Great article.... I'd also like to point out that the price of wheat is still cheap food even at $18/bushel and the farmer deserves the higher prices for a change. They are feeling the inflated prices of fuel as much as the rest of us. They drive combines to harvest grain that cost as much as most people's homes around here.

Wheat is still a cheap commodity and there are a lot of ways to use it in your diet besides as white flour. The price of $3-$5 loaves of bread isn't JUST the price of wheat.... A bushel of wheat will yield 42 (1.5#) loaves of commercial white bread (source: www.wheatfoods.org).

A bushel of wheat yields approx. 60 pounds of whole wheat flour. Milling my own wheat into flour means I can get 60 pounds of whole wheat flour for $18.

I live in the middle of wheat country and I have hundreds of pounds of wheat and other grains in my home storage. I mill my own flour from a variety of grains/seeds/beans, and have for years. The investment price of the mills I use was paid for long ago from savings on all the baked goods I make at home. If I don't make it, we don't have it, because nothing is purchased commercially. I did this to control the quality and type of ingredients found in baked goods today.

I occasionally get free wheat from cousins or friends, which is VERY cost effective. Add to that the ability to bake bread and other baked goods in a solar oven (free energy), and that brings the price of a loaf of bread down to pennies.

-Grainlady

How much of that price increase are the actual farmers getting, though? I hope most of it.

Grainlady, you're amazing. I want to be you when I grow up! :-)

Sally

Grainlady, I couldn't agree with you more...except for the solar oven thing. Here, in New England, were one to wait for a day when there was enough sunshine to heat up a solar oven...well, let's just say it would be a good way to cut back on how much bread one was eating! lol We installed two 3'x6' solar panels on our boat to run everything from the electronics to the a/c, heat, refrigerator, freezer, microwave, TV, etc. Then, we gather on the dock to do a "sun dance"! We're not good at it...we usually get T-storms. Nevertheless, making bread is a smart financial move for some. Others, probably not so much. In today's world, everybody's best use of time is not necessarily baking. It just depends on a person's lifestyle. A friend of mine is a patent attorney in Boston. She bills her time @ $450/hour+. Her eyes glaze over when I talk about baking. :) She gladly stops by the bakery on her way home & grabs a couple loaves of that $5/loaf bread for her family. Admittedly, she's an anomally to most of us (myself included) but many I know would rather attend their kid's athletic practices than stay home tending rising bread. It's all about those darned choices & consequences that I've been trying unsuccessfully to avoid my entire life. rofl

/tricia

Grainlady:
Did anyone tell you they love you today ???
I luv U

Lou

Grainlady - solar oven - is that your Sharp convection microwave?? Hooked up to panels? kewl!

I've stopped buying bread at the market, but I guess I ought to make my own flour (whole grain) tortillas as well. I think the last package of large whole wheat tortillas cost $3.25 - which I felt was pretty high. The tortillas are bigger than my largest skillet, and so I wonder if I should invest in a griddle. Corn tortillas are still cheap, however, and I used those much more often than flour.

I plan to make some more pumpernickel tomorrow.

Lars

sally2 - You don't know what you're asking for.... (LOL)

hawk307 - Hubby loves and adores me and tells me so quite often - and knows full well he's eating things like chia seed goop and flaxmeal in his bread. The grown kids say they love me, but I think they have ulterior motives.

jessyf - I have two free-standing solar ovens. I wheel them out of the garage on a steel cart I store them on and set them up in the yard on the cart.

One is a Tulsi Hybrid, which also has a low-wattage electric option that is a food safety feature (http://www.sunbdcorp.com/). If clouds move in and there's not enough sun to maintain a safe cooking temperature, the electric feature will kick in. You can cook with the electric feature alone (so you can use the oven without sun), the solar feature alone, or the combination. It looks like a large hard-sided briefcase.

The other one is a Sun Oven and is solar-power only. http://www.eartheasy.com/sun_oven.htm If you watched the HGTV show, Living With Ed, it's the same solar oven Ed Begley used in his backyard.

I can easily use a solar oven 8-10 months a year.

It's really not critical whether you live in Arizona or Main - or even if there is snow on the ground or the middle of summer. As long as the sun is shining brightly and the sky is clear, you've got power. They are using solar ovens in Winnipeg, Manitoba and they are about 50° north latitude. The temperature of a solar oven is determined more by the amount of sunshine than the outside air temperature. Clear days are best. I can't achieve 350-400°F temperatures in the summer when the stubble in the wheat fields are being burned and there's a lot of haze from the smoke in the air. It doesn't matter that it's 110°F and not a cloud in the sky. If there's a lot of haze, it will diminish the temperature potential. It takes longer to cook something in the winter when the sun is low in the hemosphere, but it WILL cook. Meats/poultry & fish, casseroles, breads, desserts, vegetables, beans/grains....

-Grainlady

Just as I suspected, Grainlady. In New England, we don't have much clear sunshine. What little we do get is usually in the fall. I grow bleeding heart in what people here refer to as "full sun". If I don't, they don't bloom. If I'd have done that in Denver they'd have fried in one afternoon. There's always a haze here. Very different than any other area of the country I've lived in.

