See, the thing is, the reason bugs got into the flour in the first place is because the whole grain wheat was alive. This is what makes it healthy for us to consume. We are living organisms that are meant to consume other living organisms — plants and, yes, sometimes animals. Think back to second grade biology class and the lesson on the food chain.

We, as organisms in an ecosystem, are meant to eat living things, not dead things. We are not mushrooms. Does this clarify the difference between a Dorito and a blueberry? I think it does.

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The fact that we would bleach our flour or introduce pesticides into our soil to kill everything living within it is the most counterintuitive process I can think of when it comes to nutrition. But you see how we got here… Wanting, and to some degree needing, to make food last longer so it can be shipped worldwide and sit on shelves for longer periods of time. This facilitates one-stop-shop grocery stores where people can do all of their shopping at once, especially in rural areas (and, artificially sustaining and promoting overpopulation – but that’s a separate topic). (By the way, I’m not making this up — read Hippie Food: How Back-to-the-Landers, Longhairs, and Revolutionaries Changed the Way We Eat if you want a more eloquent and comprehensive explanation).

Now here’s the kicker. What are we going to do with bleached flour and pesticide-ridden (dead) soil? Well, there are no nutrients left in the flour and nothing will grow in the soil, so, naturally, we are going to enrich or fortify them. We are going to enrich soil with fertilizer (Michael Pollan covers this in Chapter 4 about the potato in The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World). And we are going to enrich the flour with synthetic vitamins and minerals that are introduced to replicate the natural vitamins and minerals we eliminated in the first place when we removed the hull, the bran, and the germ. 

This is why doctors and dieticians advocate eating whole grains like barley, steel-cut oats, bulgur wheat, and rye. What is meant by whole grains is consuming the actual whole grain — all the parts. It is healthy because those other parts contain more than just empty starch — they contain protein, vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber. This is also why the sprouted-grain-and-legume movement is a thing.

Now, what does this have to do with goulash meat and Whiffletree Farm? This is the food philosophy to which local farmers like Jesse Straight subscribe and why I elect to support these local farms in the recipes presented here on OneandahalfSlices. In many ways, their efforts are better for our bodies, better for our communities, and better for our world. Eating healthily is not a challenge and it is not an exercise in restriction and self control. It is, however, a conscious choice to go against what the majority of other people are doing — and in this case, what the majority of other people are eating. Drive the extra mile to Whiffletree Farm in Warrenton. They have a farm store, local neighborhood delivery, and they sell Thanksgiving turkeys every year.

But most importantly, they understand the implications of the story I just told you and the fundamental principles outlined in the Weston Foundation and among other chefs, authors, agriculturalists, and conservationists that understand the magnitude of the mistakes we have collectively made regarding the global food system and our general population. (If you are looking for a more esoteric and philosophical interpretation of this topic, invest the 300 pages in Ishmael). 

#sorrynotsorry for the unrequited philosophy

Happy Cooking!