When my husband and I first decided we were going to switch to an all natural food only lifestyle, we weren’t overly excited about saying goodbye to all of our favorite cookies and many (MANY) other sugary treats. I mean let’s be honest, our family wasn’t known for our sugar abstinence. But after all the research we had both done on the potential this kind of lifestyle had to heal our bodies, we knew it would have to be worth it. Then when we realized that by making this adjustment now, when our kids are young, we could spare them from a lifetime of fighting against unhealthy food habits that may lead to their own health issues, it became a no brainer.
So we started making the list of foods and ingredients not to restock once they ran out in our pantry, and we were jazzed and all was well and things were going great! Then my wonderful husband had a very rude awakening… Bread made the no-go list. I may as well have told him that delivering the next baby was on him, it just wasn’t possible! No more eggs and bacon and toast breakfasts? No more biscuits and gravy? But I used to make a lot of home made bread anyway, so it’s ok! He suddenly had a resurgence of hope that we would have all homemade bread all the time, and things would actually be even better! Nope, we walked through the facts about all purpose flour, bread flour, and the fact that all bread has a certain amount of regular old sugar just to feed the yeast enough to make it rise. Then we had a fun science lesson about how the body processes different foods and how it utilizes different forms of nutrition.
Basically, when you take a whole grain, like wheat, off of the plant, that grain is a seed that contains all of the necessary nutrients in order to grow an entire new plant. Think of the potential energy being held in such a small package! So taking that grain and grinding it into a flour would be a very usable form of energy and nutrition for our bodies. Better yet would be to take that grain, which is packed with potential energy and nutrition but technically still in a dormant state, and sprout it. Now imagine that small seed full of potential energy and nutrition, bursting into kinesis as it begins to transform into its plant form. All of those nutrients needed to allow this plant to explode from a sprout into a fully mature plant have developed into their most beneficial form, and yet have not been expended by the plant. So before the plant is able to use any more of its resources, the growth is stopped (by drying), and then it can be milled into a flour and consumed - allowing those nutrients to be utilized by our own bodies. Unfortunately, neither of those scenarios are the case in our run of the mill, all purpose flour that we pick up from the local grocery store. That flour has been ground and then separated until everything except the plant starch has been removed from the final product. Why? Because a plain, grain starch provides a perfect soft, fluffy, textureless, tasteless base to build a recipe off of. You don’t have to worry about the flavor varying from bag to bag based on the nitrogen level of the soil that the plant was grown in, or the amount of rainfall it received that year, or the crop that was being grown in the field next to it. You don’t have to worry about your cake having anything other than a pillowy soft texture, or your bread fermenting instead of rising because the yeast had too much food to consume. It’s easy, it’s consistent, and it’s 100% controllable. Just like a vintner learns the intricacies of the effects of the different growing seasons on his grapes’ flavor, different people down through time have noticed and utilized the terroir of their grains and deemed it an asset to their own gourmet breads and cakes and dishes. With mass produced stripped flour we’ve lost the appreciation for this complexity of flavor within our grain based foods. It’s also completely useless to your body; worse than useless, it’s one step away from plain granulated sugar. Literally! Amylase, the digestive enzyme present in our saliva, is able to break down polysaccharides (simple carbs/complex sugars) into glucose before it even gets to the stomach. So without cutting out these simple carbs, there really is very little point in cutting out the simple sugars.
So reluctantly, very reluctantly, we added bread and flour to the “do not restock” list, and disappointedly came to terms with the fact that our food future was looking very bleak - but still knowing it was necessary for our own health, and irresponsible not to equip our children with the same knowledge and habits. Thankfully, over the next year or so I got as sick of making salads as my family did of eating them, and I started learning and playing around with different forms of truly “whole grain” and sprouted grain flours. I am pleased to say that after MANY failed attempts, and many loaves of fermented, inedible bread, I have now learned the intricacies of baking with this high nutrition, energy packed, complex carb ingredient. And because of that, we get to enjoy yummy pancakes, waffles, bread, biscuits, even cakes and cookies. And on todays' agenda is one of our favorites, bagels!
Here’s what I will say about this process of learning to cook, and learning to eat in a whole new way. It’s best not to tackle it over night. It’s daunting enough to take on such a massive life change, so work your way in gradually. Just like anything else we choose to make a priority in our life, it will become the new normal and you’ll look back and realize that it wasn’t that hard, and suddenly time has passed, and it has gone from an overwhelming inconvenience, to something that has improved your life in every way imaginable.
That being said! This is a great recipe to cut your teeth on, because whatever flour you choose to use, you’re still cutting out the processed sugar that would be in the average bagel, and the addition of the plain greek yogurt is a wonderful addition of pro- and pre-biotics to help get the bacteria in your guts’ microbiome back on track to make the best of whatever healthy meal you choose next!
Everything Bagels Recipe:
2 C Sprouted Grain Flour*
1 C Whole Wheat Flour
1/3 C Coconut Flour
2 Tbsp Baking Powder
1 1/2 tsp Salt
3 to 3 1/2 C Plain, Full Fat Greek Yogurt
Egg Wash
2 Small (farm fresh) Eggs
2 Tbsp. Water
1/2 tsp Salt
Mix flours, baking powder, and salt well. Add yogurt and mix until you get a shaggy, shredded looking dough. Switch to your dough hook and allow to knead until your dough looks more smooth and there are no more loose chunks on the bottom of your bowl - about 4 to 5 minutes. Grabbing about 1/2 of a cup of dough at a time, work the dough into a ball, then flatten and pinch your fingers through the center to make your bagel hole. From there you can easily work your fingers around the edges to make your classic bagel shape. Place bagels on a sprayed cookie sheet and then brush with mixed egg wash. Sprinkle with desired toppings or leave plain. Bake bagels at 375° for 11 min, then rotate pan and bake for another 11 min. Increase oven to 450° and bake for 3 min. to brown the crust. Should make 8-10 bagels.
*If anyone is interested in a quick tutorial on how to sprout your own grains, just let us know - it's easier than you'd think!
**You could sub all whole wheat flour if you don’t have access to sprouted grain flour. Just making sure you're getting the real whole grain stuff - bran, germ, and endosperm included.
If you're looking to go paleo you could easily substitute almond flour for the both grain flours - but beware! Although almond flour sounds incredibly healthy, the vast majority of almond flours are made by blanching almonds before milling them, so most of the nutrition of the almond leeches out into the water and leaves the almond itself useless.
If you substitute AP flour for the whole wheat/sprouted grain flours just be sure to drop your quantity to a total of about 2 1/4 cups. Because of its dense nutrient content, whole wheat flours don’t absorb liquid nearly as well as AP flour, so your substitution ratio is never 1:1.
Comments