Wholewheat, God’s food choice for his children.

Wholewheat and whole grains are necessary for healthy living.  Many people couldn’t care less about whole grains, some even think that all grains are to be avoided like the plague. There is even a group who spend their time and energies to promote grain free living, they claim they feel better.[2] So what is the truth about grains in our diets? Wheat, barley, oats, spelt, etc. Are they all bad for you, or, are they necessary for a long, healthy life? Which is it?

Wheat can help you get to 100 with some fire left.

Don Pellmann at 100 years old, recently broke the world record (for centenarians) in the 100m dash by 3 seconds, he also broke records in the long-jump, shot-put, discus and high-jump.  Before the day was over Pellmann had broken 5 world records. All of this, mind you, at a track meet in San Diego, where the temperature was approaching 100 degrees.[1]

Don Pellmann is an amazing individual. He is still pole-vaulting at the age of 100. His advice to everyone who wants to be like Don, is to, “Eat sensibly and exercise every time you get a chance.”

Somebody is going to be healthy past 100, might as well be you!

Don says to “eat sensibly”; Don shared with one reporter that he eats “normal things”, like meat and potatoes, soup and salad, fruit and vegetables. Don does not smoke and says he does not drink the “bad fluids” (presumably soft drinks and alcohol). He does have a beer occasionally.[3] Most everybody has their own version of what eating sensibly would mean. When I was growing up my parents believed they were eating sensibly and they thought they were feeding us sensibly as well.

Normal isn’t always good.

When I was growing up, I ate a lot of refined white sugar and refined white flour. I lived the life of a typical “healthy” American boy, I played sports, ate pretty much whatever I wanted and got a lot of fresh air. I had regular physical checkups, and was very physically active. Actually, I was a little over active. For some reason, my mom was always telling me to go play outside. I suffered from ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder). Maybe that’s why she wanted my friends and me to play outside all the time. Anyway, I broke my arm wrestling when I was in grade school. I suffered from frequent colds, flu, runny noses, bloody noses, pulled muscles, cramps, aches and pains, vomiting, chicken pox and mumps. While I had the mumps, I was told that if I got out of bed I might not be able to “have children.” I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about, I wasn’t that worried about it, so I got up when no one was watching. When I looked in the mirror and saw the huge lump on my neck, I hoped that it wasn’t permanent.

I suffered from tonsillitis, so my tonsils were removed. I had cavities and other tooth problems so some of my permanent teeth were removed. My eyesight was poor which affected my reading so I was prescribed bifocals. I had chronic hemorrhoids and pulled muscles. While going to school at Oregon State University, I tried out for the football team. But during that time, I was sick for a number of weeks, couldn’t get over it, and I ended up turning myself into the infirmary. They gave me codeine and I slept for a day or so. When I was 21, I almost died from a ruptured appendix. I still remember my mom calling me that morning. I hurt so bad that I had to crawl to the phone on my hands and knees and when I answered it, my mom, without me saying anything except hello, said, “You get yourself to the hospital.”  Somehow moms just know when their kids are in trouble. I still do not remember anything after that phone call. I ended up in the hospital and spend months recuperating.

I say all that to make a point. I was not abnormal; I wasn’t unusually healthy nor did anyone consider me sickly. Most of my friends have similar stories as mine, which is the crux of my point. Most people are spending way too much time being sick. Since we changed our health care philosophy and started living biblically, we have eliminated almost all the above health problems, including broken bones. Most of our children never saw a doctor.

One of the first changes we made was to eliminate as much processed food from our diets as possible; especially white sugar and white flour. We replaced them with honey, raisins and wholewheat and other whole grains.

There are people who believe they are pleasing God by avoiding all meat, but the Bible tells us what meat we should eat and what meat not to eat.[5,6] There are people who tell us to avoid all grains but the Bible tells us that grains are a blessing. Jesus ate the meat the Bible recommends, Jesus ate bread made from grains the Bible recommends. Since we started following God’s advice by eating red meat and whole grains our health has been phenomenal. Shary is sixty-four and has given birth to 13 healthy kids. She can still out work most twenty year old girls. I turned sixty-five today, I have eliminated all the above physical problems I had when I was in my prime. I can do over fifty pushups without stopping and can do 150 with a few rests in between.  I couldn’t do that when I was  eating junk foods at the age of 18. I couldn’t do that when I was exercising and playing sports all the time. I can do it now that I eat wholewheat and avoid refined flours.

So what kind of wholewheat bread do we eat?

We started by buying store bought, “wholewheat bread”, but soon found that it wasn’t always wholewheat. Some of it was just white flour with food coloring. Some was wholewheat, but also had sugar, preservatives, dangerous food coloring, carcinogenic oils and chemicals. So, we decided to make our own bread. It was so good, that for a while, Shary was selling it to restaurants.

When most of the kids were still living at home, we used to make a batch of wholewheat bread once a week. A batch was 18, one and a half pound loaves. Our kids made toast and sandwiches out of that bread and sometimes just ate it plain.

