WEBVTT - Beyond the Wheat 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:19.000 Perooka, no ingredients, nod la limento. My name is Martina Es. 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:23.440 I'm from Aca, which is a town that is located 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:27.640 in the lower Mixed Tea means land of the Cochineal, 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:30.880 not just gland, is the main entrance to the mixed Teca. 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:35.120 I personally define myself as a person with values, with principles, 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:37.720 and with a great faith. I value my roots and 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:40.520 my culture very much. That is why I have always 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:43.959 liked to rescue and value all the customs and traditions 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:49.680 of my ancest No no no pan mass mass, notritio, 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:59.080 no pancor the no pane problem lost Celia. I opened 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:02.600 my bakery in March. Originally, my idea was not to 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:05.360 open a bakery, but another type of business where I 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:08.880 could provide good sources of nutrition to people. But my 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:12.880 mother is from a nearby community called There is a 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:16.679 bakery that was closed for many years, So I said, okay, 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:19.320 why not ask the community to give me that bakery 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:22.960 and start using it. The community agreed, so I started 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:26.240 working in the bakery. But I wanted to offer something different, 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:29.760 ingredients that are healthier because here in our communities the 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:32.920 daily food is bread. So I said, why not offer 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:36.040 a more nutritious bread. Not a bread that makes you fat, 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:38.760 not a bread that gives you problems to those who 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:41.880 are Celiac, not a bread that produces obesity, but a 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:45.000 different bread, a bread with high nutritional value, and a 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:49.760 bread that I could take ingredients from my locality. My 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:53.880 favorite item is the cons because then the bakery conchs 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:57.160 can never not be on the menu. There are different sizes, 0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:01.400 big ones, small ones, different flavors, different colors, and why 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:05.360 not offer some delicious amaranth concs right that would have 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:09.520 a high nutritional value Above all, something very important that 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:12.720 I want to teach to my community. As I mentioned before, 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:17.600 tat well tat healthy tape products are breads with natural ingredients. 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:20.960 Why not use recipes that are from our community? There 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:25.000 are local that are organic. That way we can support 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:33.400 our local conduct that welcome back to point of origin. 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:37.240 On today's episode, we're talking about a global movement of 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:41.000 whole grains and that intro you just heard was Martina 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:46.000 Julietta Castellanos Lopez and her daughter Carmen Reyes from Rincome 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:50.320 de la Granda Bakery and Wahaca, Mexico. Bread is the 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:54.480 most widely consumed food in the world. Not only has 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:59.200 it provided nutritional sustenance for international communities well over the millennia. 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:03.440 In many ways it represents the center of culinary and 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:07.680 communal life. But over time the contents of the bread 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:11.120 we eat has been wildly disconnected from the wheat and 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:15.560 grains of our ancestors. Today we're looking at why that is, 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:18.760 how it came to be and the agrarian shift that 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:23.320 has ensued. We're chatting with journalists and grain researcher plus 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:28.440 amateur baker Simon Tebow in Halifax, Canada. Then we go 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:32.840 to southern Italy to Puglia where Leo Petrucelli is reviving 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:37.920 his grandparents farm using ancient grains, and finally in Washington, 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:41.840 d C. We chat with Jonathan Bethany, baker and owner 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:45.520 of Saylu Bakery, who uses grains like millet and sorghum 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:50.240 on his menu. Today's guests are focusing on recentering whole 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:53.720 wheat and ancient grains in their natural form and moving 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:59.640 beyond the standardized, the prepackaged, and the painfully uniform industrial grains. 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:03.680 Today on point of origin, we're going beyond the wheat 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:06.600 types of grains that you can be milled and be 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:08.839 used in baking. I mean you have everything from buck 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:13.840 wheat too emmer to ride. Um. My name is Simon Tebow. 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:18.040 I am a journalist and food writer and author and editor. 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:23.679 I'm based out of Halifax, Nova Scrocer, Canada, and grains 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:26.640 have become the rabbit hole of my life over the 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:30.240 past two and a half years. You have spring wheats 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:32.440 and winter wheats. You have red wheats and white beats. 