Here is an easy way of finding the healthiest breads and cereals that you can. Number one, look for the words WHOLE GRAIN. Look at the first two ingredients, if one those two do not say WHOLE GRAIN, put it back! Number 2, look for the FDA-approved health claim that reads “In a low fat diet, whole grain foods may reduce the risk of heart disease and some forms of cancer”. That sounds easy enough doesn’t it. Now you have no more excuses when you are at the store. You can find healthy breads and cereals for you and your family.

Well, we know how to find whole grain foods, but even at that, there is still discrepancy between how much whole grain should be in the food to make it the healthiest. Look once again at the nutritional statement on the box. There are two things you really want to look for. Fiber grams and Sugar grams. High fiber, low sugar is the best bet. So, what is high fiber, what is low sugar? The FDA will usually only put their mark of approval on foods that are good or excellent sources of fiber. A good source of fiber has 6-10 grams of fiber per serving. An excellent source of fiber has 16 or more grams of fiber per serving. Using this as your guide, you need only to eat 3 servings of an excellent source of fiber, or 6 of the good sources of fiber. As far as sugar goes you should eat foods with 2 grams or less of sugar per serving. The more sugar in the servings, the less fiber that will be in it. The more fiber, the less sugar. Lets look at a new trend General Mills is coming up with. Take the new whole grain, low sugar Cinnamon Toast Crunch. We need to look at both boxes to compare this. Here is the regular cereals stats. 130 Calories, 10 grams of sugar and 1 gram of fiber. How about the new cereal, 120 calories, 2 grams of sugar and 2 grams of fiber. General mills has done a pretty good job. If you have to eat cinnamon toast crunch, then this will be better than the original. But does it stack up to our new found knowledge? NO! There is hardly any fiber in this cereal to make it a good source of fiber. It would not be considered a good source, or an excellent source. They did manage to make it look better on paper however, or cardboard to be exact. How about one of those healthy cereals? Let’s look at Kashi GoLean Crunch. It says seven whole grains, it has 190 calories per serving, 8 grams of fiber and 13 grams of sugar, it also contains 9 grams of protein.

When looking at the nutritional facts on the box the first set of ingredients is, whole oats, whole long grain brown rice, whole rye, whole hard red winter wheat, whole triticale, whole buckwheat, whole barley, and sesame seeds. The second item is soy protein concentrate, and the third is evaporated cane juice, followed by brown rice syrup. So we are getting better on our choices here. Even with the high sugar content, which is all natural by the way, they do have whole grains, and multi-grains at that. I am not saying natural sugar is really much better for you, but at least it is not the refined white sugar that we see so often. These natural sugars will still affect your blood sugars, but will take a little longer than refined sugar. Put this cereal next to our new set of standards and how does it stack up? Well, we are doing good on fiber, the added protein is a good addition, sugar however is still above the recommended health benefit. Is it good for you? It is better than even the whole grain low sugar Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but you will need to decide if this is the best you can do.

So, with all this information what should we do? We should try to make the best choices available. If you are afraid that eating healthier will cause you to be slaving away in the kitchen you need to realize that there are so many products out there that are good for you and easy to fix. Take for example the Grinin Grains line. Home made batches of scone mix, pancake mix, waffle mixes, and cereal mixes. These are made in small batches using the whole grain and priding themselves on the healthiness of their product. Breads, cereals, pastas, and even baked goods are beginning to come around and make the change to provide a healthier food choice for your family. Shouldn’t you try and do the same?

In our busy lives sometimes we don’t often think about some of life’s most important things namely our own good health. When we get sick, many times we just tough it out and not even take off long enough to go to the doctor. The best thing however, is to take preventative measures to ward off evil sickness and down time.

A couple super foods that come to mind that helped me stay away from the doctor’s office have been wheat germ and apples. Of course everyone uses apples but not so many people have heard of wheat germ. It’s a sodium and cholesterol free food found in the cereal section of your local food store. It’s an excellent source of vitamin E and folic acid.

Wheat germ can be sprinkled on your cereal, oat meal and apples or any other fruit as well. Mix it in your next meat loaf will bring the whole family asking for more! The secret is to replace bread crumbs with wheat germ. I’ll even give you a recipe for it at the end of this article. Wheat germ is excellent to help your complexion, nails and hair growth and it helps to prevent constipation.

