|
ARTICLE
It’s the Bread Stories – Anecdotal or Scientific
By Sue Becker
I want to share a heartfelt message with you. But first, I want to say thank you to each and every one of you who have share your stories with me. You might never know how much your testimonies and encouraging words mean to me. I have shared my passion for whole grains and freshly milled flour for more than 35 years now and I never get tired of hearing the words “it’s the bread”, or “this bread has changed my life”. So please, keep your testimonies coming.
I often hear people say that these stories are anecdotal, that there is no science behind them or it can’t be proven that it was the bread that brought these changes. But when you hear 100s of the same stories – that moves beyond anecdotal and encourages some research to find the scientific evidence for these remarkable changes in health. This is exactly what I have done for the past 35 years. And what an exciting journey it has been.
When I first started on my flour milling journey way back in 1991, more than 35 years ago, my diet was fairly healthy. Our diet consisted mostly of real meat, fresh fruits and vegetables (some from our garden) real eggs, real butter. I did bake a lot of our bread, muffins, pancakes, and biscuits, of course, from scratch, but mostly using white flour or a mixture of store-bought whole wheat and white flour, believing these to be healthy options.
But, when I learned of the healthy benefits of real whole grains and the option of milling my own flour at home, I was convinced that this was the way to greater health for me and my family.
My husband, Brad, bought me a grain mill for my birthday in February 1991. I went all in – no more white flour for us. Instead, it was bread from freshly milled flour or other whole grains, every meal, every day, every way – pancakes, muffins, pizza, bread, cinnamon rolls, cakes, cookies, cornbread, biscuits – all from freshly milled flour. And all were absolutely delicious!
But I will have to say, I was shocked at the immediate and noticeable changes in my health. I know you may have heard me share this many times over the years, but from day 1 my struggle with chronic constipation ended. Despite eating mostly real food and trying multiple natural options.
With the constipation-causing white flour out of my diet, and now the abundant fiber of freshly milled flour in, my bowel issues were completely resolved never to return. I realized right away that the daily fiber from my delicious bread was the key. It wasn’t rocket science.
Dr. Denis Burkitt brought the importance of fiber to the attention of the medical world in the 1970s with what came to be known as Burkitt’s fiber theory. His research proved that fiber in the diet served as more than just roughage and a bowel broom.
Dr Burkitt was an Irish-born surgical oncologist, who served as a medical missionary in Africa. While there he saw firsthand that many Western diseases including coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, gallstones, diverticular disease of the colon, appendicitis, hiatus hernia, colorectal cancer, varicose veins, hemorrhoids, venous thrombosis, obesity and even hypertension scarcely existed in these developing countries. He attributed the rarity of these diseases to the profound differences in diet, mainly the amount of fiber in the diet. Overtime, he came to believe that a low fiber diet was related in all of these diseases and greatly increased their risk. Later, a 2018 medical review praised Denis Burkitt’s work and stated that simply grouping these diseases together as having a common cause was ground breaking.
I have always been amazed at the many and varied health changes that not only I have experienced, but also the many stories that others have shared when freshly milled flour and more whole grains were made a part of the daily diet. Studying Dr. Burkitt’s research lets me know that the increased fiber alone can play a big role in all of these benefits. But thankfully, whole grains, including freshly milled wheat flour, provide more than just extra fiber.
I will never forget the phone call I received early one morning shortly after I had begun baking and sharing my real bread with others. I answered the phone to hear these words, “It’s the bread, it’s got to be the bread.” She was overjoyed to tell me that her blood cholesterol had dropped 85 points in just 1 month of eating real bread every day. She was rejoicing and explained that for more than 3 years, on multiple medications to try to lower her cholesterol levels, nothing had worked. But in this one month, with the only change she made was eating this bread and seeing this significant drop, she knew it had to be the bread.
Coincidental??? Anecdotal???
I had to find out.
What was in the bread that could help someone break down and utilize their cholesterol, to get it out of their blood and to all of the cells and tissue where it is desperately needed?
In my research, I discovered, that every nutrient to break down and emulsify fat and cholesterol to allow it to benefit our health is in whole grains – particularly the freshly milled wheat – and therefor the real bread I was making.
Inositol, choline, vitamin B6, magnesium and the phospholipid, lecithin, are all abundantly supplied in wheat and are all essential nutrients for lowering blood cholesterol levels. Lowering these levels is an indication that your body is being provided with the nutrients needed to break down cholesterol so that it can be used by every cell in your body.
But we should not think cholesterol is only critical in heart disease. Cholesterol is the precursor of every one of our sex hormones, anti – inflammatory hormones, Vitamin D, as well as a vital component in maintaining the stability of the membrane of every cell in our body.
So, is it any wonder or strange that someone who adds freshly milled whole grain bread to their daily diets might see many and varied health improvements from the nutrients it supplies.