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:39.880 I am friends with a Canadian food writer name named 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:41.400 me do Good, and she said, you need to come 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:45.320 and meet Dawn. And I had heard of Dawn the baker. 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:49.360 So I go and I see this table and there's 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:52.039 Dawn with her daughter, Evelyn. The name of the company's 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:55.359 Evelyn's Crackers. And I'm just standing there and there's like 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:57.560 stuff that you expect to see at anybody's table, you know, 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:01.440 like there's pastries and pie and breads and like the usual, 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:05.240 like uh, loaves of rye and loves of a few 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:09.920 of the things. I'm like, okay, sure, uh. And then 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:13.800 I decided to try um one of our brownies. So 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:18.400 brownie is pretty like nondescript, their lovely things to have 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:23.800 on occasion and Uh, this was a buck wheat flower 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:28.360 Cardiman brownie. But at that initial moment when I bought it, 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:31.360 I was buying it to be polite. At the time, 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:34.160 would have considered myself a competent home baker, like I 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:36.279 would have been the guy like I had made my 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:39.679 sour doughs. But everything was all white flower all the time, 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:42.760 and the triumes. I tried to make anything with whole 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:46.000 grains flower or whole wheat flowers, it never turned out right, 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:48.400 and it was just this weird thing. I'm like, this 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:50.839 is not worth my time. And then I've been into 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:52.480 this thing and I was like I just kind of 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:57.960 went and it was this delirious kind of thing. And uh, 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:00.440 and it wasn't just like, okay, cardimon and pocolate are 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:03.400 amazing first of all, but I mean beyond that, the 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:07.160 texture of this. It was like, what is this texture? 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:12.560 And because it was soft and pillowy, most of us 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:15.400 in North America, when we think of whole grains, we 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:18.560 think of things. We hear those words, and we think dents, 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:22.640 we think unpalatable, we think the loaf of bread that 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:24.640 can be used as a doorstop, you know what I mean. 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:27.800 And this was none of those things. This was luxuriant, 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:32.400 this was beautiful. The journalist in me and the writer 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:36.320 in me went wait a minute, like, how did she 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:41.159 do this? How did she do this? What is necessary 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:46.960 to get to this point where the preconceived notion we 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:51.000 have of what whole grain baking can be versus this 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:56.960 platonic ideal which is achievable? What is that? And it 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:01.279 just started from there and from there I have been 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.400 starting research on this for two two and a half 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:08.560 years now and uh, I have gone across North America 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:09.920 for the first time in my life. I went to 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:14.520 California to meet with a miller in Pasadena named named Kohler. 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:18.000 She runs gristin Toll, which is wonderful urban mill. I 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:22.000 went up to Washington State to Washington State's campus in 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:26.160 Burlington where they have the Bread Lab where Dr Steven 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:27.880 Jones is doing all kinds of work. Over there, I 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:32.040 went to Montreal to another grain conference to hear from 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:35.320 women and men from around the world talking about grains, 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:39.280 and the further I dig into it, the further I 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:42.640 keep seeing how grains are emblematic of every single thing 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:47.280 that has happened in food production over the past two 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:50.600 to three years, and the huge amount of erature that 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:56.280 has happened in terms of ecological, economic, cultural, and culinary 0:07:56.400 --> 0:08:02.000 advantages and disadvantages that we now experience. As eis. So, 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:05.000 what you're saying is because of the ways in which 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:09.560 the food system has been industrialized that I guess flower 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:13.840 is a severe example of how we've lost touch with 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:18.800 our food. With apples, for instance, we can name multiple varieties, 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:22.800 or we can name multiple varieties of vegetables, and yet 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:26.800 we can't do that with wheat. So and this hyper 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:30.360 processing of weed, not only are we losing nutritional value, 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:34.880 but we're also losing, as you pointed out, the cultural 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:37.840 value and the loss of that knowledge. Well, let me 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:40.599 give you a preaking pretty easy scenario. You're going to 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:43.120 go into a grocery store and you're gonna go and 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:47.360 buy flower. Okay, that's you will find all purpose white flower. 