Our home in NH had an outdoor beehive oven...got pretty good at baking bread. I took classes at Strawberry Banke in hearth cooking...very fun.

/tricia

OOOh..good post..and great discussion..
I was just coming to ask the Grain Queen..and maybe Tricia can answer too..

What is the difference between Hard White and Hard Red Wheats? I've started purchasing organic ap flour, but I can get a better deal buying the flours in bulk, and want to know if I should combine them, or use one over the other?
Most of my baking is Sol's CChip Cookies, biscuits and muffins.
From Azure Farm: (not sure of the actual growing location)
Price wise: Hard White Organic 50lbs 36.40
Hard Red Organic 50lbs 31.80
WW pastry Organic 50lbs 28.90
Unbleached White Organic 10lbs 5.10
From Montana Milling
Sifted unbleached Wheat Organic(says happy medium between ww and white) 50lbs 23.40

I've been buying KA Organic Unbleached AP for around $4something for 5lbs.

Grainlady will know for sure. I've always thought that white whole wheat & hard red whole wheat were the same nutrionally. The white whole wheat is lighter. I use it for cookies, brownies, & muffins exclusively when baking for my family. Biscuits are another story...I'm fussy about biscuits & like unbleached white pastry flour. I figure, what the heck, biscuits are not going to be healthy no matter what flour I use so I might as well use something that makes the 'treat' as yummy as possible...sorta like pie...I use lard & don't apologize.

I don't like hard red wheat in cookies or muffins...just too heavy for our tastes. BUT, I do like them with 50% red whole wheat. I hardly ever have hard red in the house anymore...almost always use the white WW.

/tricia

terri - tricia got you going in the right direction about the difference.

White wheat is very similar to red wheat - the plants are alike as well as the nutrition and fiber. The difference is the color of the bran. The bran color is determined by one, two, or three major genes that don't affect the other plant traits.

The original Turkey hard red winter wheat (the Grandfather of hard wheat varieties) had three genes for red bran and is very dark, but this variety of wheat is seldom grown. It's more of a "hobby" variety with historical significance. Today most red wheat varieties only have one or two of these genes. White wheat has NO major genes for bran color.

If you were to use some Turkey Red Wheat you would find it pretty bitter-tasting even compared to other red wheat varieties. That's the bitter, acidic, "taste" associated with whole wheat bread and other whole wheat products that whole wheat haters dislike.

My favorite wheat variety is Prairie Gold Hard Spring White Wheat from Wheat Montana. I've used several varieties of locally-grown hard white winter wheat - a small mill just outside of town distributes both grain and stone milled white whole wheat flour.

My 100% whole wheat bread is light colored and very mild tasting - more like a loaf of light wheat bread where there is more white flour than whole wheat in the recipe - and it is as light in texture and high-rising as most enriched white bread because I use a 2-1/2 hour sponge before making the dough.

White wheat is milder and sweeter tasting than red varieties. I also prefer soft white wheat for pastry and cakes (I make "cake" flour with a 3:1 combination of soft white wheat and oat groats milled into flour).

The only red wheat I use is the free wheat I get from generous friends/family.

-Grainlady

I could use a solar oven here maybe half of the year, but the month of February had 14 consecutive days with zero sun, according to the National Weather Service. The final tally for February was 14 no sun days, 12 mostly cloudy days and 3 partly cloudy days. I baked bread anyway because I have a gas oven.

The farmers don't get very darned much of that price increase, much of it goes into transportation and production.

I make all my own bread, but Ashley only likes that icky store-bought white spongy stuff, like Wonderbread. Sigh.

Still, I make a couple of loaves a week and anything I don't eat gets turned into bread crumbs, so it's not wasted in any event.

I agree about the red wheat, I seldom use it.

Annie

excellant information everyone! Thank you..I appreciate it greatly!

"King Arthur is quoted as saying that while store bought bread is running between $3 to $5 a loaf, homemade costs $.60 a loaf."

I'd like to see their math. $4.49 is about the best price I can get on a 5 lb. bag of flour around here. That's about a dollar per 9" loaf in flour alone. Now lets add some yeast, milk, etc. And let's preheat and run that oven at 350 degrees. That probably didn't cost much more than about 10 cents but since we're counting... And the hot water and detergent to clean your bowls?

Just to keep things in perspective, I'm currently spend $2.99 a loaf - the the bottom of the range KA gave - for Pepperidge Farm Whole Grain White Bread.

Don't get me wrong, I admire those who can bake a great loaf of bread (or anything for that matter) and sure hope to be able to do so myself someday. But you don't need to be making $450 an hour for it to be cheaper to buy your bread. You probably don't even need to make minimum wage.

I just realized I didn't specify - $4.49 was for 5 lb bag of "King Arthur" flour - other brands are considerably cheaper.

On a related topic, brace yourselves for an increase in potato prices also. I suspect we'll be seeing shortages.

Wheat prices are the best they've been in years; wheat is also less labor-intensive than potatoes. The result is many of our PNW farmers (think Idaho) are switching from potatoes to wheat. More profitable, not just because wheat requires fewer man hours but also because going from seed to harvest uses considerably less diesel.

Carol