"The joy of motherhood comes in moments. Live in the moment."

~M. Russell Ballard

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Whole Wheat Surprise

For those of you who don't know, I grind wheat and make homemade bread pretty much on a weekly basis. It helps us rotate our wheat, saves us money, and actually tastes really good. Well today I was making a batch of bread for a friend when I realized my white wheat was almost gone. No problem. I have more downstairs. I go and get the 50 lb. monstrosity, lug it up the stairs and proceed to grind some more. As the grinder is going I figured I would empty some of the bag into my 5 gallon pantry buckets to make it more accessible in the future. As I transferred it from the bag to the bucket I realized there were some very non-wheat like particles mixed in with the wheat. Upon closer inspection I realized I was probably staring at what appeared to be decapitated grasshoppers. Dried out, bodyless heads. GAG!!! I sifted through more wheat and sure enough found more and more little heads and presumably body parts of the little creatures. It's okay I told myself. If you didn't see them, you would never know right? The oven gets hot, kills all the germs--little extra protein---no problem. Yeah---I couldn't quite get past the thought. I threw out the flour I had just ground, and thought about washing all the outside grinder parts. However, I realized there was no way to clean the inside working parts of the grinder so what's the point of cleaning the other parts? That's a lot of work. Oh well--I'll just grind a few more batches of clean wheat through it and call it good. So, that's what I did. Bread anyone?

8 comments:

Wes Harris said...

Oh gross! Better than weevils I guess. I'm glad you decided not to eat the grasshopper heads. Of course nobody else saw it right? JK

Jennifer Harris said...

Whoa! That is disgusting! Those stories always terrify me. I just know one day I am going to open a can of beans and a rat head is going to flop out or I am going to be drinking a can of soda and a thumb will be bobbing on the surface.

Anonymous said...

I've heard of weevils in wheat, but never grasshopper heads! Nasty! How do you like your grinder? Max and I are shopping for one. I have 800 pounds of wheat and no way to grind it. I want one that's both electrical and manual but I hear they're not as good, any advice?

Ryan & Keri said...

I don't blame you! I would have tossed them too. Bugs in my food freaks me out. But I've never heard of grasshoppers! Wow!

Amy said...

That gives me the shivers! I am so sorry...finding bugs in food is the worst!!!

Salmon Tolman Family said...

Ewww! That is so disgusting! And not even weevils; giant and gross deceased grasshoppers! EWWW.

Tracy Giles said...

Wow!! We have been buying and storing wheat for awhile now trying to get a full years supply for everyone in our family. We are getting pretty close, but our basement is filling up. I have finally decided to pull out the wheat grinder my mother in law gave me 2 years ago for Christmas! I'm so excited to start learning how to bake bread. Do you have any recipes or tips you want to pass along? It's good to know I need to keep an eye out for grasshoppers! That is so gross! I'm really excited about saving money and having freshly baked bread.

triciarnorton said...

Do you use uncle budd's recipe? I am going to try it today.
I need a wheat grinder. Any recommendations on where to get one?
PS. do you remember when I was eating worms in grandpa's dried apples? And those bad boys were LIVE! Yuck!