Apples are rich in vitamins such as calcium, iron, phosphorus, potassium and provides important minerals as well. They help to cleanse your teeth, mouth and supply pectin, an aid to good digestion. They’ve proved to improve bone density, lower cholesterol and help with weight loss.

Apples are good to help prevent Alzheimer’s, lung cancer, liver cancer, colon cancer and to help manage diabetes. The apple juice has been proven to help asthma in children.

OK here’s that special quick and easy nutritional booster recipe for replacing bread crumbs wheat germ in your favorite meat loaf.

Mini Meat Loaves with Honey-Mustard Sauce

Ingredients: 1 ½ pounds lean ground lean beef or turkey

¾ cup Kretschmer original wheat germ

½ cup chopped green onions

1/3 cup water

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon black pepper

1 egg white, slightly beaten

¼ cup Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons pure honey

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. For meat loaves, combine first seven ingredients in large bowl; mix lightly, but thoroughly. Sharpe meat mixture into eight 3 x 2-inch loaves; place in baking dish. Bake 30 to 35 minutes to medium done (160degrees F) or until center is no longer pink and juices show no pink color. Let stand 5 minutes before serving. For sauce, combine mustard and honey; mix well. Or, for added convenience, use ready prepared honey-mustard sauce. Serve sauce over meat loaves.

Nutrition Information: 1/8 of recipe

Calories 240, Calories from fat 110, Total fat 13g, Saturated Fat 4.5g, Cholesterol 50mg, Sodium 220mg, Carbohydrate 14g, Dietary Fiber 1g, Protein 19g, Folic Acid 70meg (15% of DV) Vitamin E 4.5 I.U. (15% of DV).

Cook’s Tips:

* Substitute barbecue sauce, teriyaki sauce or ketchup for mustard and honey

* Serve with noodles, couscous or quick-cooking rice.

Wheat is mainly utilized for consumption. Wheat is transformed into flour so that human can consume it through various methods. Wheat is mainly utilized for making bread and also other bakery items. Owing to its high rates, the utilization of wheat is limited for animal feed and industrial purposes. Today wheat is grown throughout the world. It is adaptable to diverse elevation, climates and soils. But when it comes to select good quality wheat then it should be selected on the basis of quality aspects mentioned below.

Wheat quality mainly has two aspects. The foremost is the physical quality, which refers to freedom from foreign matter, soundness of wheat and cleanliness. The second is the processing quality, which means suitability for diverse uses. These aspects should be considered while selecting good quality wheat. However, wheat is categorized according to the protein content and the texture of the endosperm. The way the grain breaks down while milling depends on the texture of the endosperm. The property of the flour and its suitability for diverse uses depends on the protein content.

The endosperm texture may be vitreous or mealy. The mealy or vitreous character is hereditary, but is not affected by the environment. Therefore, einkorn wheat, emmer wheat and macaroni wheat are some wheat with vitreous kernels, whereas club wheat and bread wheat are mealy. Vitreous kernels are translucent and look bright under strong light while mealy kernels are opaque and look dark under similar situations.

Wheat types are mainly categorized as soft or hard and as weak or strong. Vitreous wheat is strong and hard in nature while the mealy wheat is weak and soft however the association is not invariable. Hardness is related to the degree of adhesion between protein and starch. Softness and hardness refer to the way in which the endosperm breaks down while milling. World wheat’s are arranged to their degree of hardness as extra hard, hard, medium and soft.

The strength of wheat relates to its baking quality. Strong wheat can be used to create good crumb structure, big loaf volume and high-quality keeping qualities. This type of wheat is rich in protein. Hard wheat is used to produce flour that we use in our day to day life and to produce bread. The weak wheat possess low protein contain and this kind of wheat can only produce small loaf that too with coarse crumb structure. This kind of wheat is perfect for manufacturing cakes and biscuits but they are unsustainable for bread preparation.

Whole wheat is ground for individual use by the families. Whole wheat is mainly utilized for the production of unleavened bread across the globe. It is estimated that very less nutrient loss occurs in such type of production. Typically, every consumer prefers to purchase the variety that caters their requirements in regards to performance. You will not find loads of information about the performance of diverse varieties in indigenous wheat preparations. Consequently, selection is completely based on experience and personal knowledge of the consumer.

In Part One, Dr. Davis gives us the shocking news (if we didn’t already know it), that Whole Wheat is unhealthy. In fact, the wheat we have today is nothing like the wheat of old – as recently as with our grandparents. He gives a thorough history of the grain of wheat. Gluten is the key ingredient, according to Davis, that makes wheat stick together and what makes problems for many. Other grains have gluten as well, but since Americans do not eat as large quantities of these other grains as we do wheat, Davis simplifies by saying, “wheat.”

