Anyone here growing spelt... or interested in doing so?

[Joel_BC]

Grains are important in most people's diets - wheat, rice, oats, corn, rye, and the rest. In my part of the world, there has been a lot of criticism of the high-gluten modern forms of wheat. It's now believed by many people that gluten has some health drawbacks, for instance that it fosters weight gain... and also I guess there's some medical evidance that some individuals are quite allergic to modern wheat & what products due to all the gluten.

Spelt is growing in popularity as a food ingredient, for this reason. It's a low gluten wheat - some term it a "primitive wheat". Just wondering of some of you have tried growing spelt on your SS homesteads or elsewhere?

Whether your have or not, possibly you'd be interested in learning more about it. ? :/

This could be the start of a thread for sharing on that topic.

 

[ORChick]

I haven't grown in (and couldn't; not enough room), but I have been cooking more with it lately (baking, I should say) I've been reading a fair bit about it as well. I know that the health foodies in Germany view it as almost a miracle grain for its health giving properties - which I'm inclined to take with a grain of salt, but perhaps they really are on to something.
I look forward to reading what others have to say on the subject.

 

[Joel_BC]

I haven't grown in (and couldn't; not enough room), but I have been cooking more with it lately (baking, I should say) I've been reading a fair bit about it as well. I know that the health foodies in Germany view it as almost a miracle grain for its health giving properties - which I'm inclined to take with a grain of salt, but perhaps they really are on to something.

I don't think I've got much of a wheat allergy, myself. But spelt is an interesting grain. I've had quite a few things (@ local natural-food bakeries, cafes, etc) made with spelt, and they seemed fine to me. From the flavor, I probably would not have realized they were baked with anything other than ordinary wheat.

About Germany... have recently learned that the crop plantings of spelt in Germany have mushroomed in recent years. If the link with weight gain is ever solidly proven, I'm sure spelt will become much more widely popular in N America!

I look forward to reading what others have to say on the subject.

Yeah, me too.

 

[ORChick]

I haven't grown in (and couldn't; not enough room), but I have been cooking more with it lately (baking, I should say) I've been reading a fair bit about it as well. I know that the health foodies in Germany view it as almost a miracle grain for its health giving properties - which I'm inclined to take with a grain of salt, but perhaps they really are on to something.

I don't think I've got much of a wheat allergy, myself. But spelt is an interesting grain. I've had quite a few things (@ local natural-food bakeries, cafes, etc) made with spelt, and they seemed fine to me. From the flavor, I probably would not have realized they were baked with anything other than ordinary wheat.

About Germany... have recently learned that the crop plantings of spelt in Germany have mushroomed in recent years. If the link with weight gain is ever solidly proven, I'm sure spelt will become much more widely popular in N America!

I look forward to reading what others have to say on the subject.

Yeah, me too.

Yes, that's more or less what I have learned as well. But it isn't entirely a new trend - spelt was always a popular grain there, as several place names show; there are a few places with "Dinkel" (i.e.Spelt) in their names. I don't know what the growing conditions needed for spelt are, but I assume that it grows in a colder climate than regular wheat as it grows well in northern Europe. German breads are predominantly made of rye because of the ease (compared to wheat) of growing rye in their climate. Perhaps spelt is similar.
Interestingly (at least to me ) I learned just a few months ago when I was last in Germany that the word "Spelz" - pronounced "speltz" - means the covering, or hull, of a grain (any grain). It is, I assume, where the English word "spelt" comes from.

 

[moolie]

Living in a grain-producing province, we eat a wide variety of home-ground whole grains including spelt. It's a little different to bake with, as it doesn't build the same gluten chains as modern wheat, but the taste is similar in most foods. My hubs says the chocolate cake we made a while back was the best he'd ever had--lovely texture.

I'd be interested in growing it myself (along with amaranth and a few other grains) if I had the space.

 

[Marianne]

I am currently surrounded by winter wheat fields. So my little 4 acres has a lot of what those fields had in them the previous year. :/ This next year I should have milo, shattercane and sorghum volunteers. To plant some here would take some serious work. I wouldn't mind trying a dinky plot of it just to see what happens, though.

I had never heard of spelt until I started reading on this forum.