There’s a HAIR in my bread!
Why do I make my own bread, and how did I decide that using freshly-milled wheat is the way to go?
For years, I never questioned the foods that I purchased at the grocery store. When I became a nurse at the age of 40, my attention became more focused on health—I saw how sick people were, and how it affected their lives and the lives of their families. I heard time and time again about retirement dreams and travel plans going unrealized because of poor health, or the premature death of a spouse. I started to look further than what I had been taught in my nursing education regarding health. Long story short, I discovered that true health starts with what we put in and on our bodies.
We are bombarded with toxins from the foods we eat, the air we breathe, the cleaners we use and the things we put on our body. I realized that I didn’t have control over all of these factors, but I did have control over many of them. I got rid of industrial seed oils first, followed by white sugars and bleached flours, the majority of packaged foods I had grown accustomed to purchasing out of convenience, my beloved Bath and Body Works plug-ins (who knew they were toxic?!), perfumes, detergents and cleaners—the list goes on. It didn’t happen over night! It was a slow process—the more I learned, the more I changed what I allowed in my home environment and in my body. (Did you know that what you put ON your body ends up IN your body?)
Then came bread…
After learning that many of the wheat crops in America are sprayed with glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup) for the purpose of drying the crops uniformly prior to harvest, I decided that I would make my own breads using organic flours. I delved into sourdough for a while, but didn’t like fighting with the tough crust, and it just wasn’t as sandwich-friendly. I decided to switch to a sandwich loaf and discovered Sue Becker’s talk on why milling grains fresh is optimal for health. In short, flour goes rancid fairly quickly after the grain is milled due to the oxidation of the bran and germ. Commercial flours “solve” this issue by sifting out the bran and germ. Why is that a bad thing? Because bran, the fiber-rich outer layer of the grain, provides B vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. The germ, the core of the seed, is a source of healthy fats, vitamin E, B vitamins, and antioxidants. The most beneficial parts of the grain are removed! These commercial flours are then bleached and “enriched” with all sorts of artificial ingredients and preservatives. Additives such as potassium bromate and azodicarbonamide have been banned in some countries due to potential health concerns, and chemicals used for bleaching may further deplete the nutritional value of flour by destroying certain vitamins.
This is when I decided to purchase a quality grain mill and find a source of organic grains that guarantee NO glyphosate would be used the the growing or harvesting. Thank you, Azure Standard!
That is how I become a baker of fresh-milled goods. It was a learning curve, because fresh-milled flours behave a little differently than commercial flours, but the taste and health benefits are worth it.
Now, for the scary, hairy part: Since starting my milling journey, I have learned that human hair, duck feathers and hog hair—yes HOG HAIR—are FDA-approved additives for those breads you find on the grocery shelves! L-cysteine is an amino acid derived from animal sources like human hair, duck feathers, or hog hair. (Link) It is used as a dough conditioner, added to improved texture and shelf life of bread products. Bet you didn’t know that, huh? Bet commercial bread doesn’t sound too appealing now, huh?
Good thing you have options!