Nourishing Together: Sprouted Whole Wheat Pancakes!

On my journey into the world of nourishing foods, I have become familiar with the idea of sprouting (flour, nuts, etc).  While I had read of this, it had not truly entered into the forefront of my consciousness until I was thinking about my grandmother.  My grandmother was a Punjabi woman who spent most of her life making things from scratch.  Whether it was curdling milk to make her own paneer or making dough for rotis, the process was, from beginning to end, her own work.  As I was recalling things I have learned from her, a specific memory arose that made me think about how she already knew much of what I am discovering (ah, I only wish I had not lost her so long ago).  This memory was soaking almonds.

My grandmother would place a handful of almonds into a little metal bowl of water.  At the time, I did not know how long she soaked them, but she would hand them to me and I would easily peel the skin off and eat them.  I remember relishing in the lush smell of the soaked almond and my ability to slide the halves of the almonds apart (oh, children and their sensorial experiences).  I loved the taste of almond without it's skin.  Years later when I would buy my own bags of pre-roasted almonds, it never occurred to me that there was likely a reason she used to soak the almonds.  I just thought they tasted good.

Now, as I try to nourish my own son, I think to myself: why DID she soak those almonds?  And, off I went to discover the answer (I'm such an information junkie).  What I discovered surprised me, because it feels like knowledge I should have had already.  Grains and nuts (and beans and seeds) need to be soaked because they are less easily digested without soaking.  In a nutshell (pause for terrible pun), all of these parts of the plant are covered in phytic acid which acts to protect the seed from predators so that it has a chance to sprout and grow.  The phytic acid is considered an anti-nutrient, which means that it binds to necessary nutrients and prevents them from being absorbed.  Being less digestible, it can cause a lot of digestive distress.  Only when the grain (seed, nut, etc) is introduced to water will the phytic acid be stripped because the grain will be getting ready to sprout.  Thus, soaking and/or sprouting makes all of these amazing whole grains (etc.) more nutritious and beneficial!

Well, lately my son has been hooked on pancakes.  Apparently, something soaked in a sweet syrup is extremely enticing.  He is so my son.  I was worried about all that flour consumption and so I begin toying with the idea of soaking my whole wheat flour.  But then (pause for excitement), I discovered Arrowhead Mills now makes sprouted wheat flour!  I buy mine at Whole Foods or our popular local organic grocer, MOM's Organic Market (I promise, though, that I will try soaking my own flour one day).

Next, I found a wonderful recipe for Sprouted Wheat Flour Pancakes.  Not only does it include sprouted wheat flour, but also uses coconut oil and honey (in place of sugar).  I've also been intending to try replacing the honey with coconut palm sugar next time I make a batch so as to make the pancakes sweet but low-glycemic (coconut palm sugar is low-glycemic, has a lot of nutrients compared to other sweeteners, and is not high in fructose like agave).  In our family, paying attention to glycemic load is an important way to keep everyone calm.  This recipe is also very simple, so it's a great recipe for the little guy to participate in, and that makes this Montessori mommy happy.

Together, we grab our ingredients.  Here, you can see I purchased low-temp pasteurized non-homogonized whole milk from pasture raised cows, eggs from pastured chickens (Vital farms is a good source but pricey, normally I purchase less expensive local pastured eggs at MOM's), virgin coconut oil (not pictured), and aluminum-free baking powder (also not pictured).

I do the measuring while he does the pouring and the stirring (well, I take a turn with this, too).

Then I make small pancakes using coconut oil in the pan, and voila!  Healthy, nourishing, and very yummy pancakes (even husband enjoys!).

Whatever is leftover from the batch I just put in the freezer and then all week we can have pancakes in the morning for breakfast by just popping one in the toaster.  Serve with a side of whatever you love!  For me, that's always bacon.

A Nourishing Ideology

I don't know if being a Montessorian was just a beginning step on the road to "crunchiness" (as the people who love me most refer to it), or if all roads in my life would have led me there, but there's no doubt, I have arrived.

When I took my absence from writing, part of my motivation was that I was losing my voice.  I don't know that I was sure what I was writing about anymore, or what I was doing in general.  Following as many "mommy blogs" as I do now, I was starting to feel like everything has been covered or that I was becoming overly influenced in what I was choosing to write.  Now, however, I have found the clarity to just keep plugging along with what I am doing and what passionately drives me, wherever it may take me.  This blog is about being more than just Montessori, but making sure that I stay with those roots always, because let's face it, I am at heart, a Montessorian.

