bread...the staff of life

A fine loaf of sourdough from one of our great customers
@_BrendaLe

"{bread} contains more nutrients per weight than meat, milk, potatoes, fruits, and vegetables (Thomas, 1976)."


An interesting article from McGill University on bread and cereal grains. This is a must read for those who are interested in human nutrition and grains. This information, combined with Dr. Davis' book Wheat Belly, confirm in my mind the need for better education on modern wheat varieties and how they are poisoning us and the absolute need to revert back to the older, heritage varieties of grains.
  
http://eap.mcgill.ca/publications/EAP35.htm

a discussion on organics

I had a visit last week at market from an Agronomist who used to work for Monsanto. She said that she doesn't like the company anymore, but she still wouldn't agree with me on some of my points regarding the benefits of organics and the issue of modern wheat varieties causing our modern dietary sensitivities. I have to truly wonder if she isn't still brainwashed by the company she claims not to respect any longer? Hmmm. Anyway, she went on arguing with me on my points regarding modern wheat varieties. Once she started losing that argument, she started in about certain studies she was aware of and whether or not organic agriculture has increased nutrition over conventional, chemical based farming.

I don't mind people disagreeing with me...when they're correct. One thing I cannot stand is uninformed or ignorant opinions. Opinions that lack common sense. Come at me with a point that makes sense and it is probably the right opinion. Here's an example of some of the criteria I use to form my opinions. Usually in the form of questions...so I'll pose some questions to you.

What makes more sense to you?

Organic agriculture is in fact more nutritious because the practice of organics involves the increased health of the soil...micronutrients and microbiology. OR...modern, chemical agriculture produces more nutritious food because it simply injects P, K and N in the form of petroleum based fertilizer and soil-sterilizing Ammonia? 

Which statement makes more sense to you?

Humans have de-evolved in the past 20 years to the point where many of us can no longer safely digest grains and certain nuts. OR

Certain grains and nuts have been biologically changed through intensive breeding practices and chemical and genetic intervention to the point where our bodies can no longer safely digest them?

Don't talk to me about the effectiveness and correctness of certain studies either. We are all aware that any study and almost any statistics can be manipulated to say what we desire them to say. Which study would an intelligent person, concerned about their health and family's well being choose to believe?

A study sponsored by a huge, multi-national corporation with a team of lawyers and scientists at their disposal? OR

A study sponsored by a relatively small University or industry based organization, likely regional, but certainly independent?

People are afraid to believe something other than what they already believe. I do not understand that fear. What if I am wrong about my views on the world? How would my world be negatively effected if somebody more intelligent than I came up to me and made a series of points that made me understand the errors of my ways? Wouldn't that be a good thing? Shouldn't we all wish for that sort of enlightenment? 

While I will always consider the source and choose to form my opinions based on common sense and independent studies, I will always seek out opposing viewpoints and have an open mind. By all means...give me an argument. Just don't be wrong about it.  Comments?

spelt waffles

We enjoyed my new Waffle Iron this morning. It was a Christmas gift to me by my wife Cindy. One of those gifts that had my name on it, but wasn't really for me! So, for the first time, I hauled it out and came across this recipe for waffles. The only substitutions I made was our fresh milled Spelt Flour and the Vanilla we purchased on our recent trip to Mexico. It is a clear vanilla, organic and aged...wonderful!

The waffles turned out spectacular! A very successful recipe and a great way to use Gold Forest Spelt Flour!

My camera went missing recently so you'll have to take my word for it that these waffles came out golden brown and perfect! The waffle iron is by Cuisinart as pictured.

"Park" wheat - our heritage variety

Over the years, we have found that the Park variety of wheat has been the most successful for us in our organic rotation. Park is a heritage variety that was finally released to the public in 1963. It has a lineage of parents that go back directly to North America's first commercial wheat "Red Fife".

