Comments On Article: Our Ancestors Understood

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Hello Donna.   Haha I was just re reading your last post when your new post popped into my inbox.  Such joy.

These days I make lots of soups and either freeze them (pumpkin soup) or can then.. tomato, chicken, lamb and veg, potato and broccoli, etc.

I have really ramped up the vegetables in our foods this year. When I use things like split peas I give them a good rinse before adding them.

Grains and oats I soak before cooking with them. I found soaking the grains to put into bread made the bread easier to digest.

Soaking oats cut down on the cooking time. For years we ate raw.oats in muesli I made. 

As we age we experiment more. We realise some things we've eaten weren't overly beneficial for us but that the way life evolves isn't it.

Great encouraging article. Thank you very much 

Karen..NZ

Mister and I were talking about nutrition just today. I listened to a doctor on Family Talk radio discuss the rise of type two diabetes in the last 50 years — from 1 in 100 to 1 in 3! He states that poor nutrition provided by food today is partially to blame. Today’s food has less than 10% of what it did 50 years ago. We can raise our food, but we must understand that its nutrition comes from the soil. So if our soil is depleted, our food sources ar too!! We need to dump mega one crop farms in favor of small multi crop farms and organic over chemically raised foods. It’s all so fascinating! Thanks for adding to my thinking! 

I agree to keeping a scrap book with idea,s tried and tested,

 when it comes to the garden one things for sure you can do this alone and share your past thoughts while enjoying peace perfect peace,,

Hi Donna, 

I think the major problem with wheat (I don't know how our ancestors did it since they're gone) is that right after WWII, the country needed a lot of food grown to feed returning soldiers so the farmers cross-pollinated wheat and what we have now is nothing like true wheat. I feel that is why so many of us have issues when it comes to digesting wheat. How long do you soak your wheat for?

I don't know if this helps, but when I was growing up my family used to soak the wheat overnight, drain it, wait for it to sprout just  slightly (took a day or two, and I think my mom rinsed it twice daily) then dry it out on a screen above the woodstove before grinding it into flour.  

I soak pulses of course, and soak my porridge oats.

It would be good to buy organic crops and meat from outdoor reared livestock, and totally grass-fed cows for all of our Dairy produce, and free-range poultry. 

The best I can do is to buy British where possible, and buy the nearest I can get to the ingredients my Granny used. We buy whole milk, but it is all homogenised. Even our own hens have to stay under cover because of the threat of bird flu. 

The most healthy way of eating has to be home cooking from unadulterated produce, the basics which Granny had in her store cupboard.  We have gone back to loose leaf tea made in the tea pot, and cocoa instead of drinking chocolate, ground coffee instead of instant. We have only homemade bread and cakes. Small changes which make a difference every day. We don’t buy any fizzy pop, breakfast sugar cereals, or crisps, or UPF snacks, or anything with spurious health claims on the package. 

With real food we save a lot on our grocery bills, and we don’t feel hungry all of the time, and we have both lost a lot of abdominal fat. 

Sugar is a bad one for me.  I only eat it on very rare occasions such as birthdays, and it has to be worth it:  i.e. homemade with real butter, cream, eggs etc.  So basically only if I make it myself.  But I find I will get depressed the next day if I eat too much;  I used to be chronically depressed until I gave up sugar/starches and went low carb.  I actually gave them up when my husband was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and decided to change his diet;  I went low carb with him so I wouldn't have to cook two different meals, but until then I never realized carbs were affecting me in that way.  It's amazing how much better I feel without them.

You are correct Misty K. So what is grown now is like a super wheat that has double the gluten than the original wheat. Then when bread is commercially made they add even more gluten to the mix and hello gluten intolerance is born.

Here in NZ all bread making flour except organic which is super expensive now has man made folic acid added to it under the guise of preventing spina bifida in pregnancy but there is no need for men, children and older people to have it. When I had children the Dr gave us tablets.

I make a 100% wholemeal organic flour no knead malt bread that is absolutely delicious. My husband likes the brought bread.

Janet W

My son in Australia told me last night that bird flu has arrived there and one lot of commercial poultry farms is only about 10 KMs from his home. People are being told there to keep their chickens under cover.

Like you we don't buy the popular snacks either. It's mostly nutrient deprived and people don't realise they're actually starving their bodies by eating that rubbish.