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:50.800 Bleached or unbleached, doesn't matter. In this scenario. You're gonna 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:53.880 take that flower home. You have a general before you 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:55.839 even buy it. You have an estimation of how much 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:58.280 this is going to cost you. You have an estimation 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:00.959 of how long it's gonna last your household. You have 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:02.800 an estimation of how it's going to behave, how it's 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:06.560 going to taste all of these things? How do we 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:10.200 get here? How did we take what is a living 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:14.840 thing the same with it apples and like other things 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:17.719 that we grow in the ground, or even like varietals 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:21.200 of animals that we raise for food production. How did 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:28.640 we get to this uniformity of experience that anybody can 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:31.480 take this and use it and know what to expect 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:34.520 and have a sense of what is what it's worth 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:37.240 to them in terms of time and money and effort. 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:41.240 And who gets to gauge what that is worth? Who 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:43.120 gets to gauge all of those things? And that was 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:44.679 the thing that kind of made me go, wait a minute, 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:48.920 like what is this? And the thing is that that 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:52.400 system that makes that happen, that creates that ubiquity, this 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:57.760 homogeneity within baking and within access to food and all 0:09:57.760 --> 0:09:59.719 of the things that brings it to play, everything from 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:03.160 food security, which we experienced no matter who you are 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:05.840 in North America or even like throughout most of western 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:14.200 Europe when COVID hit, baking shelves were decimated and all 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:16.920 of a sudden, like and I kept on having conversations 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:18.800 with people who were stalking the shelves and they're saying 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:23.280 people are trying to understand now, like how food distribution works. 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:28.240 And I mean from from a certain perspective, the whole 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:30.600 thing of like that flower, you know it's gonna last 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:34.440 a year roughly speaking, like it's baking qualities will not 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:36.320 be impacted in the first year of that thing being 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:38.000 out there, so you know, you've got a good amount 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:41.440 of time. But that was this kind of like someone's 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:44.280 rattling the cage of the food system right now, and 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:50.440 it's a disease. And why because you don't know where 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:52.200 that was milled. You don't know how long that's been 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:54.319 on that shelf, You don't know hong, that wasn't the truck, 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:56.440 You don't know how long that wasn't a in a 0:10:56.559 --> 0:11:04.320 storage facility. We wheat and grains are the most whitewashed, 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:09.280 arguably one of the most whitewashed foods out there when 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:13.880 it comes to understanding the procedures necessary to feed us 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.240 as human beings and s s society. I guess the 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:20.600 more crass and cynical part of me feels like we 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:25.920 shouldn't really be surprised that industrial food producers are more 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:28.600 willing to discard the parts of the grain or the 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:33.600 wheat that are more expensive to produce, because obviously these 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:38.480 companies are purely driven by profitability. So how can we 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:42.120 make people understand the urgency of really thinking more critically 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:45.880 about this and maybe even acting in opposition to this 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:50.400 system when, for instance, we don't really even know where 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.080 to buy these flowers. We can't buy these flowers at 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:57.280 the grocery store. So what are we as consumers supposed 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:02.600 to do? It becomes this question of who gains access 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:05.640 not just to the ingredient, but who gains access to 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:10.199 the money that plays into this two More importantly, I 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:13.240 would say, the information that is necessary to use these 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:16.640 products to the best degree possible. And when I say best, 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:19.079 I don't mean just in baking at home. I meaning 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:24.880 questions of social equity and inclusion and an understanding of 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:28.920 the culinary and cultural background that are intrinsically linked to 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:33.400 not only bringing these grains into North America, but also 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:35.480 into how to use them and how those things fed 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.439 generations of people. And now we are at a point 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:44.160 where that information is nearly erased, and we cannot deny 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:49.040 that the proliferation of especially in a country like Canada 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:53.760 where I live, The proliferation of this uniformity and this 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:57.800 homogeneity in terms of distribution and the flavor, or rather 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:02.360 the distribution of no flavor, also brought about a greater 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:05.480 amount of food security, because grain is a living thing. 