By Betty Shimabukuro
Star-BulletinBleaching agents. Oxydizing agents. Artificial vitamin injections. This is what you get with your average all-purpose white flour. Yum.
Jean Taylor's flour, milled at home, contains whole wheat. Nothing else -- no additives or preservatives, no fake stuff.
A few times a week she scoops some wheat berries into the bowl of her electric mill and out the other end comes soft, fine whole wheat flour. Another hour and she's got bread. No middleman, no wondering about freshness.
This isn't exactly a huge trend sweeping the food world, but in these days of convenience foods and 20-minute meals, it's intriguing to find people taking a step in the other direction.Besides, for the many home cooks already baking bread it's not such a leap. Milling adds only seconds in preparation time.
Still, the idea isn't going to appeal to everyone, Taylor admits. "People just don't have time, they just want to buy the bread."
But for Jean and her husband, Curtis Taylor, the wheat-flour-bread cycle has become second nature. They believe in it so strongly that a couple of months after buying their first flour mill, they bought into the company that makes it.
Since 1985, the Taylors have been the Hawaii distributors for a line of kitchen machines, their flagship product being the $249 Grain Master Whisper Mill.
They also sell a $61 hand mill that makes flour with the turn of a crank -- it's been selling well this year as people try to get off the grid in anticipation of a Y2K meltdown, Curtis says.
Despite their nutritional devotion (and financial ties) to the product, the Taylors are the lowest-key salespeople you'll ever find. They opened Bosch Kitchen Center in the garage of their Aiea home as retirement business they could operate together. Along with the mills, they sell and service the Bosch mixer/blender system, pressure cookers and other small appliances, as well as wheat berries and other bread-baking essentials.
Stop by and you could get a slice of bread (if your timing is right, it'll still be warm), with butter, and Jean may press a mini-loaf on you to take home.
"It's a home business," Curtis says, "no pressure." He has a warm, grandfatherly manner and shares with his wife one of those perfect-fit relationships. They finish each other's sentences and make fun of each other's baking abilities. When a customer doesn't buy, Curtis says, "no big deal ... We make a lot of friends that way."
Here's the case they make for home milling: Storebought flour has to be processed to give it shelf life, which removes much of the natural vitamins, minerals and the nutritious wheat germ. With white flour, you also lose fiber, and the end product is bleached. It's stamped "enriched," though, when some of those nutrients are pumped artificially back into the flour."I'm kind of a nutritional nut," Jean says. "When you look at ingredients, what are those long words? I can't even read them."
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's comparison of white and wheat flour shows two to four times more of most vitamins and minerals in wheat flour. When it comes to fiber, white flour has 3.4 grams compared to 14.6 in wheat.
Freshly milled flour scores even higher because absolutely nothing is removed through processing.
Janet Mills, another milling disciple, grew up in Alberta, Canada, making her own flour as part of a lifestyle focused on whole foods and self-sufficiency. "People in Canada are just generally more prepared, simply because we have winter for so long."
She keeps more than 100 pounds of wheat berries in sealed, 5-gallon buckets. A tablespoon of crushed dry ice at the bottom of the bucket draws out oxygen and kills bugs, Mills says, keeping the wheat fresh indefinitely.
She uses a hand grinder to make flour for bread and says it takes just a few minutes to get the 3 cups needed for a loaf. The end product is so good and so fresh, "by the time breakfast is over, it's like, 'Where'd that loaf go?' "
She also uses wheat berries, unground, to make an oatmeal-like cereal, or puts them through a meat grinder to extend ground beef. "You find creative ways to save money with one income and three kids."
In the end, after considering nutritional trade-offs and the money saved in doing it yourself, the decision to grind comes down to taste. Jean Taylor's bread is soft, seriously fabulous bread -- the kind that will have your family fighting for the last piece.
It took some experimenting, she says. Fresh-milled flour is heavier than store-bought since it contains more bran -- you don't have to use as much. "The first time, I had to throw the whole thing away. It was terrible, like a door stopper."
Curtis Taylor has a favorite story about the longevity of whole wheat. Kept in its whole kernel, he says, wheat will keep indefinitely without preservatives. It's only after it is ground that it begins to deteriorate (leftover flour needs to be kept in the freezer).
"When they brought King Tut out of the tomb, they found wheat berries over 2,000 years old and they planted it and it grew."
This recipe is formulated for fresh-milled wheat flour. Lacking a mill, you can grind a small quantity of whole wheat in a blender. If using store-bought flour, you may need to increase the amount slightly. Sugar and powdered milk may be substituted for the fructose and soy milk.
Jean Taylor, Bosch Kitchen Supply WHOLE WHEAT PANCAKES
1/2 teaspoon saltMix salt, water and eggs. Mix in fructose, milk powder, oil and flour until well-combined. Add in baking powder last, making sure there are no lumps. Pour by 1/4 cupfuls onto a heated non-stick skillet. Turn pancakes when edges are dry. Makes 9 pancakes.
1 cup water
2 eggs, lightly whisked
2 tablespoons powdered fructose
2 tablespoons powdered soy milk
1 tablespoon oil
1-1/4 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powderApproximate nutritional analysis, per pancake: 100 calories, 3 g total fat, 0.5 g saturated fat, 50 mg cholesterol, 250 mg sodium.*
WHERE TO BUY WHOLE WHEAT
Bosch Kitchen Center: 98-546 Kaimu Loop, Aiea (488-6142); $15 for 50 pounds
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