I’ve been cooking from scratch ever since I learned to cook along side Mother many years ago. I have been blessed to have learned from the best! We’ve never eaten very much boxed, packaged, store bought food. That was how I grew up. You raised what you ate and you didn’t go buy a box of cereal when you could make bran flakes yourself.
Some time ago I made the decision to learn how to cook everything from scratch, even things that my family didn’t make when I was a child. From creamed soups to crackers, I make it from scratch. 
Even though I may not be a novice in the kitchen,the information in this post is written from a beginner’s standpoint when it comes to soaking grains and beans and includes my observations and thoughts about the process.
I have added good foods to our diet and taken away not so good. I added kefir to our diet a few months ago. I took away non-organic fruit and vegetables. We eat pretty much in season foods now, what we grow or can purchase locally. That wasn’t too difficult to do. It was harder to find good meat around here. I buy organic elk from the Amish and we buy a half of a hog that was raised organically and butchered locally most years. If we eat beef, right now I can only afford a brand called Laura’s. Its expensive, and not the best, but its the best I can afford right now. I have yet to find a good, steady source of healthy chicken. I buy wild caught salmon from Kroger. It is only $4.99 per pound if you use a Kroger card. That’s affordable for me, so when I buy it I buy several packages and freeze it.
We grow a lot of our vegetables and eat them in season. However, I do enjoy canning so I can tomatoes and beans and freeze broccoli from the garden. Most of the time though, if a vegetable is not in season, we don’t eat it.
Those are just a few of the changes I’ve made in the past 10 years or so.
I find myself finally understanding that more changes have to be made so that we can be healthy and so that our children can have a healthier life as they get older. I can’t stand the idea of my children becoming diabetic or obese because of the choices I made for them when they were young.
Getting rid of processed cheese and canned soups is one thing, and a good thing … but there are many more ways to improve a diet that are available to all of us.
One of those changes is the soaking of grains and flours and the sprouting of beans. I put a bowl of pinto beans in water to sprout and make chili with this week. I am going to experiment with soaking my whole wheat flour before I make bread today, too.
Sprouting beans is supposed to accomplish two things; the growing plant causes the body to digest the bean as a vegetable and gives an increase in enzymes and vitamins. The method involves soaking the beans in water with some kind of mild acid like vinegar, then rinsing the beans and allowing them to sprout. You rinse the beans every day for about 3 days til they start to sprout, then you use them as you normally would.
It sort of makes me chuckle to myself to think of all these years that I’ve left beans on the counter in water for two or three days accidentally, then used them anyway and hoped they’d be OK.
Its really not much trouble for the return in nutrition. I sure hope my family likes the taste so that I can add this to our regular menus. I have often soaked beans before cooking but without the addition of an acid like vinegar or lemon juice. The sprouted pintos are cooking right now. When I get the pintos sprouted and the chili made, I will share the results with you!
The next thing I am trying is soaking whole grain flours. Soaking flour basically makes the flour more digestable and the nutrients in the flour more available to the body. Whole grains contain phytic acid which inhibits the absorption of minerals like zinc, copper, iron, magnesium and calcium when the grain is ingested. I soaked the flour for the boule bread pictured here for 7 hours in water with a dollop of kefir. 
The idea is to soak the whole grains, even whole wheat flours, in water and a mild acid like raw apple cider vinegar or lemon juice (or a dollop of kefir), to neutralize the phytic acid, making the nutrients more available for digestion. It also cuts cooking time and increases your yield. When oats. for example, are soaked for 24 hours, they swell up bigger than they will if you just take them out of the container and cook them. So you will actually get bigger serving sizes than if you had not soaked.
I have corn flour soaking in buttermilk right now. That will be used to make corn tortillas tomorrow. When I get ready to make the tortillas, I will add more buttermilk, just enough to make a semi-stiff dough, and roll it out. I don’t imagine that it will make much difference in the taste of the tortillas, I usually make them with buttermilk, but I am hoping that by soaking a few hours the nutrients in the flour will be more available to our bodies and the tortillas will be generally healthier.
This isn’t the end of my quest to prepare healthy meals. This is just one more step on the way. I am thankful for my background in traditional foods and from-scratch cooking and baking. That gave me a solid foundation to work from. But there is a lot more out there that that I’m looking forward to trying.
Are there kinds of cooking or methods that you would like to try that you have not used yet? Are there changes in your diet that you would like to make this year? What changes have you made in the past that are positive and have been good for you and your family?
About Sylvia
I’d share if I could
Those are interesting thoughts. The only thing I soak in advance are oats. I have never heard of soaking and sprouting beans before cooking to make soups. That sounds like a lot of trouble to me. lol Maybe one day I’ll get there.
