A Small Problem

I've been running into a bit of an issue in the kitchen lately.  Namely my zeal exceeds my skill and my pocketbook.   I just wrote a post on the importance of soaking and souring our grains (and legumes) for consumption in order to get the most from them.  The problem is this: when wheat (or spelt, kamut, rye......) is ground into flour the nutrients immediately start to break down, so buying even organic flour in the store is practically worthless.  I don't want to exclude grains, but I can't justify buying an expensive grinder yet.  To me it would be a foolish purchase without experience in breadmaking first.  But what is the point in making bread when you know that there are few benefits to be had?

So I finally had to make the decision that something is better than nothing.  I can exclude things all day, but if I can't replace them with better things, there's no point.  All we'll do is starve.  So, I'll use store bought flour and prove to myself that I can do it.  I'll get the hang of the processes and the time it takes, and when I'm confident and I've saved enough, I'll buy a grinder.

A main concern I've had  is breakfast.  Cold cereal, even Kashi or Annies organics cereals are formed by a dangerous process called extrusion, which makes the pretty shapes and flakes.  So we cut out cereal, but that has really messed with our schedule.  Eggs are a great breakfast for the weekends, but on school mornings we need something without a lot of prep work or clean up. 

Here is the definition of and reasons for food extrusion by Ohio State University:

Extrusion is defined as "shaping by force through a specially designed opening often after previous heating of the material." Extrusion is the continuous forming of plastic or soft materials through a die. Several types of extruders include ram or piston types and screw or worm types (Harper, 1981).

Cooking extrusion combines the heating of food products with the act of extrusion to create a cooked and shaped food product and is a process in which moistened, starchy, proteinaceous foods are cooked and worked into a viscous, plastic-like dough. The results of cooking the food ingredients during extrusion are:

1 ) gelatinization of starch

2) denaturation of protein

3) inactivation of raw food enzymes

4) destruction of naturally occurring toxic substances

5) diminishing of microbial counts in the final product.

Upon discharge through the die, the hot, plastic extrudate expands rapidly with loss of moisture and heat because of sudden decrease in pressure. After expansion cooling, and drying, the extruded product develops a rigid structure and maintains a porous texture.

Advantages of food extrusion are versatility, high productivity, low cost, product shapes, high product quality, energy efficiency, production of new foods, and no effluents or waste.

In addition, the extrusion process renders these foods toxic. So, I made cereal yesterday.  Once I made the decision is was easy to do.  I got the recipe from Eat Fat, Lose Fat.  The boys haven't tasted it yet, but I'm optimistic. :)

Sources:

Eat Fat Lose Fat

Nourishing Traditions

http://class.fst.ohio-state.edu/FST401/401%20product/Lab%20Projects%202002/puffs.htm

Starting with Sourdough

I've decided I'm going to try my hand at bread making again.  Sourdough is the way they used to make bread before the advent of packaged yeast.  It's the way Caroline Ingalls fed her family.  It's old fashioned so it appeals to me immediately.  I'm an old fashioned kinda gal--ask anyone who knows me :) So I just ordered a sourdough starter from "Friends of Carl".  Friends of Carl is an organization that carries on the tradition of Carl Griffith who gave away, free of charge, a bit of the sourdough starter which came from a sourdough culture carefully nurtured and preserved in his family for over 150 years.  It is the same starter his family brought with them on the Oregon Trail in 1847.  I love a bit of history :)  besides, it's free! 
I made an attempt at sourdough bread before, but I think I fed it wrong and it died.  My bread started turning out pretty badly so I threw it out.  But recently I discovered Sourdough Home.  Mike is very thorough and reading through this site has given me the confidence to think that maybe I can do this.
Anyway, nowadays nutritionists urge us to eat whole, unrefined grains--a very smart idea!  Refined grains contain little to no nutritional value.  Because all the nutrients are stripped out during processing they now "enrich" white flour with synthetic vitamins which aren't much better, I assure you.
A look at Egyptian mummies and hieroglyphs will confirm that while the peasantry ate their grains whole, Pharaohs and nobles had slaves pound and sift until they had white flour.  While the peasants seem to have lived fairly healthy lives, their noble counterparts suffered from scoliosis, rickets, and osteoporosis.  The problem is that while the bran of the grain contains vital nutrients, it also contains phytic acid, which combines with calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and zinc in the intestines.  This blocks our bodies' abilities to absorb them leading to deficiencies and degenerative diseases.
Grains, whole or not also contain gluten which is difficult to digest.  This country is seeing a rise in grain allergies, celiac disease, irritable bowel syndrome, chrones and yeast overgrowth.  But there is a simple answer to all of these problems.  A simple process of which primitive peoples were aware, and practiced, but was lost along the way with industrialization.  Nearly all primitive peoples soaked, soured or sprouted their grains.
When we soak grains and legumes in yogurt, buttermilk, whey or sour milk (or lemon juice if you happen to have a milk allergy) or when we sprout them prior to grinding the phytase introduced from the souring breaks down most, if not all of the phytic acid.  This leaves vitamins and minerals available for absorption.  The souring also introduces lactobacilli which helps to break down the gluten into more digestable components.
And that's where sourdough comes in.  It is a great way to make bread because it sours or ferments your grain for you in the process. It is also quite delicious.

