Agreed pretty much across the board, to avoid dangerous fats, eliminate processed foods. Just start there. It is that simple. Starting there, and using whole foods, you've got many choices. Knowing where your food is sourced, less hands involved, you will find pure, less processed products. Many of the diets studied around the world that dcarch refers to are most likely sourced close to home. Probably eating local produce and using oils processed nearby? A much different diet than vegetable oils here. Those that use olive oils know how to cook with them. A low heat or med heat is fine using olive oil. Save the first pressing for dressings or a drizzle. A bit of heat will change the fresh flavor so save it for later off heat. The second pressing is lighter in flavor and color and better for cooking. Can handle a higher heat. Really depends on your cooking style. If you blast your veggies with high heat, most oils will burn and smoke. My coconut oils are always solid. I warm them and add other oils to keep it fluid. I rarely use high heat for anything but water to boil. And baking bread. A slow and low saute just needs a tbsp or less for a mirepoix and then broth to steam tender veggies or a slow roasting in the oven with even less oil. I just don't buy into the 'capsule on-line' supplement oils and their health claims. Raw and fresh food oils are in many things. Cold pressed/expeller oils are so easily available that it doesn't make sense to buy oils that use heat processed and chemically treated extraction methods. Use real butter over the cheap spreads like margarine and veg oils. Even some butter tastes weird and rancid. Buy quality organic and just use less. Research the source, buy local/fresh. Or a brand that you and others trust. It really does taste so much better. We don't use that much butter but have it in the freezer. We prefer good olive oils infused with herbs and garlic for fresh warm bread. Butter with eggs and toast or waffles with maple syrup. Just personal preference. A cod/fish cake, crab cake, i have to use good butter. I like the flavor for some things. No reason to change the way you cook completely and avoid oils. Or using gobs of butter on everything more out of habit rather than flavor.