So, what has God said about wholewheat and whole grains, verses refined flour?

Proverbs 23:1-2 “When you sit to dine with a ruler, note well what is before you, and put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony.    Do not crave his delicacies for that food is deceptive.”

1. A) Note what is before you.
2. B) Do not crave a ruler’s delicacies (dainties)
3. C) That food is deceptive
4. D) It’s worse if you are given to gluttony (overeating, or uncontrolled eating)
5. E) If you eat it, you might as well cut your own throat.

In the past, only kings and government rulers could afford to eat refined foods. They were far too expensive for common people. Wealthy people could afford to purchase a delicacy called white flour. White flour was produced by laboriously breaking off the dark wheat germ part of the wheat cornel, leaving only the white part of the wheat, then grinding what was left into a finer more delicate flour. Pellagra used to be called the kings disease because it seemed that only kings and wealthy people came down with it. But when machines made it easy to mill out the wheat germ, and virtually everyone could afford white flour (flour without the dark wheat germ), pellagra became an epidemic among all people.

Pellagra has been halted because it is virtually impossible to get white flour that is not enriched with vitamins and minerals; the vitamins and minerals that were removed from the wheat in the milling process. Though pellagra has been halted, there are many other diseases that can be attributed to eating refined foods. Loma Linda College put out a filmstrip called the Great Grain Robbery. Their premise was that if someone took a twenty-dollar bill from you and gave you back $6, you wouldn’t call yourself enriched. When wheat is refined, over twenty nutrients are removed and enriched flour only replaces six. That food is deceptive. It looks good, it tastes good, it smells good but it is going to shorten your life and make you susceptible to a wide variety of diseases. To remove 20+ nutrients and replace them with 6 and then call that enriched flour, is a flat out lie. Whole wheat flour is far more enriched with vitamins and minerals and will give you and your family a fighting chance at living disease free like our family. Whole wheat will increase your odds of being as strong at 100 as Don Pellmann.

Wholewheat is better for you than white flower.

The farther you get from the way God packaged our food, the worse it is.  In an article published by Readers Digest, in August 2007, respected Harvard obesity researcher David Ludwig, stated that, “Whole foods…digest slowly and release nutrients into the body in a slow and sustained fashion. They include non-starchy vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts and grain products in their least processed state.”  In one study it was found that “obese young adults that secrete insulin rapidly and who were placed on a low-glycemic diet (whole foods), lost five times more weight than the other group and kept all the weight off throughout the 18 months of the study.” That is… the obese young adults that did not eat whole foods, but instead ate refined foods (white flour, refined sugars etc…), lost five times less weight and did not keep it off.[4]

There is a new health craze that believes gluten to be our biggest enemy. If you are gluten intolerant it may be that you are missing some other vital cofactors. If you eat all the foods the Bible suggests, and take the vitamins and minerals you are showing deficiency symptoms for (read Let’s Play Doctor), you may find you are no longer gluten intolerant. For people who love the Bible, and have been opposed to eating wholewheat, here are just a few scriptures that would suggest God is in favor of us eating wheat and other grains.

Wholewheat bread, is one of Gods best gifts to his children.

Luke 11:11-13 (NKJV)                                                                                      ¹¹ If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? ¹² Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

This is Jesus talking, and he is calling bread, fish and eggs, good gifts. Of all the things God could have chosen as an example of a good gift, he chose bread. It must be something special. But what kind of bread was Jesus talking about?

What kind of Bread does God approve of?

Psalm 81:16 (NKJV)                                                                                      ¹⁶ He would have fed them also with the finest of wheat;
And with honey from the rock I would have satisfied you.”

Ezra 6:9 (NKJV)                                                                                           ⁹ And whatever they need—young bulls, rams, and lambs for the burnt offerings of the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, and oil, according to the request of the priests who are in Jerusalem—let it be given them day by day without fail,

Isaiah 28:25 (NKJV)                                                                                       When he has leveled its surface, does he not sow the black cummin
And scatter the cummin, plant the wheat in rows,
The barley in the appointed place, and the spelt in its place?

God specifically asks for wheat, honey, salt, olive oil, barley, cummin and spelt. He not only accepted these as offerings but a portion of the offerings were the food of the Levite clan and the priests. This is what God wanted them to eat. Aaron the first priest, lived on red meat and the bread made from these ingredients. Aaron live to the ripe old age of one hundred and twenty-three. Evidently this bread did not hurt him.

If you want to live long and strong you will need to eliminate refined foods and start eating bread made with wholewheat and these other ingredients. Some people have avoided these grains, because they have been bred for disease resistance and maximum yield, etc. They have been told that hybrid wheat is bad for them. We have not found that to be true. We have simply bought bulk, soft red wheat and hard red wheat, and we have eaten a lot of it.

