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Post by davida on Feb 25, 2012 23:31:13 GMT -5
Is anyone growing Einkorn wheat? If so, would you be kind enough to share your experiences? Also, has anyone used Einkorn in their baking? If so, would you share your experiences? My daughter adopted a special needs little boy and she is in the process of trying a gluten free diet for him. We are seeing drastic changes (for the better) in his behavior. And I remembered Joseph's post on loosing 40 pounds after eliminating wheat from his diet. People have been eating bread for thousands of years and I wondered what had changed. While reading tonight, I was surprised to discover the wheat we are eating was a genetic manipulated dwarf wheat with twice the chromosomes of the old wheats. Then I remembered the posts by canadamike about "the old oat" and it being so much taller with superior qualaties. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Some quotes that I found interesting from the article: drhyman.com/three-hidden-ways-wheat-makes-you-fat-8425/?utm_source=Publicaster&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=drhyman+newsletter+issue+#56&utm_content=Get+the+story1) "The Bible says, “Give us this day our daily bread”. Eating bread is nearly a religious commandment. But the Einkorn, heirloom, Biblical wheat of our ancestors is something modern humans never eat. Instead, we eat dwarf wheat, the product of genetic manipulation and hybridization that created short, stubby, hardy, high yielding wheat plants with much higher amounts of starch and gluten and many more chromosomes coding for all sorts of new odd proteins. The man who engineered this modern wheat won the Nobel Prize – it promised to feed millions of starving around the world. Well, it has, and it has made them fat and sick." 2)" Gluten is that sticky protein in wheat that holds bread together and makes it rise. The old fourteen chromosome containing Einkorn wheat codes for the small number of gluten proteins and those that it does produce are the least likely to trigger celiac disease and inflammation. The new dwarf wheat contains twenty-eight or twice as many chromosomes and produces a large variety of gluten proteins, including the ones most likely to cause celiac disease." 3)" Not only does wheat contain super starch and super gluten – making it super fattening and super inflammatory, but it also contains a super drug that makes you crazy, hungry and addicted. When processed by your digestion, the proteins in wheat are converted into shorter proteins, “polypeptides”, called “exorphins”. They are like the endorphins you get from a runner’s high and bind to the opioid receptors in the brain, making you high, and addicted just like a heroin addict." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for any information on Einkorn and/or any other old wheats. David
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Post by canadamike on Feb 26, 2012 0:03:20 GMT -5
I saw a lot of it in Provence, but never grew it. It apparently loves dry climates, not a forte of my region. It is mostly grown in the mountains, they have a drier climate that is less hot than the plains.
Very vert tasty in bread
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Post by oxbowfarm on Feb 26, 2012 6:27:37 GMT -5
While reading tonight, I was surprised to discover the wheat we are eating was a genetic manipulated dwarf wheat with twice the chromosomes of the old wheats. David Actually modern wheat contains three times the chromosomes as einkorn and emmer, they are diploid. Modern wheat is a hexaploid except for durum wheat for pasta which is a tetraploid. I think its great that you're finding a diet that is working well for your sister's son. "Genetically manipulated" is kind of a loaded term. The Green Revelution dwarf wheat and rice varieties were bred using traditional plant breeding techniques of hand pollination, selection, etc. They are certainly genetically manipulated but so is every domesticated species, that's what makes them domesticated. I don't deny that wheat isn't for everyone, and if eating it makes a person sick then they obviously shouldn't eat it. Wheat is an ancient food plant, eaten since time out of mind. I have a hard time buying into the idea that it is a universal poison that is "toxic for humans". Every person is an individual. For every possible human trait each person falls somewhere on a bell curve. Most people can eat wheat, some people can't. Some people can eat a diet of almost exclusively caribou and seal blubber, I would have a hard time with that one I suspect.
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Post by traab on Feb 26, 2012 8:50:30 GMT -5
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Post by steev on Feb 26, 2012 22:45:25 GMT -5
Experiences with Einkorn:
First year; bought 22 seeds; 15 germinated and planted out; ravaged by deer and rodents; salvaged ~24 seeds.
Second year; 20 germinated and planted out; ravaged by weed-whacking "helper"; salvaged ~50 seeds.
Third year; ~40 germinated and planted out; harvested ~half a cup of seed.
Fourth year; Spring sown in furrows; nearly overwhelmed by weeds; harvested ~half by sickle (damn that sickle was sharp!); harvested ~one quart of seed.
Fifth year; repeatedly tilled to eliminate weeds; Spring sowed in furrows; weekly weed patrols; harvested 32-gal can of seed heads; tried to thresh by chain bucket, not good, broke heads well, didn't knock seed out of hulls, plantable but not edible.
Sixth year; may get around to planting soon; expect to cobble together a grain cradle on my scythe; need to build some sort of friction de-huller.
I WILL grow this stuff and eat it (although perhaps only processed into chicken).