Wonderful Cast Iron

I just reseasoned all my cast iron pans, well, most of them.  I forgot about the grill pan.  It needs to be done now and then, (and I have been putting it off for a while) but I've managed to go 6 years since I bought them!
I love cast iron for cooking! I also love exclaimation points! :) Anyhow, cast iron is great for cooking for several reasons.  It is great for heat retention and distribution, if seasoned properly it's a wonderful non-stick surface, it's fantastic for slow cooking, and it's a great way to get a little extra iron in your diet. I have a few pans.  I use them all the time!  I also have a million things on my wishlist :) and they're all at my store.  But, cast iron gets a bad rap, I think.  And I think it's because nowadays Lodge, and other companies sell "pre-seasoned" cast iron.  It's already black! It's beautiful! It's "country"! It's authentic! So we buy it, we use it, and we are really disappointed.  Everything sticks to it, it's impossible to clean and then it gets rusty.  What's up with that??

The Lipid-Hypothesis vs. Science

I'm no scientist, but I remember learning early on in scienve class that the hyposthesis is the basis, the foundation, if you will, of good, sound science. Without the hypothesis all is conjecture.  Now, I unfortunately do not own a Webster's, but my American Heritage College Dictionary defines hypothesis as
1) A tentative explaination that accounts for a set of facts and can be tested by further investigation; a theory. 2) Something taken to be true for the purpose of argument or investigation; an assumption. emphasis mine.  In other words one guesses at the reason for something he does not understand.  He then investigates to find out whether or not he was correct, and shares what he has learned and why he was right or wrong. Sadly this does not appear to be the case with the lipid-hypothesis, rather they seem to have made an assumption and then set about proving it correct at all cost.
Lest my ranting fall on uninformed ears, the lipid -hypothesis was coined by Ancel Keys in 1950 as scientists and doctors stuggled to gain insight into the alarming increases in deaths from heart disease since the 1920s.  In essence it states that saturated fats and cholesterol which in turn leads to heart disease. Two main studies are sited in support of this theory: the Framingham Study and David Kritchevsky's rabbits.  The results are somewhat startling when you consider the effect they have had on the treatment and prevention of heart disease since.
Kritchevsky conducted and experiment in which he fed large ammounts of cholesterol to rabbits.  While he did, indeed find that his rabbits developed atherosclerosis, his findings do little to prove the lipid-hypothesis if viewed objectively.  For one thing, rabbits are vegitarian animals.  They were never meant to consume animal foods as humans, omnivores, were. Second, these rabbits were fed highly processed cholesterol that is not found in any natural foods and third, the  kind of plaque which developed in the rabbits is compeletly different from what develops in humans.  Nonetheless, the AHA ran with it, presenting the hypothesis as proven fact and recommending the Prudent Diet in which the beef, eggs, lard and butter that americans were used to consuming were replaced by liquid vegetable oils, margerine, chicken and cold breakfast cereals.
The Framingham Study launched in 1948 with follow up studies in 1964 and 1978.  In the earliest portion of the study nearly 1000 people were asked about their eating habits and test for blood cholesterol levels.  The findings? There was no connection between diet and cholesterol levels.  This portion of the study was never published!  The follow-up in 1964 revealed that almost half of those who had suffered heart attacks actually had low cholesterol; in 1978 it was determined that "For every 1mg/dl drop [in blood cholesterol] there was an 11 percent increase in coronary and total mortality".  Reardless, the "Circulation" journal published this statement from the AHA: "The reasults of the Framingham Study indicate that a 1 percent reduction...of cholesterol [corresponds to] a 2 percent reduction in CHD risk."  The exact opposite of what was actually found.  There are numerous studies that prove saturated fat plays an important roll in all of our bodily functions, and liquid vegetable oils are actually liked to heart disease.  More on that another time.

Sources:

Eat Fat, Lose Fat

Nourishing Traditions

Weston A. Price Foundation