Just eliminating processed flour and sugar and eating readily available wheat, has turned out to be a game changer for our family’s health. Below you will find Shary’s bread recipe. Shary and I used this recipe for years, this is what our kids practically lived on. We did freshly grind our own wheat before we made bread. This recipe makes 13 loaves of wholewheat bread, which our family could consume in approximately one week. Below there is also a two-loaf recipe for those of you who don’t need that much bread.

13 loaf recipe for  our 20 quart, commercial mixer.

4 quarts of very warm water or milk.

½ cup of salt.

3+ cups of honey.

½ cup of yeast.

You should have 8 quarts of wholewheat flour ready. You will not use all of it, but add it till you get the proper consistency. Slowly add fresh ground wheat till the dough cleans the inside of the mixing bowl. The dough should be tacky but not sticky.

Above is a picture of our world WWI mixer. It was a real miracle the way we acquired it. We had been looking at mixers that size, which cost thousands, which we couldn’t afford. We saw this one at a Fort Stevens auction. We were going to bid on it and were prepared to go as high at a few hundred dollars, but a fire broke out in our neighborhood and we left the auction before it went up for bid. Later we found out it sold for scrap metal. We contacted the scrap man and he offered it to us for fifteen dollars. We made the dough hook, cleaned it up and have been using it for over thirty years.

Two loaf recipe for our 5 quart, Kitchenaid mixer.

This batch can be done without a mixer, by kneading the dough with your hands, but it is a lot of back breaking work.

1 ¾ cups of very warm water or milk

1 tablespoon of salt

1/3 cup of honey

1 tablespoon of yeast

Have 10 cups of wholewheat flour ready, you will probably not use all of it.

Detailed instructions on making wholewheat bread.

1. Mix warm water, yeast, and 1/3 cup honey, in kitchen aid mixer. Add 2 cups whole wheat flour, and mix, let set for 30 minutes, or until big and bubbly.
2. Mix in salt. Mix in 4 cups whole wheat flour until tacky but not real sticky. This may take an additional 2 to 4 cups of whole wheat flour. Add flour slower and slower till the flour cleans the inside of the bowl.  Let it sit till it doubles.
3. Mix till the dough is knocked back down to normal size, then remove from the mixer.  Divide into 2 – 1 ½ pound loaves. Knead and fold into loaf shape, finish with the smooth side up.  Place in greased (use butter) 4×8 inch loaf pans.  Allow to rise until dough has topped the pans by one inch. This needs to be in a warm 72+ room with a towel over the pans to keep in the heat. Or, I preheat the oven to 100 degrees and then let them rise in the oven.
4. Remove the pans from the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. When the oven is up to temperature put the loaves in for 25 to 30 minutes; do not overbake. Bake until the bottoms sound hollow when thumped.
5. Lightly brush the tops of the wholewheat loaves with 2 tablespoons melted butter when done to prevent  from getting hard. Cool completely before bagging.

Hope you enjoy God’s whole wheat bread as much as we have. During this Christmas holiday we also hope you enjoy the celebration of Jesus’ birth, which is God’s best gift to us.

If you have a different experience with wheat or other grains, please comment. Or if you have some supporting information or a testimony that would encourage us, we would love to hear from you. We love a good comment.

Our purpose for writing each week is to provide you with biblical advice on the care and feeding of your body.  We do it because this advice is so rare. We also do it, because we see thousands of good Christians, whose lives have been cut short, simply because they were never taught what the Word of God and the Law of God had to say about health and wellness.

Biblical keys to health and longevity. 

 GOD CREATED MAN. GOD CREATED FOOD.                                                  GOD KNOWS WHAT FOOD HE CREATED FOR MAN TO ENJOY,                GOD KNOWS WHAT FOOD WAS NOT FOR MAN TO ENJOY, AND…                  HE IS NOT TRYING TO KEEP IT A SECRET.

If you believe God knows best, join us and the Wellness Gospel team; register for our weekly newsletter, then spread the word by sharing this with your friends on social media and may God bless you richly.

If you want to keep improving your health, and enjoy this kind of biblical scientific information, then I would like to recommend three must-read books.

1. “None of These Diseases” by S. I. McMillen, M.D. and David E. Stern, D http://tinyurl.com/hh7ezs2
2. “Let’s Play Doctor” by Dr. Joel Wallac                     http://tinyurl.com/j8ybt8r 
3. “God’s Guide To Biblical Health and Healing” by Rev. Chris & Shary Schauermann                                                                      http://tinyurl.com/zvkbfau

You can get all these books at Amazon.com or simply click on the URL under each book title.

REFERENCES

1. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/sports/a-bolt-from-the-past-don-pellmann-at-100-is-still-breaking-records.html?_r=0
2. http://www.grainfreeliving.com/what-is-grain-free/
3. https://www.growingbolder.com/donald-pellman-669884/
4. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2015/12/16/dr-david-ludwig-clears-up-carbohydrate-confusion/
5. http://wellnessgospel.net/index.php/2016/07/10/should-we-eat-red-meat/
6. http://wellnessgospel.net/index.php/2016/10/23/mood-swings-sickness-pork/