Category: Bread Experiments

I did not realize how hard it would be to grind wet sprouted grains. Here are some lessons I learned:

• Most grain mills are not designed to grind wet grain. Wetting the burr could damage it. The same applies to fancy coffee grinders.
• A food processor works better than a blender but neither result in anything like flour. This is not a good long term solution due to the risk of motor burnout.
• Grinding in a mortar and pestle takes forever.
• Some suggest drying the sprouted grain in a food dehydrator and then grinding using a grain mill. My first thought was that the heat may destroy some of the enzymes and nutrients that theoretically make sprouted grains healthier. On the other hand, if I am baking bread, wouldn’t that also kill the enzymes?
• Some people run the grain through a meat grinder several times. I have invested $10 in a “Universal #1 Food Chopper” similar to this one,  but I haven’t tried it yet.

Historian Rachel Laudan’s blog has some interesting notes on wet grinding.

In his book Bread Revolution, Peter Reinhart includes a recipe for flourless bread baked from self sprouted grains. This experiment is loosely based on that recipe.

I soaked three cups of Maine Grain rye berries for six hours. I needed 3 cups of pulp and wound up with enough for six cups.

I then rinsed the grains and and let them sit overnight. In 24 hours, a few had sprouted but not many. I rinsed again. About 36 hours after the initial soaking, the majority had sprouts. The rye did not sprout as evenly or quickly as farro.

I planned to crush the rye berries using a stone mortar and pestle to avoid the heat generated by a mechanical grinding process. However, after ten minutes of pounding, I had about a third cup of pulp. I used a coffee grinder for the rest. The output was quite coarse.

The recipe:

-18 oz sprouted rye berry pulp

-3.3 oz water

-1.5 oz sprouted wheat flour

– .5 oz yeast

-4 grams salt

The end result wasn’t exactly bread. Even after 24 hours, attempts to cut a slice resulted in crumbles, probably a result of using nearly 100% rye that couldn’t quite be called flour or even ground.

For my experiments, I tossed two ounces of crumbles in omelets made with two eggs and a pat of butter. Meals were eaten at breakfast with coffee and cream.

The results were surprising. Rye has a low GI and GL compared to other grains and I expected it to have less of an effect than whole wheat breads. Also, another study I’d read suggested that bread made from coarser grains may raise glucose less than bread made with finer grains.

I lost some of my data and will not repeat this experiment to recapture. The end result wasn’t very tasty and I was not sorry that it spoiled quickly.

Ezekiel 4:9 Sprouted Grain Flourless English Muffins

Description

These English muffins are made from sprouted whole grains and beans. The grains are not milled into flour. The muffins are purchased frozen and remain in my freezer.

The product nutrition label states each muffin weighs about 76g (2.7 oz) and has 30g of carbs. Six muffins in two different packages were weighed using a MyWeigh scale. The muffins ranged in weight from 3.05-3.25 oz (86.5-92.1g). The average weight was 3.13 oz.

Methodology

To test the muffins, I ate one each morning with two poached eggs, a half pat of butter, and coffee with cream. I’ve typically fasted at least 12 hours before breakfast.

Every other day, I took 1000mg of apple cider vinegar in the form of two capsules just before starting the meal.

I recorded the time I started eating and the time I ended. I scanned my Libre 2 sensor every fifteen minutes. This was a manual process and prone to some error. I did not eat anything else and continued to scan until my blood sugar went back to baseline or it was time for lunch.

Results

After repeating the experiment six times, the vinegar capsules look extremely promising.

Thank you to Quantified Diabetes for sharing your R notebook so I could create these graphs and also for inspiring these experiments!

I did ‘feel’ the vinegar in my stomach. I would not use these capsules every day but could see using them on a special occasion since I don’t have access to insulin or other medication that can spot treat out of control numbers. I like the capsules because I don’t enjoy drinking vinegar and also worry about damage to tooth enamel.

However, it is clear that eating an entire flourless English muffin is not something I should do on a regular basis. I will continue these experiments using 1 or 2 oz of bread instead of 3.

This is a list of articles relevant to the experiments I am trying. I will update this list as I go.

I have no medical background. If I have misinterpreted the results of any of these studies, please let me know.

Wholegrain Particle Size Influences Postprandial Glycemia in Type 2 Diabetes: A Randomized Crossover Study Comparing Four Wholegrain Breads

This small study found that bread made with larger grain particles had less of an effect on blood sugar than bread made with more finely ground particles. Roller milled and stone ground grains were tested. Stone milled grains had fewer fine particles than roller milled grains.

Effect of Wholegrain Flour Particle Size in Bread on Glycaemic and Insulinaemic Response among People with Risk Factors for Type 2 Diabetes: A Randomised Crossover Trial

This small study examined the effect of three different types of flour: very fine roller milled, fine stone ground, and coarse stone ground. The population tested was pre-diabetic rather than diabetic and the results surprisingly did not show a significant difference between types of flour. The authors speculate that the flour they used had fewer large particles than the flour used in other studies. Another very interesting suggestion is that the stone ground flours they used may have been processed at higher heat which leads to more starch damage. Starch damage increases the glycemic response. Thought provoking discussion.

Some facts about me which may or may not be relevant:

• – I’m a woman in my early 40s.
• – I have a family history of Type 2 diabetes on both sides of my family.  I did not know that I had a 40% chance of developing the disease if my father had it.
• – I have been a vegetarian for 30+ years, sometimes vegan. My diet, even as a child, was focused on whole foods and plants. I have never eaten much processed food. I grow and forage my own food. I buy direct from farms. The junk food I ate was artisanal or close to the source i.e. eclairs from a local bakery, ice cream from a farm.
• – I am a serious amateur bread baker. I have volunteered and attended the Kneading Conference, belonged to the Bread Bakers Guild of America, and built a wood fired oven in my backyard. I am passionate about pizza.
• – I have been 20-50 lbs overweight for about ten years. I ballooned to 170 in 2018, lost about 15 lbs in 2020, and have lost another 15 in the past three months.
• – The diabetes diagnosis felt like it came out of nowhere. I skipped my annual physical last year because of Covid.
• – My ALT/AST numbers had been on the high side of normal for years. I now wonder if this was an early warning sign of things to come.

Inspired by Quantified Diabetes, I am starting a project to identify a delicious grain based bread I can bake myself which does not raise my blood sugar over 140-150.

In August 2021, I was diagnosed with T2 diabetes with an A1C of 12. I began taking 1000mg of Metformin and immediately cut out all grains, sugars, and foods high on the glycemic index. I switched to a lower carb diet, a challenge as a vegetarian, and ate 45-100 carbs per day. I also restricted calories to lose weight. Three months later, my A1C is at 5.8 and I feel I am in a good place to undertake this experiment without damaging my health.

My plan is to eat various types of grain based breads and record how they affect my blood sugar using my Libre continuous glucose monitor.

I am learning as I go and do not have a medical background. This research will be anecdotal rather than statistical. If anyone else has self-experimented in this way, I would love to hear about it!

Background
Literature Review

Possible Experiments
– The Control: My Favorite Bakery Sour Dough
– White Bread
– Pizza
– Sprouted Grain, flour free bread, store bought.
– Sprouted Grain, flour, store bought.
– Sprouted Grain, flour, self sprouted and milled.