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:09.480 I have um grains in my cupboard that i've been there, 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:12.600 that I bought in California that are two years old, 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:15.360 and I have yet to mill them. They're fine. The 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:18.040 second I mill them, they start to turn rancid, So 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:20.480 I have six months to use that flower. That whole 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:24.800 rancidity is basically what most of us believe that whole 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:28.640 grains and whole grain flowers taste of, and that's what 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:34.240 we're accustomed to. And so the removal of that creates 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:39.760 an ease and a facility that allowed generations of individuals 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:42.760 to be able to bake at home in an affordable way. 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:45.120 And we cannot deny that in the same way that 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:51.400 like um, you can't deny that UM. The progressions of 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:55.400 canning food, of frozen foods, the development of supermarkets, all 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:58.280 of these things emancipated people who cooked. And we're talking 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:02.800 mostly about women here, oftentimes woman of color, and especially 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:04.840 in the Southern United States in certain parts where grains 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:08.679 are even more part of it that this emancipation and 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:14.679 this ease fostered huge changes in how we view um 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:17.640 the work necessary to create these things, whether it be 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:22.480 baked goods or like making a roue in Louisiana, or 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:25.920 if we're making biscuits. I am not anti white flower. 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:28.120 I've been baking for the past two to three years 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:31.240 with whole green flowers, and I had a huge learning curve, 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:33.720 and I still bake with white flower and occasion, depending 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:37.040 on what I'm making. Having said that, there are also 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:40.160 other benefits, especially in a place like Canada and where 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:42.160 there are things such as the Wheat Board of Canada, 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:47.960 which is a government body which helps ensure a arguably 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:53.040 equitable or fair pricing system for grain, which is a commodity. 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:56.880 So let's say you are a person of enough means 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:02.920 to pay um, let's say seven or eight dollars for 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:08.040 a kilogram of buck wheat flour or ten dollars for 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:14.360 a kilogram of locally milled and grown corneal arguments. Say 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:16.240 you're able to do that, You're gonna take that home? 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:18.080 What are you gonna do with it? Do you know 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:20.480 what to do with that? You don't we have because 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:23.360 we don't have to anymore. We have lost. But that's 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:26.560 the loss and that that we have experienced as eaters. 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:28.360 And I think that we have been robbed of this. 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:31.520 I mean, I really do, and I think it's unfortunate. 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:34.320 And I think we can have all the best of 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:36.520 intentions and when it comes to the ecology and when 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:39.200 it comes to the economics and the ethics of these things, 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:40.400 but in the end, if we don't know how to 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:44.680 use the product, we're s O. L. Simon makes several 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:49.480 critical points here. One is the erasure of knowledge surrounding grains. 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:53.440 Whole wheat is actually flavorful and adds a depth and 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:58.440 complexity too recipes, but we've pejoratively associated it as an 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:03.960 unappealing healthful or as a bread with a brick like texture, 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:09.120 which raises the question, once we've bought our grains, how 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.400 do we know what to do with it? And how 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.280 do we know what to bake? And I think that 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:21.280 baking at home specifically is a one of the most 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:26.600 tentative and doable answers to understanding and using and respecting 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:30.280 the work that goes into agriculture, the work that goes 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:33.080 into milling and the work that goes into providing food 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:38.520 for people. Because baking at home is where most of 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:40.360 us can learn how to use it. You can eat 