I like Einkorn's nutritional profile and the fact that it's so beardy the deer may not find it too edible, although the elk may trample it a lot, so I may have reasonable success even growing in an unfenced field.
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Post by canadamike on Feb 26, 2012 23:27:54 GMT -5
Believe me, it is VERY VERY flavourful in bread, it's like it brings its own delicate spices with it, the flavour components are that good..
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Post by canadamike on Feb 26, 2012 23:45:29 GMT -5
I need to repeat myself here...OH!! Soooooooo goooooood!
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Post by davida on Feb 27, 2012 0:26:43 GMT -5
Steev, Thank you for all the information. Impressed by your great record keeping. This gardening-farming is a quick and easy job, isn't it? It seems that Einkorn cannot handle weed competition. You and others seem to grow several grains. Is it feasible to grow enough grain for a family, except corn? Are there any grains that you can grow in ample volume and process at home to really make a difference? I have a couple of books on home grain production but would like to hear from the people actually growing it. David
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Post by davida on Feb 27, 2012 0:42:57 GMT -5
I need to repeat myself here...OH!! Soooooooo goooooood! Now we are getting to the crust of the matter. I do enjoy a great bread.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Feb 27, 2012 1:25:07 GMT -5
Is it feasible to grow enough grain for a family, except corn? Are there any grains that you can grow in ample volume and process at home to really make a difference? Corn is easy to grow, and easy to harvest with simple hand tools. Based on the wheat that I grew last year, and doing very rough estimates: It would take about 4/10th acre to feed my family one loaf of bread per day for a year. Time to harvest, thrash, and winnow it based on my lack of any tools, or prior experience would have taken about 160 hours. I'm sure that if I spent a few weeks harvesting, thrashing, and winnowing wheat that I would invent/obtain some time saving methods and/or tools so I wouldn't expect it to take me that long to harvest etc. But I don't think I'd get it under 80 hours. If growing winter wheat that could be planted after the fall frosts have killed most plants, and that would already have a good start months before weeds start growing in the spring that would save a lot on weeding during the growing season.
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Post by steev on Feb 27, 2012 2:29:16 GMT -5
As I've mentioned elsewhere, my microclimate is such that I would generally feel confident planting many grains in late October/early December, once the rains have softened the ground. This past year was exceptional (I hope) in that rain came little and late. Even had the soil not been very dry and hard for tilling, it was too dry to get weeds germinating so they could be destroyed by tilling. It's only within the past month that conditions have been favorable for seedbed prep. The past two weeks, I've seeded patches of hulless oats, rye, kamut, lentils, and garbanzos. The wheats and hulless barleys I transplanted out last Fall are growing vigorously (those plants that survived the unexpected dry months). These transplants were never more numerous than for seed multiplication, but I expect the patches to provide at least some food as well as sufficient seed for substantial plantings.
What experience I have shows me that the hulless grains are not very arduous to thresh, nor is reaping all that time-consuming when done on scythe-scale, compared to harvesting and shelling corn. Further, for me, the advantage of growing grains without irrigation, during months when I can't grow corn or rice, is well worth the trouble. Besides which, I get a broader supply of materials from which to make breads, mush, or booze.
So for me, corn (and rice, if I can work out how to do it) is a Summer/early Fall crop, due to temperature constraints, while wheat, oats, rye, barley, and such are late Fall/ Spring crops.
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Post by MikeH on Feb 27, 2012 11:29:28 GMT -5
Apparently there is a naked einkorn, Triticum sinskajae,although googling is easier than finding but this might be a start.
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Post by steev on Feb 27, 2012 11:51:31 GMT -5
That could only be a blessing, given the difficulty of getting this stuff out of its hulls.
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Post by MikeH on Feb 27, 2012 15:07:18 GMT -5
Sixth year; may get around to planting soon; expect to cobble together a grain cradle on my scythe; need to build some sort of friction de-huller. When you're done cobbling, can you post a picture? Also, I had this memory flash and remembered this - www.islandgrains.com/lawrences-homemade-thresher/. He used it on Ethiopian Blue Tinged Wheat which is apparently an emmer but a bit unusual since it releases easily from the husk. There's someone in Capay, CA who is growing Ethiopian Blue Tinged Wheat. Also a couple of folks who are growing emmers and/or einkorns who might have some insights if not experiences to share - Jim Ternier and Dan Jason.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Feb 27, 2012 18:20:39 GMT -5
In my experience, a grain cradle is one of those deceptively simple tools that are actually incredibly difficult to make. I've made several attempts at one and none of them worked. Either the straw and grain flop over the top of it or they clog the blade and prevent it from cleanly cutting more wheat. Forget about dumping out a neat little pile to be shocked.
I've gone to the most ancient of tools, the sickle. I think that unless you are trying to harvest more than an acre of grain by yourself you are better off with a sickle unless you can find a functioning antique cradle or want to devote 5-6 years of trial and error re-inventing the grain cradle.
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