Montessori is all about the prepared environment; we create the appropriate environment to allow our children the freedom to operate within it.  This goes far beyond safety, but rather refers to the idea that what we place in the environment is what the child will use to create himself, stimulate his intelligence, and help him with the development of his foundation; what goes in the environment is what nourishes the child.  Lately, I've been feeling that more so than just what my son interacts with around him, but everything that goes into him is part of this same prepared environment.  Everything that he eats affects his behavior, his intellect, his mood, his self control, and his abilities; he is what he eats.  Food is medicine.

These beliefs have driven me to an ideology of nourishment; everything that goes into my son's body should be like the prepared environment around him, chosen to best provide the nourishment for his entire self.  This path has led me to the "Real Food" movement.  Books like Nina Planck's well-written Real Food: What To Eat And Why have changed the way I think about "healthy."  Rather than being dominated by thoughts of cholesterol and low calorie, Nina challenges that the problem with food is that it has become overly processed.  Ancient foods like beef and butter have been falsely accused, while industrial foods like corn syrup and soybean oil have created a triple epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.  We need to return to the traditional way of cooking and eating things that are real.  Enter Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, based on the research of Dr. Weston Price.  This is the definitive cookbook on how and why to eat real, homemade, made from scratch food.  Dr. Price argued that we need to return to more nutrient-rich foods: we should be pasture-feeding livestock, soaking our grains, and drinking raw milk (yes, yes, this one is a charged topic and one I'll discuss at another time; here's how we currently stick with pasteurized milk, but I buy it pasteurized at low temps, non-homogonized, and from local pastured cows).  The argument is a simple one: most of the food you buy at the grocery store is overly processed and that means less nutrients.  If food is medicine and you are what you eat, then it's no wonder we have so many unhealthy epidemics right now.

How are the foods most people eat bad for them (and especially, bad for children)?  Well, besides the fact that processed foods are often filled with dyes, preservatives, chemicals, pesticides, and artificial flavors, much of it actually lacks nutrients.  In other words, if the entire purpose of feeding yourself is to nourish your body and operate at optimal levels, most of our food fails to do so.  It's just filler. By processing and mass-producing many foods, we suck the nutrients (the whole reason we are supposed to be eating them) right out of them.

For example, let us talk about eggs.  Eggs are a fantastic superfood, a very high-quality protein.  They have so many nutrients in them: choline for maintaining cell-membrane structure, vitamin D, vitamin A, vitamin B12, omegas, the list goes on.  However, how much of those nutrients are in the eggs you eat are entirely dependent upon how those eggs were sourced.  Studies show that pastured eggs have 4 to 6 times the amount of vitamin D than conventional eggs, as well as 1⁄3 less cholesterol, 1⁄4 less saturated fat, 2⁄3 more vitamin A, 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids, 3 times more vitamin E, and 7 times more beta carotene.  That's a lot of change in the egg just from a shift from a chicken's natural diet and treatment.  If the doctor offered you a brand medicine that worked 100% effectively and had less side effects (let's consider more cholesterol and fat to be a side effect in this analogy) or another that worked 40% effectively and had more side effects, which would you choose?

Nina Planck's book can give you even more information about nutrient-rich as opposed to nutrient-robbed foods.  The arguments are pretty compelling.  So much so, that is has changed the entire way my family eats.  Well, at least when I'm in charge of it; gotta remember Robyn O'Brien's "80/20 rule" from The Unhealthy Truth for balance in all things (speaking of another book that will change the way you look at the foods our children eat).    I find myself soaking grains in order to make them more digestible, using sprouted flours, cooking beans rather than buying canned, and generally, trying to cook from scratch.  I'm buying foods from pastured animals and organic when necessary (some foods need to be organic while others are less impacted).  The truth is, you might say it's easier because I'm a stay-at-home mom and have the day to do these things (although, if you knew my toddler, you might not think I really had that much time).  But women like those who write Food Babe and 100 Days Of Real Food will tell you that there are many ways to adhere to this ideology and still utilize convenience.  Sometimes it's more about what you buy.  For example, Ezekiel 4:9 breads are already a sprouted, whole grain source that you can buy at the grocery store (well, maybe not any grocery store) and Arrowhead Mills now makes sprouted wheat flour.  But, you'll also find that the make from scratch method can actually be a lot cheaper, especially if you've ever bought a can of beans compared to a bag of them.  If you can garden (oh how I wish I could right now!), then you've got an even cheaper way of harvesting nutrient-dense foods.

