Back to basics- Milling

I love a giveaway. Tons of new people stop by your blog, read about you and what you do, and give you ideas for what they would like to see you talk about. It made me realize that unlike a good book that starts at the beginning, my blog kinda just started where I was. So I thought it might be a good idea to back up and show some of the basics of what I do and why I do it. First order of the day, milling.
I use a Nutrimill to grind my flour for all my baking. Now, why would I spend time grinding flour when it comes in a bag at any big box or grocery store, you ask? The stuff in the bag is dead. That's right, dead. They grind these beautiful wheat berries, kill everything in it, pull out all the fiber and then bleach it. To make you feel better, they "enrich" it, which means they attempt to put the good stuff back into it so that you feel like you are doing a good thing by baking from scratch rather than buying, say, a cupcake. If you bake, you are doing a good thing, but I say why not make it better?
I can't tell you all the particulars about what happens during that process, or how many nutrients are lost in what time frame. What I can tell you is that I know broccoli from my garden is better for me than what I have available at Big-box and that food in its natural state is the best food. So, I grind a weeks worth of flour at a time and store it in my freezer. My personal favorite is a combination of Montana gold and hard red wheat for bread and soft white for muffins, pancakes and other pastries. I do keep a bag of unbleached natural flour that is commercially ground on hand for when I run out, or want to lighten up my bread a bit. More on that later. For now, here is the mix I am about to grind. Makes me want to smile.