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:42.840 something from a professional baker and appreciate the work that 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:48.440 goes into it because you're experiencing flavor. You're experiencing texture 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:52.120 in a context you never perhaps understood or new. You 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:54.600 could be even experiencing both of those things in completely 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:58.440 new ways and in completely new cultural context Um, you're 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:02.440 eating rye in a Scandinavie in uh, either a dry 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:05.720 like cracker style bread or something super dense and moist, 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:10.320 or you're experiencing buckwheat in a croissant. All of a 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:13.520 sudden you're like, how did they do this? But more 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:16.760 than anything where it's still about consumption and consumerism in 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:19.440 that true way, not just consumption of eating but consumption 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:23.000 of product. But that is the gateway to getting into 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:27.000 understanding what is possible. Professionals can show you what is possible, 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:32.199 but you at home, we're the ones who buy the 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:34.439 flour and bake things at home for ourselves out of 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:37.440 joy or out of necessity, and to be able to 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:39.800 gain access to that. But let me to get back 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:42.639 to that is the thing of like, how do we 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:44.440 I think home bakers are the are the real way 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:47.840 to get to this because home baker is the one 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:51.359 who spends the money to feed themselves. The home baker 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:53.439 is the one who's going to do the work and 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:55.520 see the value in the work. And I don't mean 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:59.000 the esoteric idea of work of what brought that to 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:01.639 their table, the work of putting their hands in flour 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:06.320 and playing with water and fats and flavors, and in 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:11.520 doing that there is a greater appreciation and a greater 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:16.960 um sense of satisfaction and being able to figure something 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:19.320 out that you've never figured out before, even if it's 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:21.600 something as simple as how much fat or how much 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:24.800 water or how much sugar or whatever I need to 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:28.080 add to this to make it taste the best possible way, 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:32.520 so that I am being respectful of my time and 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:34.280 at the time of everybody else down this food chain. 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:39.919 Anytime we're disrupting or derailing the corporate food system, I 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:42.680 think we're on the right track. So I'm with you there, 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:45.639 But can you help us understand on a primary level, 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:50.719 when wheat is grown industrially, what is that process like 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:55.199 from grain to consumer? And can you just walk us 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:59.439 down the two distinct journeys from industrial grain into the 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:05.560 final value added product like flour or bread. So to 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:09.360 do the t L d R version of great agriculture 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:13.560 in North America, basically after the war, after World War two, 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:17.600 agriculture change in North America in which we had a 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:19.439 lot of people to feed, and we wanted to feed them, 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:22.480 and we want to feed them in a way that 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:27.440 again liberated workers to a certain degree to be able 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:29.080 to make more money or to work a little bit 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:31.720 less or what do we need? We well, we're going 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:34.520 to put things into the ground. We're going to put 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:39.520 um petro chemicals into the ground. And then now especially 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:43.359 we're putting pesticides into the ground. Whether you agree with 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:45.560 the use of those things or not, that's fine, that's 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:48.040 not what I'm interested in. What I'm interested is what happens. 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:55.000 And so for a farmer, let's talk about the both 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:57.520 the agriculture and the economics at once. For a farmer 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:00.280 to be able to make money, to grow grain, they 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:04.120 have to plant lots of it. The question of scale 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:08.720 and the maintenance of that scale is incredibly difficult and 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:13.720 incredibly high. Why because you have to grow it or 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:15.800 raise it or rear it in a certain way, and 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:18.480 that's a big way. And to do that well, then 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:21.480 you have a huge amount of land. Land is expensive, 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:24.400 gas is expensive to run the tractor or the mill 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:27.080 or whatever else you're going through all of this, and 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:32.560 so that means that the inputs that go into your land. 