It sounded like a lot of trouble to me too, which is why it took e so long to try it! But what I found is that its really not a lot of trouble, the most trouble comes in planning ahead. I learned this information from a book called Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. If you try soaking a few things, let me know how it goes!
Woohoo! Sounds like great changes! And I agree with you that it is not more trouble, just a tiny bit of planning. Making changes like this have been wonderful for our family. My daughter who is gluten sensitive can eat grains that have been soaked or fermented. And my son who was allergic to eggs can eat eggs again. So we are sold on the idea of preparing food the slow way – to make everything highly nutritious and extremely digestible. Have fun with your changes, Sylvia!
Wow, that’s some great ideas, but they wouldn’t work for our family. I can’t wait until you have your new feature up so that I can ask about improving meals when you have fussy eaters(I am talking adults, not children, lol).
Well, I think definitely everyone has to be on board for some changes to be made. However, soaking grains and beans don’t really change the flavor, so if you use grains and beans, these methods can be used by anyone, even those with picky eaters.
Ok, this may seem like a silly question… When you say “soak” do you mean you put a cup (or whatever amount) of flour into a liquid and just let it sit there? I know that seems like it should be basic knowledge but I’m trying to wrap my mind around it. LOL! Also, would this work on just regular flour bought from the grocery? I don’t grind my own wheat. My only source of flour is whatever I can buy at Walmart/Kroger. I’m trying to picture taking flour and putting liquid in it… I don’t make/have/use or really even know what kefir is. If you use vinegar do you add it to water and put it in the flour?
I have been using white flour but my family will eat wheat. Would this work with a mixture of the two?
Ok, I think that’s all I have for now! I’m interested in making some healthy changes, and have been doing a few things, but I need to be careful not to do anything that will make my husband leave the table and head to McDonalds!
Not silly at all Trish!
Yes, that is exactly what you do. You add some liquid (usually water mixed with an acid) to the flour and allow it to sit and soak so that the phytic acid is broken down and the flour is more digestable and the nutrients more available to your body. It just makes a kind of loose paste, then you finish up the recipe after soaking by adding whatever other ingredients you want to add.
You can use apple cider vinegar or lemon juice as your acid. ~ you only need about a teaspoon of the acidic ingredient for several cups of flour, its not crucial that it is a certain amount. The vinegar doesn’t leave a flavor nor will the lemon juice. Yes, you can use a mixture of flours.
I think these are some good changes everyone can make. There is nothing different about the flavor or the texture of the food after soaking.
The thing that I have the hardest time with is adding TOO MUCH water to the soaking process. Then when I go to use the soaked flour its too soggy. So I have to practice adding just a little, enough to drench the flour but not so much that its soupy.
I’m on board! Sylvia (& Wardeh), I ordered two books this week…Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon and Real Food: What to Eat and Why, by Nina Planck. I can’t wait for them to get here! After watching you two and your websites for about a year now, I’ve decided that our family needs to eat healthier. A health scare with my husband back in November really kicked us into gear. It all looks very overwhelming, but I think our health is worth the effort.
I’m leary of starting this in the dead of winter in Nebraska, but am gradually getting rid of the bad stuff and learning what to substitute. I don’t have a cow or goats or chickens…or room for any for that matter, but have dreams of getting out in the country soon. Until then, I’m scouting places to buy whole, raw and/or organic foods.
My kids are also a little leary. Becky (our 15 yo) commented just this afternoon, “I don’t want to be healthy! Just give me Pop Tarts!” It might be a battle, but one worth fighting. I’ve started by kicking my Diet Coke and black coffee. Believe me…quite an accomplishment! Herbal teas are filling up my “coffee cupboard” now. lol!
Thanks for your encouragement. It is reaching “once deaf” ears!
Tammy, I’m so glad to hear you’re making those good changes. That’s exciting! I think you will like those books very much. Just start slowly like you’re doing. and tell Becky that my homemade poptarts taste even better than the boxed ones! She might even have a really good time making them.
Let me know how its going!
Love
Sylvia
Is there a central place to find all of these wonderful recipes you talk about? I love to cook from scratch and I’m always looking for new recipes…
Right now you just need to look up at the top right area of the page and search for recipes. You’ll come up with all the recipes on the site!
Tammy, I’m so glad to hear of your changes! Good for you kicking the diet soda and coffee habit.
Keep in touch about how things go for you.
Beekeeper – I just updated our sidebar so you can see all the post categories, including recipes. http://christianhomekeeper.org/blog/category/cooking-school/recipes/ . I’ll also be adding a little graphic at the top of the sidebar that will take you right to that category. And as Sylvia said, you can use the search function to find a particular recipe.