals on a regular schedule again, it’ll be easier to finish other household chores too…

A girl can dream, can’t she?

So here’s a few little tips for when life gets overwhelming and meal planning seems more work than it’s worth:  slow down.  Take a breath.  Deal with today first, then tomorrow.  Feed the troops (including yourself) with whatever is simple and in your kitchen and call it done.

Before I forget to mention, I’ve been working hard to (finally) incorporate lunches into the real food menus.  This week includes much of what we really do eat.  Take a gander – it’ll shed some light on how we’ve cut back on refined carbohydrates in our kitchen.

DON’T FORGET!

The coconut oil giveaway ends tonight at midnight.  Tropical Traditions is giving away A GALLON of the good stuff – worth over $120!  Take advantage of all the entries before it’s too late!

How to Read the Bi-Weekly Meal Plans

• This plan is based on the average family of four and uses one whole chicken and one pound of beef.  Change portion recommendations and choice of meat as necessary.
• Read the entire meal plan before jumping in. Adjustments may have to be made based on your own schedule and preferences.
• When our plan may conflict with your plan, alternative ideas are provided in brackets.
• Preparation tips are in italics below the meal, provided in the download.
• Pay attention to Money Savers, Time Savers and Freezer Options. These will help you greatly in executing this plan and in your kitchen overall.

Click the above picture or this link to download, save and/or print this full two-week real food meal plan – complete with preparation tips and other ideas for maximizing your time and money.

WEEK 1

WEEKLY DESSERT:  Orange Rhubarb Crumble

SUNDAY
(B)  Soaked Breakfast Porridge and Fresh Seasonal Fruit
(L)  Peanut Butter and Fruit Butter Sandwiches, and Leftovers
(D)  Family Dinner [eat leftovers, a simple dinner, a meal from the pantry or start a new family tradition]

MONDAY
(B)  Second Day Soaked Breakfast Porridge (Power Protein version) and Fresh Seasonal Fruit, Raw Milk
(L)  Snacky Lunch with Carrot and Celery Sticks, Apple and Cheese Slices, Almonds and a Small Dollop of Peanut Butter
(D)  Buffalo Chicken & Lentil Tacos with Homemade Red Salsa, Pineapple Salsa and Traditional Taco Condiments, Green Salad with Homemade Ranch Dressing

TUESDAY
(B)  Homemade Yogurt Parfait with Soaked Granola
(L)  Peanut Butter & Banana Roll-Ups
(D)  Summer Squash Pasta (aka “Pizza Pasta”)

WEDNESDAY
(B)  Egg & Spinach Breakfast Burritos, Fresh Seasonal Fruit, Raw Milk
(L)  Leftover Pizza Pasta
(D)  Beef & Tex-Mex Lentil Quesadillas, Green Salad with Homemade Ranch Dressing

THURSDAY
(B)  Healthier Carrot Muffins and Smoothies
(L)  Snacky Lunch with Carrot and Celery Sticks, Apple and Cheese Slices, Almonds and a Small Dollop of Peanut Butter
(D)  Soup Night: Tortilla with Half Batch of Garlic Focaccia

FRIDAY
(B)  Leftover Buffet from Previous Breakfasts, Raw Milk
(L)  Snacky Lunch or Leftovers
(D)  Pizza Night [or replace with your own fun family tradition]

SATURDAY
(B)  Bacon and Biscuits, Smoothies and Fresh Seasonal Fruit
(L)  Lunch Out or Leftovers
(D)  Orange Beef & Broccoli

WEEK 2

WEEKLY DESSERT:  Cheesecake with Orange Rhubarb Compote

SUNDAY
(B)  Soaked Breakfast Porridge and Fresh Seasonal Fruit
(L)  Peanut Butter and Fruit Butter Sandwiches, and Leftovers
(D)  Family Dinner [eat leftovers, a simple dinner, a meal from the pantry or start a new family tradition]

MONDAY
(B)  Second Day Soaked Breakfast Porridge (Power Protein version) and Fresh Seasonal Fruit, Raw Milk
(L)  Snacky Lunch with Carrot and Celery Sticks, Apple and Cheese Slices, Almonds and a Small Dollop of Peanut Butter
(D)  Happy Memorial Day!  Grilled BBQ Chicken, Grilled Sweet Potatoes, Broccoli Salad, Green Salad with Homemade Ranch Dressing

TUESDAY
(B)  Soaked Whole Wheat Pancakes and Fresh Seasonal Fruit, Raw Milk
(L)  Snacky Lunch with Carrot and Celery Sticks, Apple and Cheese Slices, Almonds and a Small Dollop of Peanut Butter
(D)  Grilled Sandwiches on Homemade Beer Bread, Green Salad with Homemade Ranch Dressing

WEDNESDAY
(B)  Scrambled Eggs, Smoothies
(L)  Yogurt & Fresh Seasonal Fruit “Pizzas”
(D)  Red Curry Lentils

THURSDAY
(B)  Pineapple Coconut Muffins and Smoothies
(L)  Peanut Butter and Fruit Butter Sandwiches, and Leftovers
(D)  Soup Night:  Tomato Basil with leftover Beer Bread

FRIDAY
(B)  Leftover Buffet from Previous Breakfasts, Raw Milk
(L)  Peanut Butter and Fruit Butter Sandwiches, and Leftovers
(D)  Yogurt Pizza (new recipe from NT) [or replace with your own fun family tradition]

SATURDAY
(B)  Bacon & Biscuits with Fresh Seasonal Fruit, Raw Milk
(L)  Lunch Out or Leftovers
(D)  Appetizer Night with Mozzarella Sticks, Homemade Chicken Nuggets, Garlic Fries and Green Salad with Homemade Ranch Dressing

Click the above picture or this link to download, save and/or print this full two-week real food meal plan – complete with preparation tips and other ideas for maximizing your time and money.