There are just so many different ways to make multi-grain breads, and several different bread-making methods to consider. The neat thing about bread is that it isn't just one thing... I'd also have to ecco rhome410 about milling your own grains/seeds/beans if you are this interested in the healthy aspect of it. It's THE only way to get the most available nutrition. It will also save you a lot of money - especially if you make all your breads - which I do. The price of grains is typically much lower than purchasing the flours. Breadmaking is full of little "rules", along with all the exceptions to the "rules". Knowing the rules will help you troubleshoot the old question, "WHAT HAPPENED?". In fact, "Artisan Bread in 5-Minutes a Day" is a complete contradiction to generally held bread science. A general rule: Adding anything sharp (DRY multi-grain cereal blends, nuts, seeds, flakes I mill at home, etc.) at the BEGINNING of mixing/kneading can result in the gluten strands being cut by the these things. As rhome410 said, she uses a sponge method (soaks a portion of the liquid/flour/yeast, so the dry chopped grains soak up hydration during the sponge. Other recipes will have you add hot water to these grain mixtures to soften them. There are ALWAYS options in the world of bread. I like the added "crunch", so I generally add them late in the kneading. Home-milled flakes are just smashed grains, and they are thicker than commercial old-fashioned oatmeal. Commercial oatmeal is tempered with steam to soften the grain, then it's run through the roller mill. When you make your own flakes you don't temper the grain - you mill it dry. I have a bread recipe that uses steel-cut oats. I'll try to find and post it. You can also make the steel-cut oats into oatmeal and make the recipe I've linked below for Cooked Oatmeal Scones. When making breads by hand I add the gluten-containing flour to the liquids FIRST, and beat the dickens out of that mixture to develop the gluten while the mixture is still in the bowl (adding flour a little at a time and mixing it thoroughly with a Danish Dough Whisk). Then I'll add any non- or low-gluten flour. They don't require the work that gluten-development in wheat flour does. Non- or low-gluten flours just needs to be incorporated. Adding oatmeal is great. If the recipe has you add it early in the process, it will be pulvarized and well-incorporated by the time the loaf is done. You'll have little evidence of it, unless you add some to the top of the loaf just before you bake it. If you add too much oatmeal or oat flour, the bread will be moist, doughy and crumbly. You can also make your own oat flour by running oatmeal through a blender or food processor until it's flour. I make oat flour by milling oat groats. I wouldn't add any more than 20% oat flour to a bread recipe or you'll compromise the texture and crumb. Different grain flours contribute different textures to breads. Dough that has rye flour in it is characteristicly sticky. People tend to continue to add flour to overcome the stickiness and often add too much and end up with a dry dough and a "brick" for a loaf of rye bread. I use rye for all kinds of things, not just breads. It's an under-used flour in my books. It works well in baked goods that don't need a lot of gluten development - like quick breads and cookies. I suspect the "When Pigs Fly" - seven grain and pumpkin seed bread is made mainly with bleached or unbleached bread flour (possibly whole wheat flour) with a portion being either 7-Grain flour, or 7-Grain chopped grain mixture. It comes both ways. Pumpkin seeds can be whole/chopped/pulvarized. I tend to mill sesame seeds (flax as well) I add to breads. (I add flaxmeal to EVERYTHING!) You don't get any of the nutrition unless they are cracked - either masticating or milling them. It's just easier to mill them to assure they are easy to digest. Bob's Red Mill has a 10-grain flour available. You have to be careful using these multi-grain/seed/bean flour combinations because they include non-gluten and low-gluten ingredients. You need a major portion of the flour to contain gluten (flour derived from wheat) and only a small percentage to be from non- or low-gluten flours, or the bread won't rise like you are accustomed to when you make white bread. I don't add WHOLE grains in the form of a wheat berry or an oat groat. They are added either by being milled into flour, coarsely chopped, flakes or sprouts. I like to add whole amaranth seeds to quick breads as an easy addition. They look like golden poppy seeds and add a lot of great nutrition and crunch. I also add amaranth flour to breads. I mill it in a seed mill. This particular mill does those tiny seeds and oily seeds like poppy seeds, sesame seeds, flax, teeny-tiny Tef and amaranth, etc. I can easily substitute 1/2 c. of the flour in the recipe with 1/2 a cup of amaranth flour without too much trouble or changes in the bread texture. That's another way to get multi-grain breads. I use quinoa in cooking, not baking. Quinoa is coated with saponin and you have to wash it very well before using it or it's bitter-tasting. So if you want to mill it into flour you have to wash it and then dry it before you mill it. Not worth the bother in my books. You chance messing your mill up if the grain isn't completely dry when you mill it. Lots of cooked cereals, like cooked quinoa, can be added to bread recipes. I'd also suggest following recipes that include multiple grain mixtures or grain flours in them, before striking out on your own and making your own substitutions. I'd suggest as much studying as you do baking. You can probably get these books at your local library, or have them get them through Inter-Library Loan. - The first 100 pages of "CookWise" by Shirley O. Corriher. That covers a lot of what you need to know about making bread in general. - "The Splendid Grain" by Rebecca Wood. It explains grains and how they are used. For instance, you can make your own rice flour in a coffee/spice mill, but which rice is best for baking? Short- and medium-grain rice are best for baking. Long-grain rice is best for dredging or thickening. Short- and medium-grain rice flour can be used for dredging/thickening, as well as baking. -"The Pleasure of Whole-Grain Breads" - by Beth Hensperger Other little-known rules, like adding ascorbic acid powder to recipes for yeast bread that contain whole wheat flour or wheat germ. Ascorbic acid powder counteracts the negative effects of Glutathione (found in the wheat germ), which breaks the gluten bonds - which accounts for so many short-squatty loaves of 100% whole wheat bread. Ascorbic acid (1/8-t. per loaf) helps prevent gluten bonds from breaking down, helps sustain the leavening during baking (more oven spring), and helps promote yeast growth. I've been studying bread science, milling, and grains for years, and am still learning all the time. Welcome to the club... -Grainlady Here is a link that might be useful: COOKED Oatmeal Scones

I just picked up "Advanced Bread and Pastry; a professional approach" by Michel Suas. This is a textbook that most culinary students would recognize. Roughly 1000 pages for about $60. Although geared towards the budding professional, there is a ton of great information for the advanced home baker's bread and pastry efforts. Do you really know why you need to scald milk for certain recipes? I didn't either. . .

I've always use Honeyville Grain almond flour, or homemade from making almond milk and dehydrating the pulp and grinding it into a fine flour myself. It's been my experience that Bob's Red Mill is inferior to Honeyville, and Elana Amsterdam says as much in her book "The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook". Bob's fails to give consistent results each time, as you found out, because Bob's is much coarser than other brands of almond flour. I take advantage of 20% off sales offered by Honeyville Grain and stock-up, and I love their $4.49 shipping for your entire order (although it's free shipping all of Dec. if you purchase $125. -Grainlady