Okay, now that I've had several people ask me where I'm going to find time to mill all our grain with two kids running around, and where in the world I'm going to find a place for a mill in the house, I've realized that some explanation is in order... especially seeing as two months ago, I, too, would have entertained images of a stout old man in lederhosen handcranking a very large wheel for hours. This is our mill: it weighs all of 5 pounds, runs on an electric motor (so I just put the grain in and let it go for 5-30 minutes-- depending on the amount of grain I've added), and sits on our kitchen counter next to the coffee maker. It does come with a hand-crank (for power outages, which might be useful if we had a gas stove, but we don't), but my guess is that I'll only ever use it once, just to try it out:-)It arrived last Wednesday, and I love it! We got a flaker attachment too, so we can make our own oatmeal and flaked wheat cereals. And yes, we now have 130 pounds of grain sitting in our kitchen. So go ahead and call us hippy health nuts:-)
Seriously though, we are feeling great and have so much more energy these days... and our blood sugar is a lot more stable all day long. And we've lost a couple pounds. These are the pleasant side effects of working at taking better care of the bodies God has given us, so that we will have the strength and energy we need to carry out our God-given roles and responsibilities.
3 comments:
I've been trying to eat healthier recently to. Just cutting back on junk food and such, and even I'm starting to feel the effects. I just feel healthier.
How much did you pay for it? Where did you get it? and how did you come to decide to get it? The idea of whole grains is something I've been trying to do, but it is so expensive, it's hard at times. Do you expect grinding it yourself to save you money? How about the time involved?
We paid just under $300 US for it, although that included a flaker attachment for rolling oats (and other grains - so I can make a cereal similar to Red River, which we love but can't get this side of the border). The grain mill itself was $220. We bought it online from Pleasant Hill Grain - the link in my post... shipping was free and the customer service was excellent. We buy most of our grain in bulk (read: 45 lb buckets) from a local farmer, so we pay less per pound than we would for whole grain flour. For smaller amounts, we get it from the bulk section of our local health food store. Grain is actually about the cheapest food source there is, so we've found that by increasing the amount of homemade grain products we eat, we're actually saving on food overall (because we eat a little less of the more expensive stuff). And the time involved in grinding is negligible, since you put the grain in, turn it on, and go do something else till it's just about done. The big time commitment is more in the baking department (making almost everything from scratch), which I already did quite a bit of anyway. But that saves money too, because some of the most expensive stuff in the grocery store is the already-made, pre-packaged stuff. All in all, we're saving upwards of $50-60 per month on food, and eating better stuff at the same time, which surprised me initially, because for years, I had the same hesitation as you (the expected expense).
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