What do you do when life gets a little hectic?  How do you prioritize to get it all done?

This post is shared at OrgJunkie.

The post Meal Planning May 19 – June 1: When Life Takes Over appeared first on Don't Waste the Crumbs!.

My grocery budget is $330 each month, including food, household items and toiletries. Each week I crunch the numbers to see where I stand. Today marks the end of the month. You can read about the halfway point here, where I spent the first $260.99 of my budget.

—————

 
After calculating the mid-month total, I thought having $70 to last two weeks would be a breeze.  I thought wrong.  A short out of town trip sent my plans in a tail spin and there wasn’t much left to cover the rest of the month.  How did the month pan out?

Lucky – $49.93

Gallon Spring Water, .88
CRV, .10
Tortilla Chips x2, 1.25
Sippy Natural Peanut Butter, 2.99
Sourdough Bread, 3.99
???, 2.79
Kerrygold Butter, 3.79
Mountain High Plain Yogurt, 2.50
Bananas, 3.41
Watermelon,1.99
Oranges, 3.36
Organic Mixed Greens, 3
Pineapple, 1.99
Potatoes x2, 1.64
Sweet Potatoes, 1.88
Organic Apples, 3.71
Boneless Sirloin, 3.02 (reduced)
Boneless Sirloin, 4.64 (reduced)
V05 Conditioner, 1.19
Lucky Brown Paper Bag, .20

Earlier in the month Mr. Crumbs went out of town for some work-related training.  The school put him up in a short-term living hotel, complete with a living room and mini-kitchen.  I sent him off with a full range of homemade goodies to help keep our out of pocket expenses down.  A week’s worth of smoothies and high protein trail mix, a couple pints of hearty spaghetti sauce, Greek couscous and wheat pasta were his arsenal.

Partway through the trip, the kids and I went to take over visit the pool and hot tub Mr. Crumbs.  I hadn’t really given our own trip as much thought with regards to food as I gave his, so I ended up making a trip to a local grocery store.  I followed the standard protocol though:  planned meals, made a list and stuck to it.  Except for the tortilla chips.  I’m SUCH a sucker for the salty corn crunch!

Breakfasts were provided by the hotel, but we needed to cover snacks, lunches and a couple dinners. Plus we had to re-stock his smoothie stash.

The fruit and yogurt were for snacks and smoothies.  I wasn’t able to make bread, so I bought a large loaf of sourdough bread from a local brand.  Knowing that sourdough requires fermentation, I didn’t feel so bad about store-bought bread.  Peanut butter for lunch sandwiches, butter for evening toast with dinner.  Since it was Mr. Crumbs’ birthday, I thought a steak dinner would be nice.  It just so happened that the cattle company I like was available at this location too, AND there were two steaks marked down to $3 off the original price.  $7 worth of quality beef seemed like a good bargain for four mouths!  I paired it with two russet potatoes and two sweet potatoes, toasted bread with butter and sliced watermelon.

Water for drinking, inexpensive conditioner because The Girl has very long hair and the hotel offered a 2-in-1 shampoo/conditioner combo… which offers NO help in the way of detangling.  Brown paper bag because I didn’t think they charged for bags.  Hmph.

Some of the food ended up coming back with us – enough sourdough to cover lunches while I made bread at home, leftover butter and peanut butter, the conditioner and the paper bag.  We’ve already eaten the butter and the peanut butter will definitely get eaten.

That item for $2.79 with question marks?  I have no idea what that was.  I didn’t take a picture and I’ve already tossed my list.  The receipt printed poorly in the first place and the ink has already faded.  The mystery remains…

Looking back, I would have done things a bit differently, but sometimes you’ve just got to roll with the punches.

Savemart – $8.87

Tortilla Chips, 2
Powdered Sugar, 2.49
Cream Cheese 8oz, 2.19

The kids and I had a hankering for something sweet after we got back from visiting Mr. Crumbs.  The Girl requested pink cake and The Boy requested blue frosting.  A very cute idea, but the sight of the two colors together is kinda unappetizing… heads up if you ever get the urge to replicate.

I had everything needed for the cake, but nothing for the frosting.  I went with a cream cheese frosting, using coconut oil instead of butter.  So that’s what the powdered sugar and cream cheese were for.  See above for the note about tortilla chips.

