Is Wonderbread Making You Sterile? Part 1

I LOVE bread with butter; I think I could eat it all day long. When I became more health conscious, I switched to whole wheat, like most of you probably have. But most people don't really think about the potential nutritional value of bread which makes up a major part of their diet.

How much bread do you eat? I bet more than you think. We have 5 children. All but the new baby eat sandwiches for lunch almost every day. Add one for me most days, and that's TEN SLICES OF BREAD each week per person, and that's just for lunches. On Shabbat we enjoy a sweet Challah loaf (or two), and we eat bread with a dinner meal at least 2 or 3 times a week. That's a LOT of bread.

Are all whole wheat breads the same? Is the whole wheat flour you buy at the store really better for you than the white flour? Why would anyone be crazy enough to spend the time and effort to grind his own flour? I'm going to answer questions like these and more, and you will likely be very surprised at what you learn. I know I was. (Hint: see the title)

A Little About Wheat
The kernel of wheat is composed of the outer bran layer, the germ, and the endosperm. It is rich in nutrients, many of which are concentrated in the bran and germ. It contains the entire B complex, except for vitamin B12.

Wheat germ has a very high content of vitamin E. Vitamin E increases the good HDL cholesterol. Animal studies have also shown that vitamin E protects against free radicals released by the body when it is exposed to toxic chemicals.

During the milling process, steel rollers crush the grain, and the flour separated by sifters. The bran and germ are totally removed in this process. They are used in the production of animal feeds and by pharmaceutical laboratories for making diet supplements.

Whole wheat flour is produced by recombining ground bran with endosperm flour, but the germ is usually left out, because it would go rancid.

In the next post I'll describe what gets done to the flour, after all the nutritious parts are removed, before you either buy it at the store to bring home, or it gets baked into bread that you buy. Stay tuned!

Most of the information presented in these posts came from Nutritional Characteristics of Organic, Freshly Stone-Ground, Sourdough & Conventional Breads by Judy Campbell, B.Sc., Mechtild Hauser, and Stuart Hill, B.Sc., Ph.D., P.Ag.

"No Shots, No School!" - Not True! (On Vaccine Exemptions)

Have you ever been told that your children will not be allowed to attend school without being up to date on their vaccinations? If not, where have you been? That scare tactic has been used for so many years, it's amazing that it's survived for one simple fact: IT'S NOT TRUE.

Megan at SortaCrunchy posted this a couple of days ago, and the information is exactly what I'd like to share with you, so please
click here to read her post: http://bit.ly/2lSNl

Then come on back here to leave your comments; this can be an interesting discussion!

The First Day...

Yesterday I lost it. More than once.

The newborn wouldn't wake up and really eat when she was supposed to, so then she dragged on and fussed/wanted to keep eating when I needed to cook to have dinner on time so that we could have bedtime on time the night before the first day of school. Then she fell asleep and never really finished eating, so my boob felt like it was going to explode. But I couldn't stop and go pump because I had dinner cooking on the stove and a toddler who needed a new diaper very badly. The 5 and 3 year olds who were supposed to be clearing and setting the table were running around chasing each other as the dogs were barking and my husband was recording a video and needed QUIET in the house.

Oh, and this was only ONE of the times I lost it.

But the good news is: Today is the First Day of the Rest Of My Life.

I am a homeschooler at heart, and hope to homeschool in the future, probably starting next year. But for now, for various reasons, we have decided to send the boys to school. And boy, am I glad!

I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm still exhausted, I still have more to do than I know how to fit in. But, its so nice and quiet here! I can think! There's a calm in the house that I haven't noticed in a looong time.

Aaahh.