Alabama

I went out to Alabama to meet a sprouted grain farmer, Peggy, and got to learn all about the process of making sprouted grain flour, from freshly sprouted seeds to drying to milling. If you’re unfamiliar with sprouted grains, it’s basally grains (which as also seeds) that are moistened and kept in a semi-warm environment until they start to sprout. Once they sprout, all these enzymes and nutrients are released within the grain to help give the little sprout the energy it needs to grow. But if you dry out the sprouted grains right at the point where they sprout and then mill them (i.e. grind them into flour), you get a much more nutrient-dense flour than comparable non-sprouted grain flours.

Peggy was a wealth of information and showed me around her farm and her sprouted grain facility (which smelled absolutely amazing. The smell was almost like a cross between a sweet mash smell from beer brewing and a loaf of bread baking in the oven). The farm she lives on has been in her family for generations, and we got to visit her family’s old house that is still standing on another party of the property. I’d never been to Alabama before, and didn’t really know what to expect, but I was absolutely blown away by the green pastures, lanes lined with trees draped with sweeping Spanish moss, and the kindness of everyone I encountered. Kashi is using Peggy’s sprouted grain flours to make their new delicious Organic Promise Sprouted Grain Cereal, and I was in Alabama to be part of this beautiful video they make about it, and have it included here. I hope you enjoy watching as much as I enjoyed being a part of it, and wish you all a relaxing post-Christmas weekend!