Park Wheat - 1963 from "Thatcher"
Thatcher - 1935 from "Marquis" and a Durum variety (maybe this is why Park makes such great pasta?)
Marquis - 1910 from "Red Fife" and "Hard Red Calcutta"
Red Fife - 1885 See a bit of it's history in my video below.


We have grown several different varieties of wheat over the years. Our professional bakers have always been our best source of information as to the actual baking qualities of different wheats. Park Wheat flour from our farm is currently being used exclusively in Bon Ton Bakery's Heritage Whole Wheat loaf and other select products in their store.

This is the same wheat that my Grandfather grew in the 60's and 70's and today it produces as well as it did then. Park is our main wheat variety and as a heritage variety, we'll protect it for future generations to enjoy.

back to business

Now that we are back from our little Christmas holiday with friends in Mexico, I feel re-energized and fresh. Time to start thinking of ways to expand our farm product sales and make things more efficient. In the coming weeks, we will be hiring some farm help in order to help me stay caught up with orders. Our milling building, while functional, still needs some fine-tuning and minor carpentry work.

We are also going to be working on our booth at the Old Strathcona Farmers Market. Some of you have noticed our new display stand that we purchased from TR Greenhouses, now we will work on some better signage and display items to further enhance our presence there. One of the things we are working on is a farm video that will play during the market showing some of our farming activities. Lots to do.

We are really looking forward to 2012. We will continue to work hard at finishing our farm yard and house projects along with growing the flour business. I hope you will continue to follow along!

John

Merry Christmas from sunny Mexico!

Doesn't feel a whole lot like Christmas where we are right now. As I type, my wife is reading in a lounge chair near the pool and I sit under a thatched roof poolside. Not a sign of Christmas anywhere other than large Poinsettias on the patio. Still, it is indeed December 24th and we are thinking of Christmas wishes for our friends and family back home.

There are a few new plans for the farm for 2012. We will have an on-farm store where folks can come and pick up their orders at their convenience. This makes things easier for everyone and will allow us some cost savings instead of making extra trips to deliver smaller orders.

We also have some additional storage bins on the farm this year, that will allow us to control a larger amount of grain products. That means that we will run out of products far less often.

There is still a lot of work to do around the farm and our business but we are devoted to making things work better and more profitably in 2012. Stay tuned and please be sure to visit us at Old Strathcona Farmers Market and Wild Earth Foods. New customers will also be announced in 2012!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you! Thank you for supporting our little farm in 2011.

John

kutya (kutia) traditional Ukrainian Christmas dish

For all my Ukrainian heritage friends out there we are making it easier to enjoy a holiday favorite by providing wheat berries at the Strathcona Farmers Market every Saturday from 8-3. 1kg bags to 22.7kg

Traditional Ukrainian sweet grain pudding...a Christmas tradition!
Picture from Ukrainian.ca

Of course many people are now interested in achieving a local rice substitute...wheat berries may be the ticket. Enjoy this easy to prepare dish at any time of the year. The variations on this dish are endless, so use your imagination. The Recipe


Perhaps instead of a sweet grain pudding it is savory...cumin, garlic, roasted onions. Develop your own favorite way to enjoy wheat as a rice replacement and support your local farmers!

a great food blog

The Laughing Gastronome

I got tuned in to this blog through my friend Kevin's Blog. The particular post regarding pain a l’ancienne has me excited to try something new with my bread. I have not had the time to really sink my teeth into truly good bread building, but it is something that has always intrigued me. As always, it will be with our own fresh milled flour so I trust that I will have to adjust for the healthful benefits of a true "entire grain" flour. The extra germ and bran will be dealt with accordingly, possibly through sifting. I can then use the sifted germ/bran in my oatmeal or a nice batch of raisin bran muffins perhaps.

Anyways, I thought I would share a new blog discovery with you and thank Kevin for inspiring me to bake some bread again!

hand powered flour mill - Nov. 29 2011

The most popular post on our blog is this one from March 16, 2009. It is a simple little post about hand powered flour mills. I am not sure why I never followed up on this, but it is certainly about time. @cinnymom (twitter friend) pointed out to me that the Bosch Kitchen Centre, which I guess is actually Barb's Kitchen Centre, has hand powered mills here in Edmonton. They are on 9766-51 avenue and their number is 780-437-3134.