Then, in Part Two, Davis presents all of the ways in which wheat destroys health. What we have today has been genetically changed into something that is actually addictive. Dr. Christine Zioudrou and her colleagues of the National Institutes of Health studied the effect of gluten on the brain. It penetrates the blood-brain barrier. Based on the effects to the brain, they called the polypeptides “exorphins” – short for exogenous morphine-like compounds. Also, wheat functions as an appetite stimulant. Wheat produces belly fat that looks like a pregnant belly. Further, wheat triggers the production of a cycle driven by insulin of satiety and hunger with emotional ups and downs. This visceral fat is very dangerous to our health. One outcome is diabetes.

Some suffer from celiac disease – the intestines react violently when wheat, even a tiny bit is consumed. While animal products including cheese upset the pH in the body by producing too much acid, wheat also disrupts the balance. Excess acid in the body produces joint pain and demineralizes the bones. Other problems that wheat causes include cataracts, wrinkles, osteoporosis and dowager’s hump (bent posture) skin problems (acne, rash), and heart disease. Regarding the brain, wheat messes with cerebellar health. “Cerebellar ataxia is progressive, getting worse with each passing year until the sufferer is unable to comb his hair, brush his teeth, or go to the bathroom alone. Even the most basic self-care activities will be performed by someone else.” (p.167) Peripheral neuropathy has also been linked to gluten. MRIs have also shown brain damage in the cerebral cortex the center of memory and higher thinking. Dementia and temporal lobe seizures have been connected with wheat as well.

Finally, in Part Three, Davis guides his readers in how to “create a healthy, delicious, wheat-free life”. He lists foods that contain wheat and give recipes in the appendix. What is left in a wheat-free life? Vegetables, raw nuts, good oils (butter, olive oil, coconut and others), meat and eggs, some dairy and some fruit. By doing so, you will enjoy a healthy and slender life. Davis makes an excellent case.

My first experience with Ramstein, a little craft-brewer located in Butler, New Jersey, was a stop in at the brewery during one of the “second Saturdays of the month” open brewery tours. It was literally two blocks from my house at the time of my visit, so how could I pass up the opportunity?

Ramstein Blonde Wheat has a distinct fruity nose, and I got a nice hint of apple there. Seriously. Paying special attention to this during my third and fourth sips I noticed how strong the apple characteristic was. I’d even venture to say that there is a honey sweetness mixed in there with that tart apple nose. Very pleasant to sniff!

I noticed a certain spiciness as well. Pours a pale golden color, but had a rather short-lived head. It fizzled pretty quick. Of course that does not spoil the rest of the experience!

This is a bottle conditioned German style wheat beer, not overly carbonated, with a unique quality. The mild carbonation is actually a pleasant quality in this beer, and likely varies somewhat from beer to beer, being that it is bottle conditioned. But I would venture to guess that this moderate carbonation is intentional in this case.

Sports a pleasant tartness, nice malty sweetness, and is very complex and refreshing. Very smooth finish, with a subtle, lingering aftertaste reminiscent of that one might get after taking a sip of a semi-sweet riesling.

Ramstein Blonde Wheat is a nice representation of the German wheat beer style. I liked it, and highly recommend it to anyone who appreciates a fine craft-brewed beer.

The most challenging part of juicing wheat grass and barley grass isn’t juicing the grass; it’s drinking the juice. Wheat grass and barley grass are an energizing tonic for cleansing and detoxifying. Not rich in taste but wheat grass is abundant in chlorophyll, protein, enzymes, vitamins and minerals.

Growing your own wheat grass and juicing it is easy. It is also paramount to ensuring that you receive the highest quality crop, which is able to produce the most nutritious juice. Wheat grass reaches its nutritional peak when it reaches around 7 to 8 inches so is best cut at this height. A 17″x17″ flat of wheat grass will produce 12 to 18 ounces of juice. A handful of wheat grass will yield approximately 1oz of fresh juice.

Wheat grass is very leafy and requires a different type of juicer to most fruit and vegetables. The best juicer to use is a masticating juicer that is specifically designed to crush and juice wheat grass. High speed oxidizes wheat grass and the grass fibers bind so electric juicers should be low rpm.