Obviously I have a tortilla chip problem.  I’ve realized that I only crave them when I’ve eaten them recently… so I purged all the tortilla chips (by way of my stomach) earlier in the week and I’ve officially been tortilla chip free for three days.  An occasion worth celebrating!!

Costco – (-$4)

Early in the month I bought quart and gallon Ziploc bags from Costco (of which I’ve used only one of each…)  As it turns out, they’re on sale THIS month.  I took my receipt back to Costco and got a $4 refund, $2 per package.  I had thought about skipping out on this, but the out of town Savemart trip left me with only $20 for the last two weeks of the month.  At this point in time, every dollar counts.

Walmart – $10.90

Cuties Clementines 3lb, 3.48
Personal Watermelon, .25
Pineapple, 1.98
Mangos x6, 2
Bananas, 1.76
Bananas, 1.45

This trip was skillfully planned and executed.  I had used my head to calculate roughly $10 left in the budget and we had no fruit in the house.  None.  Yet there were still six days left for the month.  I scoured the circulars and price matched everything but the clementines and banans.  The produce was to cover smoothies for everyone, plus snacks.  It was literally just enough to last us, since as of lastnight we have 4 clementines and 4 quarter-slices of watermelon left.

Total End of Month – $326.69

Thanks to the credit from Costco, I’m under budget by $3.31.  My track record for 2013 is much better than 2012, but there’s still more than half the year to go.  I can feel the creativity that’s coming out in meals and purchases in order to keep costs down while upgrading.  It’s tough!  But I’m trying to take my own advice and concentrate on one thing at a time… so next month will be raw milk and grains.  Ok, so that’s really two, but the milk already began THIS month, and we’re re-educating ourselves in grains.  It only seems appropriate that my grocery shopping matches!

How are you counting crumbs this week?

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We know unrefined grains are better for us.  We know that flour from unrefined grains is made from the WHOLE grain, not just a portion of it, so all of the original nutrition is still intact.

We also know that making 100% whole wheat flour or spelt flour or kamut flour (or any other grain flour) is pretty easy:  grind the berry.  Making white flour?  Not so easy.

As if worrying about the first seventeen steps wasn’t enough, steps numbers 18 and 20 in the flour making process should especially concern us.  That’s where our lack-of-nutrition flour is bleached and enriched.

Does white flour contain bleach?  What is flour “enriched” with?  Is “enriched” any different from “fortified?”  And isn’t there bromated flour too?

Oh my my, those are some serious questions.  We’re still in the re-education phase of Candid Carbs, so let’s put our scientist hats back on and figure these questions out.  We should know what we’re eating!

What is Enriched Flour?

There’s three parts to a wheat berry, right?  White flour is made only from the endosperm portion (where all the starch is), leaving the two parts of the wheat berry that contain the most nutrients (the germ and the bran) to be tossed aside and considered “health food” for the crunchy/granola tree-huggers (which you all are, by the way, since you’re trying to eat real food ).

White flour was originally manufactured using large stones, but the resulting brownish/yellowish flour wasn’t appealing in color nor texture.  Apparently no one wanted to bake with ugly flour…

New manufacturing techniques were introduced in the late 1800s that improved both the appearance and texture of white flour, but then doctors and nutritionists became concerned that the newer methods were removing more of the nutrition from the flour that the old methods.  Their concern sparked a movement towards improving the nutritional quality of white flour and after many studies (and many years) they finally came to conclusion in the early 1940s to enrich white flour by adding thiamine, riboflavin, niacin (three of the B vitamins), iron, calcium and vitamin D.  (source)  That’s now federal law, by the way.

While their attempt may have been with good intentions, you know as well as I do that vitamins do not exist stand-alone in nature.  They’re hard-coded into the DNA of plant-based and animal-based foods.  The abundance of beta carotene (vitamin A) is what makes carrots orange.  A group of antioxidants called anthocyanins make blueberries blue.  Ya’ll know what I’m talking about, right?

If brownish/yellow flour wasn’t considered “appealing,” I highly doubt orange or blue flour would be either.  The only way to enrich white flour without compromising the lovely soft and pale appearance is to use an alternate source – a chemistry lab.  Synthetic vitamins are first created by scientists and then added back into white flour just before it’s packaged and sent off for delivery.

The Draw-Backs of Enrichment

The enrichment process sounds good on paper – the vitamins were once lost, so let’s add them back in!

But of course it’s not that simple.

When the milling process removed those nutrients above from flour, a whole bunch of other vitamins and minerals were removed too… but they’re not added back in during enrichment.  Fiber, protein, vitamin E, vitamin B6 are a the big ones that we’ve all heard of.  Lesser known trace minerals like potassium, zinc, copper, manganese and selenium are also removed and remain unaccounted for in white flour.  Every single one of those vitamins and minerals are essential for our bodies to function well.

Besides missing several key nutrients of the original wheat berry, manufacturers don’t necessarily enrich white flour with the same ratio of nutrients that are found in the original grain.  Iron is added in excess, which can cause tissue damage to the liver over time.  B vitamins are all meant to work together, yet adding only a select few back into the flour can cause imbalances in the body processes that require those B vitamins, like metabolism, nerve function and hormone production and regulation.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, consumers thinking that they’re getting more nutrients than they really are could be mis-led when making other health related decisions.

