I feel like when I master one area of our "food overhaul" another thing comes up to capture my interest. It's been a very line upon line process, for me. Which is funny.
My newest obsession is wheat. Last year I bought a grain mill and...it sat. Untouched. I was scared of it. But this weekend we (and by we I mean Isaac, of course) got it put together and we ran our first "clean out the machine" round. I'm reading everything I can on grains (in general) and wheat (specifically) and soaking / sprouting. I'm trying to figure out what I should embrace and what I should let go. I know that grinding my own flour will be an easy no-brainer to implement, but anything more than that, I'm not sure.
It's difficult to weed through all the information that is out there. I very much want to fully and completely embrace the whole foods diet (and, truly, we're doing well!), for all of us, but every time I get one thing down, my brain finds several more areas I feel I should improve. We've completely switched to steel cut oats only. In the summer, I only shop the farmer's market. We eat granola. I make bread. I get overwhelmed and tired and have a bacon egg biscuit from Chik-fil-A. Sigh...
I wish I could just let myself off the hook, realize we're doing really well and leave it at that. And read. With clarity. That would really help.
(the soup dragons - divine thing)
So funny. I just had a conversation about this with my neighbor yesterday. She was deciding if she should order the 9 grain bread from Bountiful Baskets and went on to say that she should make her own bread because she has all the ingredients. But if she's going to make it she wants to do the whole soaking thing (which I've never done) and she doesn't have time so she'd rather just pay $2 something for good enough bread. I was thinking to myself, why not go somewhere in the middle? Even making homemade bread from freshly ground wheat alone is better than most of the things in plastic bags at the store.
ReplyDeleteSo...yeah....cut yourself some slack. Have a biscuit.
Yeah. I think I've come to the conclusion that sprouting is beyond right now. I'll keep my homemade bread, with a little barley flour thrown in, and call it good for now!
ReplyDeleteI got a grain mill for Christmas and I've only used it a couple of times, for pizza dough and pancakes. For some reason bread scares and overwhelms me. I've been trying to switch up our diet a little bit too, but then I get tired, hungry and run out of time and my kids are back to eating cold cereal and goldfish. It's hard to break old habits. I'm trying to take baby steps.
ReplyDeleteThere are ladies in my ward here who have their own chickens, make their own cheese, yogurt and kefir and do the whole sprouting thing along with many other things. They also homeschool. Just thinking about it all makes me feel tired and like I'm a bad mom.
I think we have to remember to celebrate our progress and our good intentions and not get too focused on how much further we'd like to go (and not compare ourselves to others). I try to remind myself that it could be much worse. I'm not feeding my kids Twinkies and French fries every day so that's something.
Don't let those ladies get to you. We have those types in my area too, the media labels them "urban hippies" with the chickens, homeschooling, alternative medicines, etc. They think if they live like people in the 1800's they'll be healthier, but they're forgetting that people didn't live very long in those days :-)
DeletePssst, Holly, I'm one of those ladies...at least that's the goal! I'm all for alternative medicines and making things from scratch and only eating things locally.
DeleteI love kefir. My sister in law makes her own (but my sister in law is who I aspire to be!). I would love to have chickens. And cheese and yogurt I hear are easy and are on my list of things I want to tackle this summer.
ReplyDeleteHomeschooling? Never in a million years, though!
And I have a crazy easy NO FAIL bread recipe. Want me to send it to you?
This whole conversation makes me want to alternate between laughing my head off and sobbing uncontrollably, so I'm just going to grab another handful of jelly beans, take another swig of Dr Pepper and walk away...
ReplyDeleteI was telling Lacy yesterday that I had granola and a fresca for breakfast and I was PRETTY SURE they cancelled each other out!
ReplyDeleteAnd, um, jelly beans. Mmmmmmm......
Jelly beans around here are virtually non-existance, the just plain old jelly beans anyway.
ReplyDeleteI found some yesterday at the grocery store. Although why you would buy those when you can have the sour sweetart ones...
DeleteWait. How did this go from sprouting wheat to jelly beans?! :)
Which is exactly what I'm eating right now...
ReplyDeleteYou're light years ahead of me. Cheese-making will not be on my agenda anytime soon. And chickens? Well, they just gross me out.
ReplyDeleteNo fail sounds pretty good. Send it on over.
I have heard that mozzarella is pretty easy to start with.
DeleteOh! And I'll email you the recipe.
DeleteAs for jellybeans, I go for the Starburst variety, especially the FaveReds, just bought some today. Think they'll make it til Easter?
ReplyDeleteWe just finished a pack of those. They were tasty...
DeleteI forgot that I LOVE the Soup Dragons. Or at least that song. Made me happy. I have no words for anything else. It's all so... beyond me right now. I'm in the freezer to oven mode right now. :)
ReplyDeleteThey make me happy too...
DeleteI'm having similar issues with the gap between my reality and what I think I should be doing--health-wise. Only so much energy in the day and money to spend on food... We should try to be happy with the best we can do at this moment. :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, you are doing better than me with the grinder. It took me two or three years after buying one to break it out and use it. That was a long time for my DH to get after me as far as why I wanted the $250 grinder in the first place... LOL. It was just intimidating for some reason. I get those mind blocks and just can't get past them sometimes. But, it is all good now and has gotten lots and lots of use. :)
Good information on sprouting your own wheat is difficult to find. I learned more from trial and error I think. If I had more time at home and a good dehydrator I might try it again. (It is super delicious though!) A great middle ground is making sourdough.
ReplyDeleteI clearly need to talk to you about this...did you know we were coming down? Maybe then.
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