Below is an article published in our local paper here in Sequim, Washington.  Our Bread Classes are hand-ons and fun.  Lots of nutritional information and puppets to help you understand better how your body works, how your foods are taken in and how you can improve your health and energy level!  Classes are limited to a maximum of 8.  Grab your friends, sign up here on line, and take home a bundle of information and a 30-page book designed to help you remember.  Recipes are included!

Live Grains.   How does one use them? 

Often people ask us, “Why do you call it ‘live’?” when referring to our cookies and bread products.  This question has many answers.   Let's just look at one answer that pertains to grain.

Let’s begin with the difference between hard winter or spring grain and a soft spring grain.  The growing process and time of the year grown yields very different properties in grain.  Winter crops are often planted in the late fall and allow to germinate. 

With the cold weather the plant is forced to reach deep for it’s  water source, thus creating a very hardy, vigorous plant.  Early spring crops also have to reach deep for water, making them hardy plants as well. 

The later spring crops are often irrigated, thus the plant is coddled and not needing to work as hard.  The result of a plant having to reach deep for water is its nutrient content, especially proteins.  Protein content is at a much higher percentage in the harder grains.  This results in higher nutrients in our baked goods. 

Whole grain flours absorb more water, but often at a slower rate than white flours, so the texture of the dough may be a little rough in the early kneading stages.  Stay with it, it will soften with patient kneading.

All grains have a ‘package’ that keeps them fresh and retaining their nutrients when kept dry in their whole kernel.  As soon as the kernel is ground into flour, all the insides are now exposed to oxygen. 

This exposure will cause the vitamins and minerals to evaporate and the proteins to begin to break down.  Worst of all the essential fatty acids to go rancid after 72 hours have passed, unless frozen. 

This rancidity makes our bodies sick.  It actually causes our bodies to internally oxidize (i.e. age).   Hence, our products are “live” because we grind the grain fresh before every batch and keep all products frozen until ready for sale to keep the nutrients in.  

So at the Live Bread Shoppe, where we teach classes on bread making with a nutritional emphasis, we help our students learn the difference--the “live” difference.   Our baking process is at low temperatures. 

Vitamins and Minerals are heat stable so they thrive in the baking process, so are essential fatty acids and proteins.  The result is a nutrient-rich food that gives your body healthy, complex carbs, the right carbs that are so needed in our diets for optimal health. 

Grinding grain does not take longer than using store bought products.  With the right equipment, one can gather ingredients while the flour is grinding.  The warmth from the grinding makes the flour a welcome environment for the yeast to ‘wake-up’ and perform.   Yeast brings out the best in grains. 

The process of converting the complex carbs in the flour to fuel so it can grow and help the bread to rise actually releases nutrients into a more digestible form for the consumer.  This fermentation process makes whole, fresh ground, grain as nutritious as your sprouted grains eaten as cereal and the like.

Yeast is a live plant.  Its properties when released in fresh dough make for a very powerful, nutrient rich ‘bread of life’ product.  Come learn more about grains, glyconutrients, sweeteners and oils.  Learn how to choose the right ingredients for better hearlth.  Sign up for bread class today! 

We have 3-5 classes a month.  Costing $25/person, $35/couple and lasting 2 ½ hours with many bonuses.  Besides a 30-page book, the student will make bread and muffins in class and take them home, have a protein drink half way through, and enjoy many interesting details about our digestive systems and how to best take care of them. 

To sign up for a class, [click here].

Hope to see you in our classes.