Oh yeah, did I mention that synthetic vitamins aren’t real?  And the body knows it.  The body can easily process vitamins found from real sources, like plants, oils and animals.  But the body needs help with the synthetic forms of those same vitamins.  Take for example folic acid.  Enzymes in the intestines convert folic acid into usable folate.  When the body is given a synthetic corm of folic acid, those enzymes need the help of vitamin C, niacin and vitamin B12 in order to convert it into folate.  (source)  Consuming these synthetic vitamins aren’t helping our bodies at all – they’re actually causing our bodies to draw on its nutrient reserves in order to properly digest the white flour, leaving the body without the nutrients needed to bodybuilding, digestion and repair.

Any ladies out there experience the unpleasant side effects of iron pills during pregnancy?  Or has anyone noticed their bathroom tendencies (…actually, the lack thereof) when they’ve eaten large quantities of white flour (in all forms)?  That’s because a side effect of large doses of synthetic iron is constipation.  How’s that for a visual the next time you reach for white bread or a cracker?

Does it make you wonder why leafy greens jam-packed with iron (like spinach or swiss chard) are viewed as “roughage?”  ‘Nuff said.  Get your vitamins the natural way.  Eat whole grains.

Do Something:  If you’re buying white flour (which is still okay, we’re taking baby steps… switching completely overnight to whole grains is a MONSTER step), next time buy flour that is NOT enriched – it will say so on the label.  The price difference should be minimal – 20-30¢ for a 5lb bag, but the impact will be great!

What are you feelings on enrichment?  Did you think it was good or bad?  Were you indifferent?

This post is shared at (Sun) The Chicken Chick, Butter Believer (Mon) Natural Living Mamma (Tue) Cooking Traditional Foods, Real Food Forager (Wed) Allergy Free Wednesdays, This Chick Can Cook, Gastronomical Sovereignty, Kelly the Kitchen Kop, Day2Day Joys, Intoxicated Life, Poor and Gluten-Free (Thu) Jill’s Home Remedies, GNOWFGLINS, The Nourishing Gourmet, Thank Your Body (Fri) Green Thickies, Food Renegade, Allergy Free Alaska, Small Footprint Family, My Cultured Palate

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Much like Jessica’s Trifecta, May holds lots of celebrations for our family… and it isn’t even halfway over yet!

Mr. Crumbs birthday, my step-mother’s birthday and Mother’s Day fell within 10 days of each other this year.  Plus there’s still another anniversary coming up next week.  To say we’ve had a lot of cake lately is an understatement.  Not that I’m complaining.

Check out this amazing cake my step-mom made for Mr. Crumbs.

Isn’t that awesome?! (By the way, that grey circle wasn’t on the original cake.  MS Paint is helping to protect the identities of the innocent. )

My dad put me in charge of making her birthday cake this year, and let me just say this:  making (and decorating) a cake for someone who can do THAT is very, VERY intimidating.  And it doesn’t help that my decorating skills are quite lacking.  Here was the last major cake I did, for The Girl’s birthday last year.

The birthday girl didn’t seem to mind the icing on Cinderella’s face, or the fact that her dress drooped beyond her pedestal.  She also didn’t seem to care that her icing was spread on with a butter knife after Mommy’s failed attempt at piping it with a rose-shaped decorating tip.  Fortunately, Mr. Crumbs requested homemade tiramisu instead of cake for his birthday last year!

I’ve learned my lesson in decorating birthday cakes and I’ve decided to stick with what I’m good at – making them taste good.  I made her a coconut cake, carved out her age and frosted with a homemade ganache frosting made primarily with coconut oil and honey.  This icing would be excellent with the chocolate brownie cake too, by the way.  To make it sparkle, I added flaked coconut and sprinkles on top.  Because life is always better with sprinkles.

What do you guys think?

You’ll have to thank Mr. Crumbs for cleaning up the excess icing from the cake.  Apparently I’m a poor AND messy decorator.

I’m pretty proud myself.

In honor of my achievements (or lackthereof?) I have a super awesome giveaway for you today.  The folks over at Tropical Traditions were aboslutely blown away by the response of the last coconut oil giveaway.  They were so impressed, they offered to do another one!  This time though, it’s even better.

Tropical Traditions is giving away an entire GALLON of coconut oil to one lucky reader!

That’s no typo guys, they’re seriously shipping one of you lucky folks a big ‘ol pail of their delicious gold label virgin coconut oil – worth $120!  If you’re unfamiliar with Tropical Traditions and their high standards for coconut oil production, read my review.

Check out this super easy recipe for chocolate ganache, then enter the giveaway below!

Chocolate Ganache Frosting

1 cup virgin coconut oil
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup honey
two dashes of salt
2-3 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 Tbsp powdered sugar (or additional honey)

In a large bowl or in the bowl of a mixer, combine the first four ingredients and whisk for 2-3 minutes, or until everything is combined and the mixture looks to be fluffier.  Add 2 tsp of vanilla, whisk and taste.  Add powdered sugar if the icing is too bitter, or add another teaspoon of vanilla if the icing is too thick.  Whisk well.  One batch is enough to ice one 9×13 cake.