I am not sure what brand they carry or the quality of the mill so check it out and comment if you can. I am almost never in that end of town and can't make a special trip at this point in time so I'll rely on somebody to post a comment if they can here on the blog.

If you know of other hand powered mills like the ones sold here in Armstrong, BC please share your comments with everyone. Apparently its a popular topic...since 2009!

playing with tractors

Cold start of the 3788 2+2 tractor on Sunday.



By the way, the old Pontiac is for sale if anyone is interested. I was told by the owner that it is a 1970 model with the GTO engine. So that would be the 400? I am not sure. Other cool old vehicles to follow.

gluten free crazy

Here is the definitive article on the subject of the consumption of wheat and the "gluten free" fab dieters who have it all wrong.

Read the whole article through. Anyone who has ever talked to me at my table will have heard the same speech and long before I ever came across this article (5 mins ago).

McLeans Article on Wheat

Modern wheat varieties are bad. They are indeed killing us. Modern flour production practices are bad and again, are slowly killing us.

"It could turn out that if we wind back the clock 100 or 1,000 years, and resurrect einkorn or some of the heritage forms of wheat, maybe that would be a solution."
Dr. William Davis


Eat whole, raw, unprocessed "entire grain" flour. Buy it from local producers who are growing heritage varieties of wheat and your gluten concerns go away. There is a lot of research that shows eating all of the raw bran and germ from a wheat kernal will in fact lower the glycemic index and HELP with weight control.

Don't be a sheep. Look for good quality food and follow your common sense. People have not de-evolved from eating wheat over the past 20 years when we've been eating it for 10 of thousands of years. What's changed then? The wheat.

what comes around...

We just got an amazing phone call today from some friends from our old neighborhood. They are bringing us a load of firewood this morning! We didn't ask for the wood and we were certainly not expecting it, but nonetheless here it comes. What a wonderful surprise.

It just got me to thinking about things a bit. Lately I have been on a bit of a good deed splurge. Not for the sake of getting something in return, just because I haven't done enough of that sort of thing lately. I certainly had no intentions of telling anyone about these deeds...I didn't even tell my wife. I just wanted to do something nice for people, have a good feeling about myself, and know that I've helped out just a little bit in this world.

Then comes today's little surprise and it gets me thinking about cosmic banking. How many credits do we put in the bank before an automatic withdrawal is made? Go ahead and drop a 20 in the Salvation Army bubble and don't take a tax receipt. Stop along the side of the road to help somebody change a tire. Even something as simple as shoveling the extra sidewalk length for a neighbour.

I remain of the opinion that we should do nice things for strangers for the sheer joy of doing so, but it doesn't go unnoticed that when we do nice things, we achieve nice things. I guess it really doesn't get much more simple than that does it?

Beef Update

I spoke with my butcher Tony yesterday. He is feeling a little better and is at least mobile with a cane. He is scheduled to process the beef on Dec. 4th. It will hang for more than a week and then be cut and wrapped. All of our beef should be ready to go around the middle of December! Yaay! We are eating the only beef we have left...burger. Getting anxious for a steak!

straw bale house performance

Thought I would post again about our little strawbale house on the prairie. It got down to minus 26 last night and sits right around minus 20 today. But, the sun is shining here in Sunny Alberta! What that means is that our passive solar design is busily heating our home...for free...without petroleum...without any cost or extra energy whatsoever.

We have not had the propane fueled in-floor heating run since at least two days ago. When it runs so seldom it is hard sometimes to remember when it last worked. Usually though, we turn that heat on only when we decide that we would like the comfort of hot floors on a cloudy, cold winter day. Luckily that seldom happens here in Alberta. Our winters are noted for their cold, but cloudless days. The sun blasts through our south facing windows, its radiant warmth soaking into our concrete floors, granite counters and various furniture. Once the sun sets, that stored heat is slowly released into the home. Actually, even on the coldest of days it sometimes gets too warm in our house and we are forced to crack open the window in the kitchen to let in some cold.

