Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #115: What Modern Grains are Missing & A Solution

Transcript

Episode #115: What Modern Grains are Missing & A Solution · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the point I'm making.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Not until extremely recent days, literally not until the 1940s, were people ever able to eat grain that hadn't gone through a light fermentation process.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Today, today, all of that that I described has been compressed into a reciprocating knife like a hedge trimmer.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, some they're great big, some of them are, you know, 30 feet wide.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you see these great big combines.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and the the whole plant comes into a um a combine which has beaters that beat the heads, fans that blow the chaff back out on the field, and the grain then falls into a conveyor, which which augers it then into a hopper on the combine.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, welcome to Beyond Labels.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Dr.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Cena McCullough, and I'm here with our favorite farmer, Joel Salatin.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now, many of you know that Joel is our guru in agricultural history, and not only in the historical perspective, but how that affects the nutrition and nutritive qualities of the food that we consume today.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: So today we have a special treat.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Joel is going to walk us through how modern handling of grain has changed the nutrition of the grain between the field and your plate.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, welcome everybody.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit of a history lesson.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: So uh most of us, when we think about harvesting grain, we imagine those, you know, National Geographic pictures of great big combines, you know, going through a field.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh, so a combine, the reason that we call it a combine is because it combines the mowing of the seed head with the um with the threshing of the seed itself.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: But those those two practices didn't used to happen anywhere close to the same time.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: So let's back up to the way all of our ancestors uh handled grain.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: So let's so we're talking about grain, we're talking about uh small grain like barley, rye, wheat, oats, those kinds of things, um, spelt amaranth, whatever.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: So what you have is you you have you have a plant looks like it looks like a you know a big uh stalk of grass, but it makes this heavy seed out on the top of it.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And and that seed then is encased in a husk.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so our ancestors, without a mowing machine, they had a scythe.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: So a scythe was simply a blade that you swung, you know, um with your it the it if you're wondering how to spell it, it looks like scithy.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so it's s-c y t-h e pronounced scythe.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And we, you know, we don't we don't use the term very much anymore because well, nobody very few people use a scythe.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: But um, you know, now now today we tend to use you know weed eaters and and and uh you know things like that.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: But a scythe was a handheld uh sickle that you that you mowed.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: So what you had to do, you couldn't go along and and clip off these seed heads.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: You couldn't you know just clip them off, you had to actually scythe the whole plant down.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um because remember, the great invention that Cyrus McCormick came made to the world in 1837 in his blacksmith shop was the reciprocating, the reciprocating mower.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, in other words, where you had two uh where you had a blade between teeth and and uh and uh and uh blades that reciprocated, and so these stems could go in there and it could click click click click click, you know, and and cut like a hedge trimmer.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine a hedge trimmer, okay?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that was that was Cyrus McCormick's invention.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Before then, everything had to be cut by hand with a scythe.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so you're in the field, you're you're you're cutting barley or oats or wheat or whatever with this scythe, and it's it's laying it down behind you.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So um eventually they made a cradle.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: They made a cradle on the scythe where every swing, whatever was cut in that swing would rest on the scythe and not just fall on the ground.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: That was a huge development.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that development happened you know several hundred years ago.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And and that that speeded up the chance.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, in in biblical times, you simply mowed it, and then somebody came along behind and had to actually hand hand rake hand rake these stalks.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the thing was when the grain was ready, of course, it was it had turned brown, it was no longer green, it was it was uh starting to dry down, but the the the seeds, the actual grains were encased in a husk, uh a you know, a a skin, uh a paper skin that that went over the seed head.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't want to handle it, you wanted to handle it very, very gently, because if you um if you handled it uh violently or aggressively, that seed head would shatter and the seed would fall out on the ground and you couldn't pick it up off the ground.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: So everything was real gentle.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you wanted to cut it gently, you wanted to rake it gently, and what you did then that because that seed head was in a husk, it was moist because the husk was like a blanket or like a sheet on the on the grain on the the kernel of grain and wouldn't let it dry out.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: So even though like the stock is you said it's brown, it's dry down.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: That you're saying that C part is still moist, it's enclosed in that blanket.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's correct.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's enclosed in that in that blanket.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, obviously it's a it's a very thin blanket, it's just a little, you know, skin, uh paper thin skin, but that's enough to hold some moisture in that seed head.