Tropical Traditions prides itself for being America’s source for coconut oil. Their Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil is the final product of their original venture – hand-crafted, made in small batches, by family producers. It is still the highest quality coconut oil they offer. Read more about how virgin coconut oil is different from other coconut oils on their website or watch the video below.

Tropical Traditions also carries other varieties of affordable high quality coconut oil. Visit their site to see their recommendations on using coconut oil, various places to buy (besides their own site) and to see their current specials – buy one get one free and free shipping are both offered frequently, PLUS they offer organic coconut flour for gluten-free folks, grass-fed beef and grass-fed butter too!!

Since the FDA does not want me nor Tropical Traditions to discuss the health benefits of coconut oil on a page where it is being sold or given away, Tropical Traditions suggests reading more about the health benefits of coconut oil here.  You can also read my own write up of 24 reasons why you should be eating more coconut oil.  If you won this gallon, there are no excuses left!

Enter the Giveaway!

There are nine opportunities to enter this giveaway and two of them can be done each day!  All entries must be in this form – comments on this post do not count as entries.

1. *MANDATORY ENTRY:  SUBSCRIBE to the Tropical Traditions newsletter (or tell me you already do).  Not obnoxious, I promise.  Just a requirement of the sponsor.

2. *MANDATORY ENTRY:  SUBSCRIBE to the Crumbs Newsletter (or tell me you already do).  No spamming, scout’s honor.

3. “LIKE” Don’t Waste the Crumbs on Facebook (or tell me you already do).

4. “LIKE” Tropical Traditions on Facebook (or tell me you already do).

5. FOLLOW @dontwastecrumbs on Twitter (or tell me you already do).

6. TWEET THIS (can do once daily – be sure to update this form when you do!):  #Free gallon of coconut oil this week @DontWasteCrumbs.  Enter to win yours!

7. FOLLOW DontWasteCrumbs on Pinterest (or tell me you already do).

8. PIN THIS giveaway on Pinterest:  Use very top image, “Chocolate Ganache Icing.”

9.  EMAIL THE GIVEAWAY (can do once daily – be sure to update this form when you do!):  Share this giveaway with five people via email.

This promotion is open to residents of the US and Canada.  Winner is responsible for any customs or duties required for shipping this product to you.  Entries for this promotion will be accepted until 11:59pm EST on Monday, May 20, 2013. The winner will be chosen randomly and will be notified via email shortly after. The prize for this promotion is provided by and shipped by Tropical Traditions and/or its representatives.  Don’t Waste the Crumbs will not be held responsible for unclaimed or undelivered prizes.

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Disclaimer:  Please know that this post contains affiliate links. By making a purchase through those links, I will earn commission that helps to keep the lights on in the Crumbs house – with no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Crumbs in this way. If you have any questions regarding this, I encourage you to read my full disclosure statement here.

This post is shared at (Sun) The Chicken Chick, Butter Believer (Mon) Natural Living Mamma (Tue) Cooking Traditional Foods, Real Food Forager (Wed) Allergy Free Wednesdays, This Chick Can Cook, Gastronomical Sovereignty, Kelly the Kitchen Kop, Day2Day Joys, Intoxicated Life, Poor and Gluten-Free (Thu) Jill’s Home Remedies, GNOWFGLINS, The Nourishing Gourmet, Thank Your Body (Fri) Green Thickies, Food Renegade, Allergy Free Alaska, Small Footprint Family, My Cultured Palate

The post {Yummy} Recipe: Chocolate Ganache Frosting Made with Coconut Oil {Giveaway!} appeared first on Don't Waste the Crumbs!.

I like knowing how things are made.  It helps keeps me in line when I want to indulge in something containing high fructose corn syrup, which seems like ALL.THE.TIME. given the amount of foods that toxin is in.  However, knowing that high fructose corn syrup is likely made from corn that has been genetically modified, and that enzymes related to anthrax and pesticides are added to break down the molecular structure give me the gentle nudge needed to put the item back on the shelf.  [How high fructose corn syrup is made.]

I think we as a society take for granted the food industry.  Many people think food comes from the supermarket instead of animals or agriculture fields (my kids included).  As a group, we don’t stop to think about what it takes to get food from the fields to packages, ready for us to consume.  If we did, I wonder if we’d really shop at the supermarket as often.  I’m curious if we’d start buying seeds and grow food ourselves, reducing the unnecessary additives and processing steps that occur long before we sit down for dinner.

The Wheat Berry

It’s important to make a couple distinctions here.

The term “flour” is used to describe any edible substance in powdered form.  I’m sure you’ve heard of almond flour, quinoa flour or coconut flour, right?  Each of those are simply the original item (almonds, quinoa and coconuts) but in a powdered form.

Second, all baking flour we usually see on supermarket shelves, unless otherwise stated, comes from a wheat berry.  Cake flour, all-purpose flour, bread flour, whole wheat flour… it all comes from the same original source.  “Otherwise stated” includes grains like rye, kamut, buckwheat and spelt.  Think that because your flour is white that it’s not made of wheat?  Think again.