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:35.280 And when I say input, I mean time, I mean petrochemicals, 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:37.800 I mean water, I mean whatever else is necessary to 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:44.840 do this often denigrates and ruins the soil in and 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:47.879 of itself. We are now at a point where the 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:50.119 amount of soil that is used to grow our food, 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:55.280 the top soil for that, is being destroyed. What's also 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:58.119 being distorted the communities in which that these grains are 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:02.320 being grown. And what was it that changed that necessitated 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:06.159 those higher volumes of wheat production. Was it a growing 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:10.000 demand from the government from the consumer or was it 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:13.960 just because we had to fill grocery store shelves. Money 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:18.680 necessitates volume, more money, more volume, more grain, more bread 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:22.960 on the shelves, more people eating grain. In whatever way 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:26.000 possible that we can. Where can I insert Like people 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:28.679 always talk about corn being inserted everywhere. If you were 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:31.280 someone who's glued, intolerant, or Celiac and you look for 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:34.040 something that doesn't have grain in it, you're doing a 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:39.760 lot of work um And also also because grain is 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:43.280 a commodity, therefore it is traded in economic ways, and 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:46.679 so for all of these things link into it. And 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:51.200 yet the dividends are mostly economic and the losses are 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:55.840 agricultural and um cultural as well in terms of how 0:21:55.840 --> 0:21:58.320 to grow these things, because we have become so used 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:01.480 to growing things in this very specif of big way 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:04.840 that we're constantly losing the information that could have been 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:06.800 brought there. I don't know if it's the answer, but 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:10.920 an answer that is constantly coming up within grains is 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:14.960 a very grassroots kind of look towards greens. And I 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:16.879 will be completely honest and say I don't know what 0:22:17.040 --> 0:22:20.360 is the right way yet. In Canada, for example, there's 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:24.240 actually an organization, this really great group in Vancouver called 0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:28.800 Flowerist and what it is is they are the daughters 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:33.400 of grain farmers, are of the daughters of people who 0:22:33.440 --> 0:22:37.320 grew up in grain regions, and they're like, we really 0:22:37.359 --> 0:22:39.400 want to highlight the work that these people are doing. 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:41.960 And so they found specific farmers who are growing grain 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:45.480 in very specific ways that are agriculturally sound and ecologically sound. 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:48.760 They buy that grain whole, they send it the ship 0:22:48.880 --> 0:22:53.400 to Vancouver, and you, as a consumer can buy that flower, 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:56.439 have an idea of where that came from, and have 0:22:56.480 --> 0:22:59.520 it shipped to you anywhere in North America. So is 0:22:59.560 --> 0:23:01.520 that the way to do it? I don't not entirely 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:05.640 pretty sure, because that helps one farmer and it has 0:23:05.680 --> 0:23:08.359 the same It has the ethical Footbritain that I wanted 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:10.959 to have or the but it doesn't necessarily always have 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:15.159 the ecological one because shipping things cost money. And so 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:17.479 it's a question of personal because all of this all 0:23:17.520 --> 0:23:20.800 comes back again to personal responsibility. And that's the thing 0:23:20.800 --> 0:23:22.720 with the small scale allows you to see it is 0:23:22.720 --> 0:23:26.320 your personal responsibility, while large scale it removes your responsibility 0:23:26.359 --> 0:23:29.000 from all of this. But also in terms of like 0:23:29.520 --> 0:23:33.120 um that small scale in the grassroot thing that also 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:36.360 happens within all of this have been conferences popping up 0:23:36.400 --> 0:23:40.639 across North American and even across the world. Um. Like 0:23:40.680 --> 0:23:46.040 I said, there was the needing conference which happens in Maine, 0:23:46.080 --> 0:23:48.760 and there is the grain gathering which happens in Washington State. 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:54.280 And then there is also um or a taste for 0:23:54.320 --> 0:23:58.800 grain in Montreal, and there are grain conferences happening in 0:23:59.520 --> 0:24:04.240 UH the UK, and people are looking all over North America, 0:24:04.359 --> 0:24:07.200 from small scale to large scale, into like what can 0:24:07.240 --> 0:24:12.320 we do to ensure that our food security is safe, 0:24:13.160 --> 0:24:16.800 but that we're still able to have a food experience 0:24:16.840 --> 0:24:19.960 that is worth our time from all points of view, 0:24:20.040 --> 0:24:36.880 from flavor to agriculture. I love to eat grain, cards 0:24:37.040 --> 0:24:40.280 all that stuff, but my body hated it. Um. It 0:24:40.320 --> 0:24:45.040 wasn't until I came to Europe and I started. I 0:24:45.119 --> 0:24:47.399 was in France and it was eating bread there, and 0:24:47.440 --> 0:24:49.400 then I came to Leo's farm and I was introduced 0:24:49.440 --> 0:24:52.199 to ancient grains. It wasn't so much the grain and 0:24:52.240 --> 0:24:54.240 the flower. It was as it is I think the 0:24:54.400 --> 0:24:59.199 quality of the grains that we eat nowadays, and it 0:24:59.320 --> 0:25:03.280 basically change my whole world. That's writer Mauricia Tiller talking 0:25:03.280 --> 0:25:08.439 about Leonardo Petrocelli from Zeletta de Brancia, a farm in Puglia, Italy. 0:25:09.000 --> 0:25:13.880 She came to me and she was not eating grain, 0:25:14.400 --> 0:25:19.240