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you if you put a bunch of those seed heads together, um they'll they'll mold.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: They'll just mold and and um go to nothing.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so what they would do is then they would gather up these stems, the stalk of the grain, and they would set it back on the ground so now it's cut.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: So the plant is really dead, dead now.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, there's no capillary action, there's no moisture going to the plant.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: They would actually then uh take handfuls of this and set it back on the ground on the stems with the seed heads up, and and the sun would come along and start to dry down those seed heads in in their little skin.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And as that as that happened, of course, you know, in the evening, dew would come up and the dew would make it wet again.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Then the sun would come out and it would dry them down, and then the dew would come up and it would, and and there was always uh uh, you know, usually days, um, if not a couple of weeks, but usually at least multiple days between when uh when the grain was put in a shock, that's why we call it a shock.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: That that's this this like a teepee, teepee standing up, and when that was actually gathered to go to thresh it.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And all of this, this uh this wet, dry, wet, dry, wet, dry created fermentation in that seed head, in that blanket, but it wasn't enough ferment, it wasn't enough fermentation to make it rot or make it mold.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: It was just a very gentle fermentation.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: And during that time, the the physical process of the seed head started to loosen, loosen from its, you know, from its um moorings, you know, where it's it's it's it's in a little uh cup, all right.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's in a little cup on the on the end of the grain.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so all of those fibers, all those anchors and uh, you know, the anchor bolts uh start to start to degenerate during this uh during this period of time.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: After a period of time, then these shocks are gathered and they're placed on a wagon, again, very gently, because you didn't, because by this time things are starting to get really loose.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Put it on a wagon gently, and then you would take it to a place where you could thresh it.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so threshing was simply it was done many, many different ways throughout history.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it was done sometimes with animals that we so you'd put in a big pile and have animals walk over it.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the Bible talks about don't muzzle the ox that treads the corn.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, corn was ubiquitous for all grains.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't just you know corn corn.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was everything from millet to you know to wheat to barley to whatever.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and so they would they would walk the animals over it, and the animals then would just uh with their hoof action, they would step on it and and uh and and tear it up so that then you could pick up the leftover uh stalks and you go into a like a breezeway or something and you fling this in the air, and the wind blows through and blows the chaff.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: The which is so so the seed heads are heavy.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Seed heads are you know, they're like little marbles, okay?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Little marbles, they're heavy.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so the wind, a breeze doesn't blow them away, but it does blow the chaff away.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Just like if you, you know, if it's a breezy day, you reach down, you you pick up a handful of grass, you fling it in the air, it doesn't take much of a breeze for that handful of grass to blow away.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's the chaff, it's blowing away.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh and and other other times uh people would beat if they didn't have animals or something, they would beat the stalks with a flail.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's where we have flailing about, and you just beat this pile of you know, pile of grain uh uh you with a flail.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was all about how trying to beat this to loosen, loosen the seed head out of its little cup holder at the end of the plant.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, just a little side note that George Washington actually invented that 16-sided treading barn and he used it, right?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Process the weeds.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's exactly what you're talking about.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: And George Washington did that.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he absolutely did.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: And and so obviously to do that, you needed some sort of a of a hard floor.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't want to do this on the mud, you know, you'd you lose everything down in the mud.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: So you wanted something that was either some sort of a plaster, uh uh hard packed uh cobblestone, even, you know, rocks.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they lay limestone, but some sort of a uh, you know, a hard floor.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And these, by the way, Cena, you know, these these threshing floors have been discovered um all over the world in what is today deserts.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so we know uh we know that these old deserts used to be grain fields, um, you know, back long time ago.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: And and um because we found the we found the big, you know, the big threshing floors.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um so so what what you're doing here is you're trying to dislodge the seed head now from its from its husk and from its kind of its blossom blossom uh it's uh its cup, it's its little moorings.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so you separate it, you you beat it, you thresh it, and then you you winnow.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm using old words, you know, that we don't use much anymore, but I hope they give you some, you know, some historical perspective.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: When you say flailing about, you know, everybody turned their kids loose.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: They turn, you know, you had these these sticks that were sometimes you'd have a uh a rudimentary hinge on them, and everybody's just out there beating this stuff to death.