Wheat berries are also commonly known as wheat kernels and they’re comprised of three parts:  the bran, germ and endosperm.

The bran is the outer part of the berry.  It’s made up of 7 layers and this is where you find the majority of the fiber (insoluble, meaning it dissolves in water), vitamins and minerals, as well as a small portion of the protein.  (Remember the nutrition of unrefined wheat?)

The endosperm is the inner part and contains the majority of the protein, carbohydrates, iron and a portion of the major B vitamins.  The fiber contained in the endosperm is soluble, meaning it requires fat in order to be dissolved and absorbed.

The germ is the small embryo, or the sprouting section of the seed, and it contains most of the berry’s fat and vitamin E.  It also contains a greater portion of the al-important B vitamins.

Notice that while the endosperm contains soluble fiber, most of the fat is contained in the germ portion.  This will be important as we continue.

How is Whole Wheat Flour Made?

Whole wheat flour is made by grinding the wheat berries through rollers.  Old time mills used stones that ground slowly, but modern-day mills use high-speed steel rollers.  The wheat berries go in, and whole wheat flour comes out.  There are other steps too, like separating rocks and sticks from the wheat berries, cleaning the berries and even purifying the wheat flour (usually using air).  But when it comes to wheat flour, what goes in… comes out.

How is White Flour Made?

White flour on the other hand, is vastly different.  White flour starts the same as whole wheat flour, but has a much different ending.  Take a look at this diagram to see the process of milling white flour (and note that while this picture seems a bit complicated it is actually “simplified”…)

(source)

My first thought is this:  wow, that seems like a lot of steps.  Don’t be overwhelmed by all the pictures and big-sounding words.  What you need to take away is this – what goes in doesn’t come out… at least not all together.  And it doesn’t happen automatically.  Chemicals and big heavy machines that damage the food make this happen.  Flour isn’t really that dainty powdery substance in our cabinets.  It’s the unfortunate, damaged product of an industry that doesn’t care much about the health of society.

White flour is made from only the endosperm of the wheat berry.  The whole berry goes in, but somewhere along the way the three parts of the berry are separated from each other and dealt with individually.  In the end you have three separate bins:  one of bran, another of germ and a third of white flour.  This is why you can buy wheat germ and wheat bran separately at the store – because they’ve been separated during the process of making white flour.  Unfortunately, when the bran and germ were taken away from the endosperm, most of the nutrients were taken away too.

Remember that when in a whole state, the endosperm contained protein, starch, iron, B vitamins and fiber.  The excessive processing involved with making white flour removes 30 of the nutrients originally present in the wheat berry.  Even if some of the fiber remained, it’s soluble fiber and requires fat in order for the body to absorb and utilize it.  The nutritional data from refined, white, all-purpose flour shows only 1 gram of fat for one entire cup, leaving those 3 grams of fiber to be unutilized and essentially wasted.  Think you’re getting fiber when you eat refined white flour?  Think again.

And this is just the beginning.

You’re probably thinking, “So what’s the big deal Tiff?  Lots of things take lots of steps in order for them to be made.”  You’re right – but that shouldn’t be the case!  Food shouldn’t have to go through twenty different processing steps BEFORE we’re able to buy it, when we’re really going to turn around and use it to make something else!

I can’t think of “white flour” and NOT see that yellow diagram in my head.  I hope the same thing for you.  It makes me second guess all the flour I buy, thinking about the chemicals used (and later removed using other chemicals) in each step to create the single bag.  And to image all those steps create before the flour is used to make the one single loaf of bread we buy off the shelf?  And that doesn’t even touch the enriching, bleaching and bromating processes!

Wondering if manufacturers really do use bleach in flour?  Or chlorine?  And why if the same thing can be achieved by letting the flour rest for 10 days?  Why are all these steps needed if we can do the same thing at home with a coffee grinder?  That’s coming up later this week!

But first, I’ve got a SUPER big giveaway coming up tomorrow.  It’s probably the biggest giveaway Crumbs has had so far to date.  If you haven’t already, sign up for the weekly newsletter – it’s a required entry for the giveaway (don’t worry, I’m not gonna spam you), plus the newsletter goes out tomorrow so you’ll have all of the posts this past week wrapped up in a nice little package and delivered to your inbox.  PLUS the newsletter will contain a couple cake-baking tips that you may find useful (and won’t find on the blog).

Do Something:  Think twice before automatically buying white flour again.  Try to buy wheat flour if possible, for both the nutrition and the simple milling process.

The post How is Flour Made? appeared first on Don't Waste the Crumbs!.

All carbohydrates – both starches and sugars – fall into one of two groups:  they’re either refined or unrefined.  Knowing which group a carbohydrate falls into isn’t an exact science, but knowing where it originated from helps.  For now, we’ll focus on starches.

Rarely do we eat starches straight from the field.  In almost all circumstances they’re processed in some way.  It could be as simply as sifting wheat berries from the hull, or it could be layers and layers of manufacturing to turn that same wheat berry into a saltine cracker.

When a starch is found in nature it’s considered to be unrefined.  When it’s been changed and altered so that it no longer resembles its original design, it’s considered to be refined.