Besides the passive solar heating, our main source of heat is the little wood stove in the living room. It is one of the smallest stoves on the market, but once it is hot we have to turn all the settings as low as they will go to avoid sauna-like temps in the main living space. A heat-powered fan sitting on the stove pushes some warm air down the hallway to the back bedrooms...everyone is comfy cozy.

As I type, watching football on a Sunday afternoon, we have not had any fuel-based heat source in our house since before bedtime last night. The stove has been cold since sometime in the middle of the night and it has been a t-shirt temperature ever since. At some point later this afternoon, probably around suppertime, I will start the woodstove again. I really love this house.

p.s. The power went out earlier this morning and I started thinking about our neighbour's houses. How long can the power stay out before an ordinary house starts getting uncomfortably cool...or cold...or water lines start to freeze? Especially when it is minus 30 or 40 degrees in the middle of January.

xplornet fail

Because so many people that read our blog are rural residents I feel a need to warn people about xplornet. This is a rural internet provider based out of the maritimes. Please check out references prior to subscribing with this company! We didn't and now are regretting that decision.

The performance of this internet provider is abysmal. We have finally given up phoning in our complaints. In fairness to the company they have made considerable efforts to fix our problems...all to no avail. Our internet service is spotty, slow, or non-existent so often that it is a serious source of stress for our family.

We also use them for our phone service and the phone will cut off part way through 98% of our phone conversations...short or long. So much so that we start off each conversation with strangers by saying "if I cut out, I'll call you right back". Our friends and family are so familiar with this that it is a joke amongst us.

Watching family movies via netflix is usually unbearable with pauses sometimes as often as every 16 seconds.

Please, check out other xplornet customers in your area prior to subscribing! The thing that is most alarming about this is that our signal is extremely strong we are told. Our local tower is within viewing distance. For whatever reason though (I suspect it is over-subscription) the performance is awful. We signed a three year contract...sigh. As long as I can warn others.

Beef Processing

I jsut got off the phone with our processor Tony over at Cardiff Meat and Sausage. He has just gotten back from the hospital after being throw out of the back of a cattle trailer while loading cattle over the weekend! Ouch. I guess Tony has injured his knee quite badly. So, this means that I will need to source another guy we've used in the past. I will call him to see what his availability is and then call Tony in another week to see if he is any more mobile by then...doubtful.

That is too bad for Tony to get injured at such an important time of year. Please be patient with me while I make other arrangements for beef processing.

John

OK...phoned a guy we have used in the past before we moved. He gets busy at this time of year with wild game...he hunts too! So I have asked him to book the day, but he won't be available until later this month. That means beef will be ready (after hang time) sometime in early to mid December. I'll keep posted.

Farm Update - Market Update - Oct. 28

Done with harvest for the year which is a relief. Now though we are busy trying to get some fall tillage done along with baling up the flax straw. I have had to go back to work with my off-farm job so getting all of this done before it snows is going to be touch and go. Today I was busy milling and packaging for Old Strathcona Farmers Market tomorrow and I replaced a bearing on the baler and started baling the flax straw. One problem though, forgot to tighten the bolts on the scraper bar. It came loose and wrecked a bunch of belts. Its tough enough to farm when things go right...doubly tough when you do stupid things. Now I have to spend money on new baler belts and lose a few days baling time. Grrrr. Got a call today from a potential customer wanting pancake mix for Christmas gift baskets. They wanted them in 500g size so that gave me the idea to package smaller bags of pancake mix for the Christmas season. I need to design some new labels for the smaller bags, but that should be easy. I should have the smaller sized pancake mixes sometime in early November. If anyone out there is in the Gift Basket business here is a good item for you. 500g bags of Organic, fresh milled grains, organic baking powder and sugar and sea salt!