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we say when you're flailing about, it's kind of it looks, it looks uh completely um you know spontaneous and crazy, but everybody's just you know beating these seeds out of the out of the grain crops.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you winnow, you you you you fling all this uh leftover up in the breeze, the breeze blows away the chaff, and the grain, the heavy little grain marbles fall to the floor.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: That was the the point I'm and then you'd gather those up and you'd put them in some sort of a vessel, you know, a clay pot or or whatever.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the point I'm making not until extremely recent days, literally not until the 1940s were people ever able to eat grain that hadn't gone through a light fermentation process.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Cena can probably give us a little information of what the the fermentation process does, but today, today, all of that that I described has get been compressed into a reciprocating knife like a hedge trimmer.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, some they're great big, some of them are you know 30 feet wide, you know, you see these great big combines.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and the the whole plant comes into a um a combine which has beaters that beat the heads, fans that blow the chaff back out on the field, and the grain then falls into a conveyor, which which augers it then into a hopper on the combine.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you take that grain just like that, it's harvested and put it in a box, it'll mold.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: It'll mold and tur turn to nothing.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: It'll just it'll just completely spoil.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: So they take that grain and auger it straight into a um a great big silo that they pump hot air through.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: So most most of the time, this is natural gas, natural gas heated hot air with great, great big massive fans that blow hot air up through the grain in this uh silo and it dries it down real fast, and the heat keeps mold from starting.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: It it it it keeps away the mold until the grain is dry enough to not mold by itself.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: What you're trying to do in storage, you have to wait until the grain is dried down enough, and that's what the shock in the field did.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: The shock in the field allowed the grain to to um basically detach from the ground and and get dried down enough that then you could take when you flailed it and you thrust it and you went at it, you could actually put it in a you know, in a vessel and it was dry enough not to mold.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: You can't you can't take grain straight out of the field and put it in a bin without additional dry down or it'll mold.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: So back in the day, that was done with several days standing in a shock.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Today it's done with natural gas drying in a bin.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: The point I want to make is for the first time in human history today, we can eat grain that never goes through this this relatively lengthy, wet, dry, wet, dry, wet, dry, gentle fermentation process during its dry down, dry down period that has never been possible in human history.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we're eating today, what we're eating today is a um is is an incredibly different uh what it's a different process and even a different product than it was a hundred years ago.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that that's one of the points.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad that you walked us through the history and gave us such a great visual because when we've talked about grains on this program, that was one of my main points, is the, or that I was trying to make, is that the grain is grown differently today, it's processed differently, it's more ubiquitous today.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's very different than our ancestors ate.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: And just a couple of examples, all right?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like the fermentation, the fermentation process is so important.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: For instance, um, when it's when a grain is fermented, much of the phytic acid is neutralized as part of that chemical reaction of the food that takes place through the action of the microbes during the fermentation process.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: So we've heard about you know the problems with phic acid in foods.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that can be partly addressed by fermentation.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, fermentation helps break down nutrients in the foods to make them easier for us to digest, right, compared to the unfermented counterparts.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: So nutrients like phytochemicals, those become more free and accessible to our digestive enzymes once uh the fermentation process has happened.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, fermentation has can actually break down gluten, right?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: And this is one reason why some people who are trying to avoid glutens, they'll actually eat sourdough bread.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: And some I know some people myself that will have gastrointestinal issues when they consume, you know, a typical wheat bread.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: But if they consume a sourdough bread, they don't have those same issues.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right now, and I'm not suggesting people go and eat, you know, sourdough bread if you have like non-celiac gluten sensitivity.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's not what I'm saying.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm saying that some people have had good luck in consuming a fermented bread product like a sourdough bread.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: And part of that is because it's breaking down some of the glutins in that fermentation process.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Is it 100% of the glutes that get broken down?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: No, probably not, right?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we have studies that show it's not 100%, but it definitely decreases the load that your body is seeing, and it has made so, like I said, those nutrients more available.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: So the bread itself is just easier to digest and the phytic acid content is greatly reduced.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: So those are just a few examples, but but it's like what you're saying is that the weed itself has changed, or you know, the grain, we're talking about just grains itself have changed.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um and just skipping that one process of the fermentation, right?