Remember from yesterday that unrefined carbohydrates are good and that refined carbohydrates are bad?  The nutritional difference between unrefined and refined carbohydrates is staggering.  Check it out.

Nutritional Profile Unrefined Carbohydrates (Starches)

Unrefined starches are comprised mostly of glucose, the primary sugar in our blood.  Glucose is the sugar (-ose) that our body calls upon to supply energy wherever and whenever needed.  Building cells, healing wounds, thinking thoughts or moving limbs – all those processes require glucose.

In nature, glucose molecules are linked together with other building blocks that our bodies need to function properly too, including vitamins, minerals, enzymes, protein, fat and fiber.  It may sound strange, but glucose is not easy for our bodies to digest.  Our bodies are smart though and take those same building blocks and re-purpose them to be components in digestion.  This allows our bodies to adequately break the glucose down so it can be converted and used as energy.

Take a look at the nutritional profile of wheat berries and you’ll see what I mean.  (source)  You can click on all of these images to make them larger.

The data is for 1 cup of wheat berries.  Notice how high the amount of protein is – 24 grams!  And check out that fiber – 23 grams!  That’s nearly 8 grams each of protein and fiber for one 1/4 cup serving.  (The same as two servings of high protein trail mix!)  Here’s the vitamin profile.

That same cup is an excellent source of vitamin B6, thiamin, and niacin (vitamin b3).  Those B vitamins are crucial – they are the specific vitamins our bodies use to actually break down the starch.  Finally, look at this amazing mineral content in unrefined wheat berries.

Do you see how manganese and selenium are off the charts?!  Even copper, phosphorus and magnesium are at 100% of the recommended daily value, or higher.

It’s important to keep in mind the context here – these nutrients weren’t provided so that we could skip out on chicken and fresh produce and eat a handful of wheat berries instead.  Oh no no no… these nutrients were provided so that we could eat the wheat berries for their excellent nutritional profile AND be able to digest them AND then still be able to absorb and USE the nutrients inside to help our bodies function.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for refined carbohydrates…

Nutritional Profile Refined Carbohydrates (Starches)

Refined starches are created in a processing plant and are not found in nature.  Ever seen a tree grow crackers?  Or been able to shake sugar out of a bush?  Didn’t think so.

The refining process takes the grains that are ordinarily found in nature and removes much of their vitamin and mineral components.  Refined starches are the exact opposite of unrefined.  Instead of being self-contained with everything needed for digestion and even supplying the body with beneficial nutrients, refined starches force the body to use its own reserves of vitamins, minerals and enzymes in order to properly break it down and metabolize it.  Consuming refined starches forces the body to work beyond what it’s being provided with.  It’s like using a savings account that isn’t being deposited back in to.

Take a look at the nutritional profile of refined, unenriched all-purpose flour. (source)

This data is also for same 1 cup of flour and you can see how the refining process has stripped much of the nutrients that the berries once had.  The amount of protein was cut in half and fiber was reduced by  nearly 87%!

What has the refining process done to the vitamin profile?

Wow – do you see the difference?  The once prevalent thiamin and niacin have been reduced to merely 5%.  We should be concerned that vitamin B6 and niacin (B3) barely register on the chart – remember that those are crucial for our bodies to break down the starch!  Without the grains supplying that vitamin, our body will have to rely on the vitamins it has stored up to break the starch down – and then it won’t be replenished!  And to top it off, vitamins K and E are non-existent!

Finally, the mineral content.

Manganese and selenium went from 400% of our daily value to less than 40%.  Iron, magnesium and phosphorus went from more than sufficient for one day to not even reaching 10% of what our bodies need.  Calcium and potassium barely register.

You guys are smart.  You know that it’s better to eat food that is as close to its natural state as possible.  But white flour is not “natural.”  It’s been stripped of everything good about it and consuming it doesn’t provide any benefit for our bodies.  In fact, it creates MORE work!

Every wonder what has to be done to pull off the feat of stripping away 14 vitamins and 10 minerals from the whole berry?  (Or just want to turn a blind eye and pretend everything is okay? )  Stay tuned – more on this topic coming Monday!

Do Something:  Think of all the ways you use refined starches in the kitchen:  sandwiches, rolls, tortillas, crackers, chips, flour… choose one and upgrade to a lesser refined item.  This could be choosing wheat flour over white or even making your own breads instead buying them.  Need something more challenging?  Upgrade ALL of your refined starches in the kitchen!

Did you know the difference between refined and unrefined wheat was so staggering?  Soothe my ego  and let me know if the comments!

This post is shared at (Sun) The Chicken Chick, Butter Believer (Mon) Natural Living Mamma, The Better Mom (Tue) Cooking Traditional Foods, Granny’s Vital Vittles, Real Food Forager (Wed) Allergy Free Wednesdays, This Chick Can Cook, Gastronomical Sovereignty, Kelly the Kitchen Kop, Day2Day Joys, Intoxicated Life, Poor and Gluten-Free (Thu) Jill’s Home Remedies, GNOWFGLINS, The Nourishing Gourmet, Thank Your Body (Fri) Green Thickies, Allergy Free Alaska, Small Footprint Family, My Cultured Palate, (Sat) The Pistachio Project

The post The Nutritional Difference Between Unrefined and Refined Carbohydrates appeared first on Don't Waste the Crumbs!.