When I think of all the reasons to follow my new food ideology, I am also reminded that food and nutrition were extremely important to Dr. Maria Montessori.  Granted, she's operating from the knowledge of the late-1800s, early 1900s, but all the same, that's the roots we "real fooders" are trying to get back to.  In her first major book, The Montessori Method (which you can read online here), she devoted an entire chapter (the seventh) to "Refection: A Child's Diet."  While I don't agree with everything she says and feel that science has taught us more about some of them (I theorize that she would change her mind about some of these things), like her discouragement of snacking for children, discouragement of cheeses for children (what?!), and discouragement of green vegetables for children (double what?!), I find that most of what she wrote is in harmony with the real food movement.  She advocates foods straight from the source, emphasizing "freshly gathered."  She also advocates plenty of broth-dominant soups (bone broth being highly praised when you start talking about the value of nutrient-dense and healthy foods).  As I look for ways to feed my son, I find myself continually returning to this chapter.

This ideology has taken me on a new path of study, but I am finding that no matter where I go with it, it always reminds me of my Montessori principles, which I love.  Dr. Montessori wrote "we are here to offer to this life, which came into the world by itself, the means necessary for its development, and having done that we must await this development with respect."

As I continue this journey, I'll share more with you about how I do it, and also, how my little guy and I it together.

Homemade Slow Cooker Applesauce!

One of the greatest activities for a toddler is cooking in the kitchen!  It's a great way to practice fine motor skills, to see how simple things can be turned into complex things, and well, it's just yummy all around.  And what better to make than apple sauce...in the slow cooker!

It all started with a trip to the apple orchard....

My little guy had a wonderful time picking apples from the tree and ground, loading them into the buckets and running through the orchard trees.  Crooked Run Orchard in Virginia is beautiful with SO many different kinds of apples.  We ended up with so many apples that even after sharing them with a friend, we definitely needed to do something with them.  So, with my son's (and my) love for pure and simple applesauce, his first big cooking event was inevitable!

I am a firm believer in purity when it comes to cooking, particularly when it comes to applesauce.  The fruit has enough sugar on it's own and great taste, so we didn't really need to add anything!  We started with ten apples (of varying types which adds to better and more interesting flavor in the applesauce) which filled exactly 1 quart jar in the end.


First, I peeled the apples while he napped (18 month olds are impatient I've learned), but I saved one to peel in front of him so he could see the whole process.  When he is a little older (2.5 to 3, depending on his skill level at the time), I will find a small peeler and let him help.


On our kitchen table, I set up cutting boards for each of us.  He also had tongs and his own small bowl to place the apples that he cut into them.  He also had a small little knife for cutting.


Honestly, I wasn't happy with this knife.  It was harder for him to use at this age (a year older and he would have been fine).  I know a wavy vegetable chopper would have been much better, but I could only find one online and it didn't arrive in time.  So we made do.  In the end, I think he ate more than he cut anyway!


After he cut the apples, he used the tongs to move them to the little bowl at his side.  Smaller tongs would have been better too, but he's pretty skilled at this and so these worked out.  I'd recommend small light tongs for a beginner.


After all the apples we cut into 1 inch pieces, we put our apples together and he used a spoon to transfer the apples to the slow cooker bowl.


We placed the bowl into the slow cooker and he helped me put the lid on.  You don't need water or anything really, the apples have so much natural sugar and juice.  I did end up adding less than 1 tsp of brown sugar to the whole batch because I was worried the apples needed a trigger to carmelize...but next time, I plan on doing without the sugar as well.  If you like cinnamon in your applesauce, you could add a few cinnamon sticks into the slow cooker as well.  I set the slow cooker on low for overnight (it was 3 pm at the time and I set it so it would finish after we woke up, so it ended up being 17 hours).  Stirring the apples occasionally is a good idea, too.


Afterwards, we had a snack of applesauce I had on hand, just so there would be some conclusion for him as to what happened (since it wouldn't be until the morning that he'd see the final product).


The next morning I scooped these lovely caramelized and mushy apples into a bowl.  They smelled amazing!


My son mashed them up with a potato masher and voila, we had applesauce!  It didn't take much mashing at all.  If you like it chunky you wouldn't have to mash it, and if you like it super smooth, I recommend a hand blender to finish the deal.


The final product was YUMMY!!  From now on, I'm making all our applesauce this way.  It's fantastic and healthy.  I was also amazed at how my son connected this whole process.  Days later, when he sees the slow cooker he points at it and says "apples" :).

I'm excited to try more recipes!