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Regardless of everything else that's happened to the grains, just skipping that one fermentation process, you can see how we've completely changed the nutritive value of that food.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: It is not as nutritious for us on a multitude of levels as it would have been for our ancestors.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, the West the Weston A Price Foundation is huge on this and has done a lot of great work uh showing the value of fermentation.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and so I think the the kind of the kind of takeaway here uh for us is to understand that if you're if you're tradit if you're now conventionally harvesting grain, I'll just say that conventionally harvesting grain, there is there is no way you can't take it directly from the field and put it in a bin without an artificially hot dry down.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so so conventionally harvested grain today is simply skipping all of that that pre-storage wet, dry, wet, dry, gentle fermentation cycle that was that was um necessary in order in order to store grain by our you know by our ancestors.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's one thing.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing then is well, if it's not fermented then, and this is why the Weston A.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Price Foundation says, look, okay, so um it didn't get fermented on the front end, let's at least ferment it on the back end.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that I think that's that that's where our that's where our our love of fairness.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: out with sourdough.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't enjoyed sourdough, I'm not a totally non-grain guy like Cena is, but I can tell you sourdough is like the food of the gods.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean it I mean come compare it compared to the other.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: And um and so uh sourdough is a wonderful way to to um to at least partly duplicate some of the nutritional advantages uh and and toxicity um toxicity uh uh whatever filters or protections that front end fermentation did for our ancestors we now need to appreciate what back end what the back end care on that grain product can do for us that I think I think that that's that's my idea and um and I I think it's good for us to understand the history of it so that we can understand how how departed you know how departed our current harvesting techniques are from something that I'm sure nobody thought about back then.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Back then nobody was thinking well now we got to let it sit in the field and let it ferment a little bit you know no no no they were just trying to get it harvested like anybody else uh but they knew that they couldn't take it straight in and have it not get moldy and so this was a way that they were able to do it without natural gas and without um all that other stuff.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so um fascinating always to think back and look back because uh if there's one thing that I think I I encounter more than more than anything in just talking to regular people it is just the the un the um the lack of uh whatever understanding of how our ancestors uh did things on the farm that actually had uh nutritional consequences that we just we just kind of dismissed today as well they were backward you know well they just couldn't do it as fast you know now we're faster and you know and more efficient and we've got you know we got all this cool thing to be able to you know uh uh do it quicker and and more efficiently and actually the slowdown the the lack of mechanization at that time actually preserved them from the toxicity and and and and encouraged them to have a much better nutritional bread uh or grain product than we have today yeah and it's so funny you say that because as you were describing this entire process I was sitting here thinking oh my goodness like that was so much time and effort and energy that they spent just to get some grains like I mean it's no wonder that you had you settled down right like you started forming cities and whatnot and this this was your you were enslaved by by the crops right as opposed to like the hunter and gatherers who you know could could wander all around and travel with the food supply you were really enslaved to this this was a lot of time and effort but it's like what you're saying the that's the beauty of it to me there's always a balance here is that if you want that lifestyle right if you want to eat the grains then the consequence of that decision is we know how nature can provide a better balance for you in consuming those grains in terms of giving you greater nutrition from those grains and not having all the toxic effects that we're seeing now with modern grain production.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: So nature is providing you with an opportunity potentially to eat those grains but there is a price to pay for that it's slowing down.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's not being on the treadmill wanting everything quick quick and it's just I'm gonna go get that grain in my fast food hamburger drive-thru right it it's you have to pay that price if you will like and I don't like to see it as a negative thing like that but that's the way to get it across is that food should I don't think food should be like a convenience thing it it's it's something to really appreciate the glory of the food right like what does that food need in order to be nutritive yeah and not only that but but just the but just your the responsibility our our responsibility um to honor its its its uh its nutritional pathway integrity if you will uh and and and we have to appreciate that and also when you go through all that um mechanism you know all what I went through you realize how expensive grain was back in the day it was it was special to break bread to break bread together was like if we were doing that today we would say let's break filet mignon together okay uh yeah it was it was a precious it was a precious thing it was it was precious to plant precious to harvest precious to store they didn't have you know corrugated sheet metal storage buildings they they had massive you know clay pots or or something just to so the rats wouldn't get in it and it was a major major thing uh which is why when America started the Holy Grail you know if you read um Thomas Jefferson's um farm book you know the his four pillars of american agriculture he got them and we still have them today you know uh export grain I mean that was his number one thing how America was gonna thrive was exporting grain uh that was the holy grail because it was very expensive it was you know difficult and so if you could actually get some grain uh you you could have it and um and it was it was um a special thing so hope this little walk through uh history and and it's and its um uh you know inevitable uh relationship with the new with nutrition and toxicity protection um has been interesting and um maybe give you a little bit of a little bit of uh bread for bread for thought food for thought uh uh you know as we as we go ahead thanks for joining us on another issue of Beyond Labels and we look forward to visiting with you again next week