For the longest time, I thought a carbohydrate was some sort of a bread or pasta.  Never did I ponder what those breads and pastas were made with.

I think back to those days and “cutting back on carbs” meant eating more rice, less pasta.  More wraps and less sandwiches.  And of course there was no restriction on dessert.

Tsk, tsk.  *wags finger*

What exactly is a carbohydrate?

Dictionary.com offers five different definitions for the word carbohydrate.  FIVE!  One definition is very simple:  “from carbo- and hydrate”

Wow.  Insightful.

Another one (the first one on the page actually) is pretty complicated, even for those well-versed in science-ese:  any of a class of organic compounds that are polyhydroxy aldehydes or polyhydroxy ketones, or change to such substances on simple chemical transformations, as hydrolysis, oxidation, or reduction, and that form the supporting tissues of plants and are important food for animals and people.

Did you get that?  Me neither.

Folks, I’m all about baby steps and keeping things simple as often as possible, so here’s MY definition of carbohydrate (backed up by a medical dictionary, science dictionary and Nourishing Traditions):

Carbohydrates are starches and sugars.  Celluloses and gums are carbohydrates too, but those won’t be covered in this section (at least, not as of right now) so we’ll put them in the “we’ll deal with those when we cross that bridge” category.  Carbohydrates are organic, meaning they’re found in nature and were created by God, not man, since they’re a product of photosynthesis in green plants.

I’m sure you’ve heard variations of the word saccharide word tossed around here and there… monosaccharide, disaccharide, oligosaccharide or polysaccharide?  In biochemistry, a carbhohydrate is known as a saccharide.  Basically it’s all science-ese for a term that once originated in the Greek and lo and behold, all essentially means the same thing – sugar.

Side Note:  I don’t know about you, but my mind tends to think of carbohydrates on a greater scale – like loaves of bread and packaged crackers – instead of the nitty gritty science stuff.  However, in order to really understand how carbohydrates impact our bodies, we’ve got to be down in the trenches, turning all this gobbly gook into plain English.  All right, pep talk over.  Let’s keep going.

Remember how carbohydrates are created through photosynthesis?  I thought that was interesting at first, but then it through me for a loop when started to consider the implications:

• Bread –> white/wheat flour –> wheat –> was once a green plant
• Pasta –> flour –> wheat –> was once a green plant
• Rice –> the seed of a green plant
• Corn (oil) –> extracted from the germ of corn –> seeds most often seen in groups called ears, of green plant
• Canola (oil) –> extracted from the seed of either rapeseed or field mustard –> both leafy green plants
• Sugar –> extracted from sugarcane or sugar beets –> both were once a green plant
• Beans –> seed of a legume –> was once a green plant
• Lentils –> seed of a legume –> was once a green plant
• Apples –> the fruit from a tree, with green leaves
• Avocado –> the fruit of a tree, with green leaves
• Brussels Sprouts –> a very small, leafy green plant
• Seaweed –> a green plant (that grows in water)

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but do you see a common theme?

Most whole foods (if not all?) can be broken down into one of two categories:  plant-based or animal-based.  By definition alone, all (green) plant-based foods will contain some sort of sugar. This doesn’t mean that brussles sprouts are carbohydrates, but it does mean that it contains carbohydrates in the form of sugar.

Obviously some foods have more carbohydrates and some have less, but nonetheless – our bodies can only process sugar in so many ways.  Regardless of how man as altered the food, if it originated from a green plant, our body treats the carbohydrates in the food as a sugar.

Side Note #2:  This may sound scary and perhaps a little “wrong” to some of you.  Fresh fruits and vegetables are comprised of sugar?  Aren’t we told that sugar is the enemy?  I encourage you hang with me on this series, because this is just one small piece of a much larger puzzle.  Once we have all the pieces together, then we’ll understand the bigger picture.  Ok, back to the sugars.

Ever heard of the words glucose, fructose or lactose?  Those are types of sugar.  Essentially any word ending in -ose is a sugar.  Here’s a brief list of common sugars and what they all mean:

• Sucrose – common table sugar
• Lactose – milk sugar
• Maltose – malt sugar
• Fructose – the sugar in fruit and HFCS (which shouldn’t be in your kitchen anymore, right?…)
• Glucose – the primary sugar in the blood

There’s a lot more to discuss about carbohydrates:  there are good (unrefined) carbohydrates and bad (refined) carbohydrates.  There are complex sugars and simple sugars – neither of which are exclusively good nor bad.  And then of all the different types of carbohydrates and sugars out there, our body really only processes two.

We’ve only covered the tip of the iceberg today.  So much more is coming on this topic and I’m so excited to take baby steps through it all with you.  Be sure to sign up for the weekly newsletter so you don’t miss a step!

What about you?  Am I the only one who only thought of bread and pasta?  Anyone else blind-sighted about beans and avocados?!

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