There are several types of juicers suitable for juicing wheat grass. These include: Dedicated Electric Wheat grass Juicers; Multi-Purpose Wheat grass Juicers; and Twin Gear Juice Extractors which will juice wheat grass as well as other produce. Centrifugal Juicers are not capable of juicing wheat grass.

A Manual Wheat Grass Juicer (Single Auger) is another option. You will need a bowl for the expelled pulp and shot glasses are ideal to hold the juice. Feed the grass into the hopper and crank the handle. The green liquid wheat grass will come out and the pulp will come out separately. You can put the wheat grass pulp through the juicer again. This will produce light green foam for your wheat grass juice.

Drink wheat grass immediately for maximum health benefits. Within 30 minutes of harvesting and juicing, wheat grass starts to lose nutrients and within 12 hours begins to break down and decay. Start by drinking 1oz juice first thing in the morning and do not eat or drink for 15 minutes after. This amount of wheat grass juice is the equivalent in nutrient content to 2.5 lbs of green vegetables. Wheat grass juice is an acquired taste, grassy in flavor with a sweet finish.

As long as you use a juicer, specifically engineered for juicing wheat grass, you will receive the maximum beneficial effects. Growing and juicing wheat grass is a wonderful way to receive a concentrated source of antioxidants. You only need to drink 1-2 ounces of wheat grass per day to receive optimum nutritional benefits

We have all seen it, 100% whole wheat bread that sits next to the white bread. It looks like white bread, but it says enriched. Enriched with what? Well, let me back up a little. When wheat is harvested the whole grain is taken to the refinery. REFINERY, did you see that! The wheat is heated to a point when the germ and the bran fall off. What is left is the starch, the white part, the not good for you part. The part that has a long shelf life and is bug resistant. Do you know why it is bug resistant? Bugs CANNOT sustain life in it. They will die if they only eat this refined grain. So why on earth, with the abundance of good life sustaining food do we eat white flour, which is the starch of the wheat grain ground up. Honestly do I need to answer that? Take a look around and you will see obesity on the rise, and now not only are adults overweight, but kids, little kids are getting more and more fat. Why? We are feeding ourselves all kinds of unhealthy food. Some do it because it is cheaper, some because of taste, and some just because they don’t know any better.

So now that I explained what white bread is made of, let me continue to answer the question of “what exactly is enriched”? After the refinery takes the grains apart and makes white flour, which has no nutrition, they add some vitamins, some minerals, and some fiber, but not even a gram worth. The white bread is enriched with some of the very things they just worked so hard to take out. However, they do not add in as much of the grain they take away, otherwise it would be whole grain. Just enough to add some flavor and calories to it.

What is whole grain? It is the WHOLE grain used in the process of making bread, cereal and the building blocks of many other foods. For it to be truly healthy whole grain needs to be listed on your bread, cereal or other food in the number 1 or number 2 position on the ingredients list. No, whole wheat flour which is followed by (enriched white flour, niacin, and iron) is not healthy, it is a way of making people believe that they are getting a whole grain bread. They are not lying, it is whole wheat flour, but not whole grain. It did come from the wheat plant and it is all wheat, but not all grain. Whole is just another word like all. If you look a little farther down on the list you will see molasses, why molasses you ask? It colors the bread to make it look brown. Yup, white flour plus vitamins and minerals still does not bring the bran back into the bread. Bran is what helps to give the natural brown color to bread. So, they again, add something to it, to try and make it look like something it is not.

Let’s face it EVERY cook makes mistakes (yes, even us professional bakers make boo boo’s).

I’m going to list here, the 7 most common bread baking mistakes that you’re probably making, or might make if you’re not forewarned, and what you can do about them.

Whole Wheat Bread Baking Mistake 1

By far the most common bread baking mistake is when the salt is forgotten to be added to the bread dough.

This results in very bland bread, and even effects the rising of the dough. Making your bread flat on top.

The best solution for this is to use a post it note as a reminder to yourself, to add the salt to the bread dough.

You can stick the post it note where ever you’re most likely to see it (fridge, recipe book, etc..)

Whole Wheat Bread Baking Mistake 2

The second most common mistake is when the bread dough is allowed to over rise, which leads to it falling.

This usually happens when bread dough is forgotten about. And with so much going on our lives, who doesn’t forget things like this now and then?

But don’t fret, there is a solution: If the bread is already in the bread pans when it over rises simply use a pair of kitchen scissors to cut the excess dough off the sides of the unbaked loaves.