Swathing Organic Wheat 11

Just a quick video of swathing wheat earlier this fall.

Straw Bale House Update - Oct 2011

Just another quick video update of the house. Getting the final coat of stucco installed this week. I really love the colour and texture...old world.

what's different about our flour?

I just wanted to take a moment to briefly discuss our flour products. We are asked often about why our flours taste so wonderful. What do we do differently?

Well, the only thing we do is mill our grains fresh. All other flour products that we are aware of have been processed prior to packaging and shipping. The germ is removed, as that is the part of the grain that spoils quickly once the oils are exposed to the air and a lot of the bran is also removed. Our flour products are 'entire grain' products. Whatever comes out the bottom of the stone mill is what we package. For this reason Gold Forest Grain flours are best kept refrigerated. We mill 'on order' for our customers. This way, the flour is the freshest flour possible. No other flour products in the Edmonton market are as fresh or complete as ours...this is what makes our flour the best in town!

One other factor about us is our grains and the way they are grown. Organic. Heritage species.

How to use our flour products? Because all of our flours are 'entire grain' they will require slightly altered recipes. All of the germ and bran is present in the flour...of course this also means that ALL of the taste is there too! Most professional and experienced bakers tell me that slightly more moisture and a slightly longer kneading time is required when making bread. If you require your flour to be lighter in texture...something that most North Americans are used to you can simply sift our flour. It wasn't long ago that every kitchen had a sifter. Of course, don't throw away all that goodness you've sifted out, use it in another recipe or sprinkle the fresh bran over your cereal. 

Local. Heritage. Fresh. Whole. Good! Simple.

Dear John and Cindy Schneider, 

"I have recently bought a bag of your whole wheat berries, and am very satisfied. When I bought them, I was asked what I would do with them, since I wasn't planning on making flour, and there's lots you can do! If you soak the berries overnight in cool water, they go great in salads, stews, soups, or by themselves as a snack. I haven't tried it yet, but mixing them with fruit and yogurt for breakfast also seems like a great idea. Since I am a recently converted vegetarian, it's great to discover new foods to incorporate in my diet, especially since whole grains have a decent amount of protein in them. Thank you for a great product!"

Kira Dlusskaya

straw bale house update August 2011

potato buckwheat pancakes!

A new recipe from a new friend! http://tripleheartbeat.wordpress.com/

This is a new blog and it looks good so far. I hope that it is a success!

flax is blooming

Here is a picture of part of our field of Organic Golden Flax. Flax is my favourite crop in the summer when it is blooming. This is an ok crop of flax. When it is a great crop, the fields are solid blue for days on end...lovely.

July 2011 crop tour

Just finished with the little patch of summerfallow...trying to get rid of thistle and wild buckwheat. Up on the tractor tire for a better view of the field of organic wheat. This, as usual, is Park Wheat. Park is the main wheat we grow for high protein baking.





This is the view down the driveway of our home property. A pretty nice crop of organic Gold Flax considering the abysmal weather we've had all year long. Drought in April and May without a drop of rain meant that the seed sat in the ground for weeks trying to germinate, followed by unrelenting rain in June and July which has now drowned large patches of crop.

Spelt Flour

We now have organic Spelt Flour for sale! This is the only grain that we are currently not growing ourselves. Spelt is an ancient grain that has a slightly longer growing season. We have secured some seed from a southern Alberta farmer and we are hoping that within a few generations we will be able to grow our own local Spelt. In the meantime, due to strong demand we are milling spelt flour from the grains we have purchased off-farm. It is a wonderful looking flour...bright white with a red bran. Beautiful. I haven't had a chance to bake with it yet, but I am looking forward to having some time to do something with it soon. 

Today's sales at Old Strathcona Farmers Market were strong for the Spelt. Folks are certainly eager for Organic Spelt flour! Every week at market is better than the last and the feedback we are getting from our customers is glowing. I know we are on the right track with what we are doing and it inspires me to continue.