Why I Started Milling My Own Flour – And How You Can, Too

I have been in the ‘natural health’ world for nearly 15 years, and I still can’t believe I have never heard of milling your own grain into flour until now. But friend, it has been a GAME CHANGER. And I’m here to share more about it with you and help you get started on your own milling journey if you’d like!

I know we have been completely inundated with information on cutting carbs from our diet, especially bread. To think of bread as a ‘health food’ sounds like it goes against everything we’ve been taught about nutrition in recent years, right?!

Despite a very clean diet, I had been having unexplainable hunger which was super frustrating. What’s interesting is that I was craving complex-carby-type foods… oatmeal, potatoes, bananas, even beans. But none other than the oats were exactly hitting the spot. It’s like my body wanted whole grains! I didn’t want cookies and treats, I honestly wanted hearty bread! I had been advised to just ‘eat more protein and fat’, and as crazy as it sounds, that just made me feel hungrier.

I ‘knew’ bread wasn’t what I should probably be adding to my diet, but because I had made sourdough for years, I decided I should get another sourdough starter and begin making sourdough again to see if that would help. (I had a long hiatus from making sourdough since teaching chemistry at my kids’ school… lots of areas of my life were put on hold once I started that!)

Somehow in that search for making sourdough, I came across Sue Becker’s Bread of Life video.

When I say this video was life changing, I mean it literally changed my life!

Everything Sue said in this video made so much sense… that bread on store shelves today is NOT real bread. With modern-day flour, the grain has been stripped of its bran and germ, which is where alllll the nutrition is. The starchy leftover part (what we know as white flour) has been stripped of nutrition, bleached, bromated, and artificially enriched with synthetic vitamins. We don’t have a gluten epidemic in our country… we have a toxic-chemical-laden-flour epidemic!

Even more fascinating were the health testimonials Sue shared both in her presentation and on her podcast, Sue’s Healthy Minutes. Real, freshly milled flour is so full of nutrition that people have wonderful improvements in their health, from warts disappearing (a shocking number of people, ha!) to constipation disappearing to A1C coming down to lower cholesterol to severe gut symptoms disappearing and SO so much more.

What really brought it home for me was when she talked about Jesus being the Bread of Life. Why would He compare himself to something that wasn’t good for us and that we shouldn’t consume? The people in His day would have known just how satisfying and life-giving REAL bread (with all the nutrition intact!) was. Of course it makes sense that the enemy would attack bread!

Once I watched Sue’s video, I was ALL IN and immediately bought a grain mill and figured I’d learn as I went!

Check out this side-by-side comparison of nutrients in processed white flour vs hard red wheat, which is one of the varieties commonly used to grind into fresh flour:

There are so many more nutrients in freshly milled flour, not to mention the FIBER, both soluble and insoluble. This is why so many people see huge improvements in digestion!

Sue says, “In fact, of the 44 known essential nutrients needed by our bodies and naturally obtained from foods, only 4 are missing from wheat–vitamin A, B_12, and C, and the mineral iodine.” Whole grain wheat is a nutritional powerhouse!

From that first loaf of bread I made, the unexplainable hunger I had previously been experiencing completely subsided. As a matter of fact, I realized I may have never felt truly satisfied by my meals until I started consuming REAL bread, made with freshly milled flour!

If all of this intrigues you, I would encourage you to watch Sue’s Bread of Life video and listen to her Sue’s Healthy Minutes podcast, specifically episodes where the title starts with “It’s The Bread Story” – those are testimonials of people whose health has been radically transformed by real bread.

As of now, I even know of 3 people PERSONALLY who thought they were completely gluten-intolerant because “gluten” made them so sick, but they CAN eat this real bread with no issues!! Amazing! I truly believe it’s NOT the gluten but all the additives and stripping of nutrients that is making people sensitive to modern gluten-containing products. I believe this is why people who are gluten-free here in the US can go to Europe and eat the bread without issues… it’s not the gluten, it’s the processing of our white flour!

So what’s your next step if you want to get started? Check out my post on Getting Started, and in the meantime I will be putting more info together for you here on the blog to answer your questions!

Here are some of my favorite scriptures related to grain and bread:

• Genesis 1:29 – Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.”
• Psalm 147:14 -He makes peace in your borders; He satisfies you with the finest of the wheat.
• Psalm 104:14-15 – You cause grass to grow for the livestock and plants for people to use. You allow them to produce food from the earth— wine to make them glad, olive oil to soothe their skin, and bread to give them strength.
• 1 Timothy 4: 1-5 – Now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons. These people are hypocrites and liars, and their consciences are dead. They will say it is wrong to be married and wrong to eat certain foods. But God created those foods to be eaten with thanks by faithful people who know the truth. Since everything God created is good, we should not reject any of it but receive it with thanks. For we know it is made acceptable by the word of God and prayer.
• John 6:35 – Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

I hope this information blesses you!