Separate and roll this dough into a few small balls of dough. Allow them to rise 20 minutes to 30 minutes on a small oiled cookie sheet, and then bake them on 350 Fahrenheit, for 15 to 20 minutes as whole wheat rolls.

Also allow the bread to rise for about 15 to 20 more minutes before baking if it is extremely flat on top.

Another solution to help you keep from forgetting about your bread, is to use a timer which will beep loudly after the selected time period is up.

Using a timer can also help stop other bread baking catastrophes from happening.

Whole Wheat Bread Baking Mistake 3

When you heat up your water to put your yeast in, it is easy to accidentally make the water a bit too hot. This mistake will kill the yeast and your bread will not rise

To correct this mistake I strongly recommend you invest in a cooking thermometer, to measure the temperature of the water with.

Whole Wheat Bread Baking Mistake 4

If the recipe you use makes too much dough for your family’s needs and you worry that the extra bread will grow stale before you use it, fear not.

It is perfectly safe to refrigerate unused dough for a few days and allow the bread dough to finish it’s rising time once you get it out to use it.

You can use a ziploc bag or plastic wrap over bowls that contain your bread dough, to store it in your fridge and still prevent oxidation.

Whole Wheat Bread Baking Mistake 5

Burned bread. Yup, nothing tastes worse than bread which is black as charcoal.

To avoid this, be sure you follow baking times and temperatures strictly. And again use a timer to remind yourself when it’s time to remove your bread from the oven.

Also remember that gas ovens and electric ovens vary in their temperatures. If you’re using an electric oven you should bake almost all pastries on 350 Fahrenheit.

Sometimes a recipe will call for you to start baking a loaf of bread on a higher temperature, but will also usually tell you to turn the heat down after a certain amount of time.

Whole Wheat Bread Baking Mistake 6

Mistakenly or purposefully using the wrong type of flour. If you are baking whole wheat bread, the only way to get good results is by using whole wheat flour to bake your bread.

There are different recipes for all the different types of bread and they all use one specific flour for each recipe.

So don’t try any substitution hoping that by adding rye flour for instance, you will actually turn a whole wheat bread recipe into rye bread. Because you won’t.

Whole Wheat Bread Baking Mistake 7

Last but not least there is the problem of air bubbles (also called “pockets”) which create large holes inside the bread, after it’s done baking.

The best solution for this is to pinch any such bubbles whenever you see them in your dough, before you bake it. This will immediately deflate the bubble.

Now you are armed with the knowledge of the 7 most common whole wheat bread baking mistakes (most of which also apply to all other rising breads) and how you should deal with them.

So don’t let the bread mistake blues get you down ever again.

The following types of wheat are classified based primarily on color, hardness of the kernel, and time of year the wheat is planted.

• Hard red winter
• Soft red winter
• Hard red spring
• Hard white
• Soft white
• Durum

Generally, flours that are milled from hard wheat have high quality gluten and are considered strong.

Due to the difference in quality among many types of wheat, millers typically blend flours to achieve a consistent product time after time. Readily available to most home bakers, all purpose flour is actually a blend of hard and soft wheat flours.

Regardless of the type of wheat, milling the endosperm of wheat berries or kernels yields white flour. This process also removes so much natural nutrients and vitamins that subsequent enrichment can never completely replace them. Therefore, enriched white bread is by no means nutritionally equal to whole wheat bread.

In addition, “wheat bread” on the label does not mean that it is made from whole wheat flour. It is just to distinguish the bread from those made from other types of grains.

Breads made from whole wheat flour should normally have “whole” or “100 percent whole” before the term “wheat bread”.

Compared to whole wheat flour, white flour

• Has a longer shelf life
• Contains more gluten proteins per weight
• Is more digestible

To produce whole wheat flour, the entire wheat kernels that include the fibrous bran, nutritious and fatty embryo or germ, and the starchy endosperm are ground uniformly.

Although whole wheat flour and graham flour are often used interchangeably, there is a minor physical difference. In the milling of graham flour, the outermost part of the wheat berries(bran) is not as finely ground as the germ and endosperm.

Finally, all flours tend to lose moisture during storage. Moisture content also varies by brands and seasons. Therefore, as home bakers of breads, cakes, and cookies, we may sometimes need to adjust the amount of flour used in a particular recipe. This is to maintain a desirable flour to liquid ratio.