I make a lot of soup if different sorts and casseroles. When i see programmes on people helping those in food poverty I'm amazed they aren't saying porridge for breakfast and encouraging soup making. Scones are easy and cheap to make. But no the recipes are quite extravagant for people who can't afford food 

GRANDMA DONNA WROTE, Misty K, I soak mine for at least 12 hours.  I have been starting the soak early evening and soaking it overnight into the next morning.

Thank you everyone for the comments and conversations. I agree with our wheat has changed and several times it has.  I have been deep into research about this all this past week.  Also like Galadriel F Sugar is a bad one for me as well.  I have to be very limited with sugar.  Our world is changing a lot, and it has always changed but there is something more serious today, changes are making our world difficult to live a normal healthy life.   We need to all do our best to try and figure out healthy solutions as many of you are doing.  We need to help fix this for our children and grandchildren.

Hi, Grandma Donna. I’ve not stayed caught up lately so if you’ve already mentioned this, I apologize. But if not, I suggest you read the book Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon. It is a wealth of information in regards to food preparation! 

Everything looks so delicious!  If you like something sweet occasionally, try using all-natural Monk Fruit sweetener!  Taste exactly like sugar but is all natural!  I love it... ratio: 1 to 1

Love this blog...I learn SO much from you...

hugs

Donna

Pick up Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. She uses the info from Dr Weston Price's book to explain why you soak grains and eat fermented foods. Dr Price's book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, is a study he did in the 1930s about the effect of "modern" diets and several different groups.  Dr Price was a dentist and it's really a fascinating book.

Your food looks delicious.  I love that pretty mug.  Congratulations on getting the garden planted.  Sorry to hear you are having some digestive issues.  I do well with broths. 

I've read that gluten is much higher in modern wheat, which is bred to be easier to harvest and hardier than ancient wheat.  My doctor tells me not to even eat old style wheat, however; he says all gluten is bad for my particular case ( I am not Celiac, but I have a chronic inflammatory disease).  I also ask, how did people live in the old days, when bread was such an important food source, if even a little gluten is so bad?   I think we need more information.  I'm not sure gluten is the entire problem.  When I do indulge in a little gluten-containing flour, which is rare, I never have a bad reaction.  

I have "Nourishing Traditions" and I was soaking my flours and grains when still eating gluten, but I'm not sure soaking is actually traditional, at least in my area.  My grandmothers (b. 1893 and 1896) never soaked their grains. 

Before giving up gluten, I tried sourdough bread 5 separate times, and it failed, 5 separate times.  I decided it was not for me.  I can make yeast bread with the best of them, but not sourdough.  I make my own yogurt on occasion, but I don't eat much yogurt.  I drink raw milk, and it seems to agree with me very well, something I can't say about pasteurized milk.  I brew my own kombucha and enjoy that every day.   I still shop at grocery stores, but I buy a good bit of meat, some produce and most of my dairy from local farms which emphasize improving the soil, grass-feeding, and organic practices.  Read "The Soil and Health" by Sir Albert Howard sometime.  It is eye-opening about the benefits of naturally good soil.

I've bought wheat for long term storage (and barley and rye too).  The wheat I like the most is from https://www.bellevalleyancientgrains.com/store.  Shipping was high but he was able to give me the lower rate due to where I live. The wheat will last forever. The varieties I got are not high gluten but make a tasty bread anyway.

I also ise the book nourishing traditions. Amazing book. I think soaking grains has always been around, but somewhere in the last hundred years it's been lost. We order all of our things except meat, eggs and dairy from azure standard when we can't find it locally. Their grains especially the organic ones we have had zero issues with. I've had chronic back issues due to breaking it as a young child. I've found that drinking raw milk has greatly increased how it feels. I used to hurt each day and now as long as I have 1 glass or even 2 a day there's no pain. I went my first winter in my life that I can remember with only 2 maybe 3 days of actually hurting. Its felt so good from different grains and milk I started jogging again. That's been over 20 years. I'm nowhere fast, but I call it grandma style even though I'm in my 40s. My doctor though is very upset that I have put on weight, but she never asked how I feel, what's my energy level like, how many vegetables I actually eat in a day, or better yet how much time I spend in front of the TV. We don't have a TV so it's easy to answer that one. We spend our time researching things like soaking rains and how to use certain types of wheat and other grains. Health is so important and you've got to eat sometimes things that just feel good like a beautiful homemade cake or pie. It does so much for our bodies mentally I believe. I'm sorry this was a longer post but felt it was important. ;)