The importance of whole grain

Once upon a time it was very important for feeding to use freshly ground flour; indeed today none give importance to the quality of flour used for the bread we eat daily.

Modern life and modern mills broke the chain connecting miller and baker for centuries.

Ancient peoples used to - and primitive tribes still existing continue to do - produce daily their flour because it was the key for a healthy life and a perfect fitness.

We still admire the enterprises of roman armies and we know that they were technologically superior to the barbarians because they already knew how to build bridges, fortresses and catapults. But we don’t know that engineering wasn’t the only one secret of successful roman troops: they were also stronger than enemies because they were better fed, and this was possible thanks to whole cereals.

Every cohort – that is the unit of roman army – had got its portable millstone and used to mill daily some whole grain; the flour was distributed daily (750 grams per person per day) and eaten in form of soups or buns, and when the lack of cereals obliged them to eat meat, soldiers were considered malnourished.

We’ve completely forgotten what the fresh flour is: industrial flour is normally milled and refined weeks – or months - before using, so our bread is poor and completely dead.

The first problem is refining: many decades ago industry made us believe that white bread is better than brown one; the truth is that it’s easier to produce and the white flour is easier to preserve, because it doesn’t attract animals as the raw one: they naturally know that it isn’t a good food and they refuse it.

Any cereal is constituted by three parts: shell, body and germ. Shell and germ contain the most part of minerals (some essentials as copper, manganese, cobalt, zinc, chrome and selenium), vitamins and enzymes (expecially A, B, E, F and some essential oils).

Well, we normally waste all this precious parts and we use only the body of grain, that is mainly constituted by starch, that is the so-called “empty calories”.

Bread, pasta and other products made of white flour constitute about one third of our feeding, but they are now the poorest food ever seen in human history.

The second problem is oxidation: wheat grains and all other seeds are very resistant until they’re preserved by shell, but they’re easily degraded after milling. We know that oxygen damages all natural food: we can see it letting a piece of an apple in contact with air for a short time, and the same thing happens a little more slowly to bananas, milk, flour (and also to cooked food, as pizza or soup).

Cereals begin to die immediately after milling and loose completely their vital qualities in 8 days, but, as said before, we ignore the importance of eating fresh food, so we don’t care if the white flour have been normally milled (in modern, industrial mills) two or three weeks before to be used (in modern, industrial bakeries).

Quality of life is an important issue, and quality of food too. Beginning from the flour.