I never like to emphasize the importance of one nutrient over another, but would it be surprising that from this one benefit alone, you might see inflammatory markers decrease and hormonal issues improve? And if every cell in your body is strengthened, what else might you experience?
Now 35 years later, this phone call and her testimony were only the beginning of the “it’s the bread stories” I’ve heard. We have hundreds just like it. Some are so excited they even send me their lab results.
Anecdotal – I don’t think so! When you give your body the nutrients it needs, it can do what it was created to do.
I have only begun to scratch the surface of the scientific evidence that the nutrients supplied by whole grains including our bread from freshly milled wheat flour can indeed bring exceptional and varied health improvements.
The B complex vitamins abundantly supplied by wheat and other whole grains are known for their role in the metabolism of fats and carbohydrates providing us with energy as well as their contribution to our nervous system and emotional well-being. So, when someone testifies that this bread, real bread made from freshly milled whole grain helped with their anxiety – I am not surprised.
We have also heard numerous testimonies of almost miraculous healing of severe skin issues treated unsuccessfully for years with conventional medicine– 2 that I recall – were in so much pain they wanted to die. Both of these, when the bread was added and the good nutrients supplied saw near miraculous recovery – one in about a week, the other over the course of a few months. The stinging horrific pain and rash gone!! And their story not my claim is “it’s the bread, it’s got to be the bread”!
Let’s not forget that 2 of the first epidemic diseases to surface in the early 1900s when white flour replaced the freshly milled whole grain flour of the day, were Beriberi a vitamin B 1 deficiency disease, resulting in a nervous disorder and pellagra caused by a vitamin B3 deficiency – resulting in horrible skin eruptions, likened by some to leprosy, as well as dysentery and dementia.
If the removal of the nutritious bran and germ and in turn the loss of these important B vitamins from our flour and bread, a once common daily food, would almost immediately cause such outbreaks of disease, does it not make sense that providing these nutrients by retaining the bran and germ portions in freshly milled flour, would not only prevent but also reverse similar diseases with similar presentations of symptoms.
I will close for now – though I haven’t even touched on the importance of Vitamin E, also needed by every cell in your body.
Wheat is one of the richest food sources of Vitamin E, found in the germ portion of the wheat kernel but lost in its removal from commercially processed flour. No amount of Vitamin E, at all, is added back in the enrichment of the flour.
I’ll save a lengthier discussion of Vitamin E for another article.
It is interesting to me when people, especially scholarly ones, hear the testimonies of others and write them off as anecdotal and scoff at the idea of this bread being some sort of “miracle cure”.
I am the first to admit and reply to people who reach out to me asking if this bread will help with their particular disease or health issue, that I simply do not know. What I do know is the testimony of others and that there might be scientific reasons why it might help. But whether it will cure this ailment or not, I do not know. But, I also know that it certainly won’t hurt and should at the least improve any bowel issues, energy and overall quality of life.
I will never forget a testimony from a homeschooling mom, years ago, at a convention where she had heard me speak one year. The following year she shared her story of how the bread had dramatically helped her son. Her son had cystic fibrosis and a common issue with cystic fibrosis is severe constipation and impacted bowels, requiring regular medical involvement to release the bowels. She told me the bread had resolved this issue and relieved her son of this horrible discomfort and need for medical treatment. She actually encouraged me to reach out to the cystic fibrosis foundation so that others could learn and find help with this one struggle.
Did it reverse her son’s cystic fibrosis? No. Did it improve his quality of life? Absolutely yes.
This past week I was intrigued by the insinuation of presenting real bread made from freshly milled flour as a miracle cure. So, I looked up the definition of a miracle cure.
Here is what the dictionary defines as a miracle cure:
“A successful treatment for a disease that was thought impossible to cure.”
Is this bread a “miracle cure”? You be the judge.
I will close with a quote from the late Dr. John McDougal, who after years of using conventional medical treatment and not seeing patients get well, pioneered the idea of a simple whole food diet to treat disease. He “accidentally” attended one of Dr Denis
Burkitt’s lecture and here is what he later stated:
“Prior to hearing Dr. Burkitt’s revolutionary ideas, I believed that the common chronic diseases I was learning about were all unsolvable mysteries, perhaps due to viral infections or genetic mishaps. After his presentation, I realized, for the first time, that being a doctor might mean more than treating the signs and symptoms of my suffering patients with pills and surgeries. Common diseases could be prevented, possibly cured, by eating simple, inexpensive foods.
Dr McDougal absolutely believed in the amazing health benefits of whole grains. God has given us an abundance of foods to nourish our bodies. And I, for one, am very thankful for real bread made from freshly milled flour.
It is not only very nutritious but very delicious as well.
Sue Becker
| 
