[Note: The following is a snippet from an email I sent to my cousin's wife who had asked if we were still grinding our wheat and making our own bread products. She wanted to know if it was a lot of trouble and time, and if it was really worth pursuing. This is part of my response.]

To start answering your questions, yes, I'm still grinding and baking our bread and other bread products (hot dog/hamburger buns, pizza crust, cookies, etc.). The bread freezes very well, so I think it is convenient and really not all that much trouble since I have a great mixer (the DLX on the Bread Beckers site). It takes me about 5 hours from start to finish to make 2 or more loaves, but I'm only doing something for 1/2 hour of that time. The rest is letting it rise, get kneaded, etc.

Doug and I have talked about this [the health aspects] recently since we kinda had a little "experiment" going on with this whole bread thing. My main motivation for starting it was for his allergies. He has terrible allergies in the spring and fall. During those seasons, if he has to mow the grass or be outside for any length of time, he's sure to be "out of it" and miserable for the rest of the day with sneezing, watery eyes and nose, etc. On the days he's not outside, he still feels pretty crummy, but not bad enough to miss work. We tried OTC [over-the-counter] allergy meds for a season but they didn't really help all that much and made him sleepy. So, last fall he said that he wanted to go to the doctor and get some prescription stuff (Claritin or whatever). That's when I heard about grinding the wheat and how it could help with allergies (among other things). I asked him if we could try this first, since neither of us (especially me) are big on prescription meds. I was amazed when he said yes, even though I wanted to go all out and spend around $800 on startup (to get the wheat, honey, grinder, and DLX mixer). So I started grinding last September [2001], thinking it would be in his system enough by the spring to really give it a good test.

Well, before spring came, he and I both started losing weight because of the bread and drinking more water. He lost around 10 lb. and I lost around 7. This was without even trying. The bread just fills you up more. Before, it would take 2 sandwiches (w/ white bread) to fill him up, now he can only eat 1 w/ my wheat bread. And it tastes better! None of that sticking to the roof of your mouth stuff. I've had a dry skin rash on my upper arms for the last 8 or so years that finally went away (we were drinking more water for about a month before we started eating the bread [because of my pregnancy that resulted in a miscarriage]; the rash was helped by the water, but it totally went away with the bread). We never have constipation.

This spring, it took us a while to realize that Doug should have gotten his allergies already but hadn't! He had a couple of days where his allergies irritated him a bit, but *nothing* like it used to be. He was even able to mow the grass w/o sneezing once! That was the real test. So no Claritin (or OTC, for that matter) for him.

So, yes it is worth it. We will never go back to store-bought bread (or buns, cookies, etc.). I think it may appear to be a little more expensive, depending on how you get your wheat, but I think it all evens out when you consider you eat less of everything else because it fills you up more. Not to mention what you save on doctor bills (not that we ever went, but we were sick a lot more). Doug hasn't had a single cold or bout with the flu since we started this. I've had one cold (possibly because I'm pregnant).

I don't even have white flour in the house. If a recipe calls for white flour as a thickener, I use pinto or Great Northern bean flour (they have a more white flour consistency than the wheat). I just keep a bag of bean flour in the freezer. They work great, and I'm sneaking in a little extra protein that way. The wheat flour makes great cookies. It gives them a nice nutty flavor, which we like. My chocolate chip oatmeal cookies have a peanut butter flavor to them, even though there's not a bit of peanut butter in them!

July 15, 2002