What If Gluten Isn't the Enemy? | Sue Becker

Summary

Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark: Episode Summary

Episode Title: What If Gluten Isn't the Enemy? | Sue Becker
Release Date: April 4, 2025
Guest: Sue Becker, Founder of Breadbeckers

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Introduction

In this insightful episode of Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark, host Alex engages in a profound conversation with Sue Becker, the founder of Breadbeckers and a renowned expert in bread making. Sue challenges the widely held belief that gluten is inherently harmful, presenting a compelling case for the health benefits of consuming real, freshly milled bread. This discussion delves deep into the history of bread processing, its impact on public health, and practical solutions to restore bread to its natural, nourishing state.

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Sue Becker's Expertise and Journey

Sue Becker brings over three decades of experience in food science, biochemistry, and bread making to the conversation. With a background in food processing, Sue has dedicated her life to understanding how commercially processed flour affects our health. Her personal journey began in 1991 when she realized the detrimental effects of store-bought sourdough made with processed flour. This revelation led her to mill her own flour and bake real bread, resulting in remarkable health improvements for her family and thousands of her customers.

Sue Becker [00:00]: "If you're doing sourdough with store bought flour, you're wasting your time. They're not getting the nutrients and the fiber that God intended us to get from our bread."

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The Problem with Commercially Processed Flour

Sue explains that the health decline related to bread consumption began in the early 1900s with the advent of steel rolling mills. These mills stripped away the bran and germ from wheat, leaving only the endosperm, which is primarily protein and starch. This process not only reduced the nutritional value of flour but also introduced various health issues.

Sue Becker [02:37]: "Prior to the 1900s, most families had the capacity to mill their own flour, and they made their own bread. Now, the mass production of white flour has made it a staple for everyone, but it's devoid of essential nutrients."

The removal of bran and germ led to deficiencies in important vitamins and minerals, resulting in epidemics of diseases like beriberi (vitamin B1 deficiency), pellagra (vitamin B3 deficiency), and anemia. These conditions were initially mistaken for infectious diseases until studies traced them back to the nutrient-depleted white flour.

Sue Becker [07:54]: "Shortly after the white flour became widespread, three diseases became epidemic: beriberi, pellagra, and anemia. These were directly related to the missing bran and germ in our flour."

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Health Impacts of White Flour and Processed Bread

Sue emphasizes that the negative health impacts are not solely due to gluten but the overall processing of wheat. The stripped-down flour lacks fiber, essential fatty acids, proteins, and various phytonutrients necessary for maintaining robust health. Additionally, the inclusion of bleaching agents and preservatives in commercial flour further exacerbates health issues.

Sue Becker [14:25]: "Residual oils and bleaching agents in white flour cause respiratory issues and liver problems. The bread available in stores today is not real bread."

Alex and Sue discuss how these additives not only degrade the nutritional quality of bread but also introduce harmful chemicals into our diets, contributing to chronic health problems like thyroid issues, sinus congestion, and weakened immune systems.

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Solution: Milling Your Own Flour and Making Real Bread

Sue advocates for returning to the traditional method of milling whole grains at home and baking bread from scratch. By keeping the bran and germ intact, freshly milled flour retains all its nutritional value, providing essential vitamins, minerals, fiber, and healthy fats.

Sue Becker [25:08]: "The white flour that's left after the bran and germ are stripped away is devoid of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and phytonutrients. Only whole, freshly milled flour retains these nutrients."

She describes her own health transformations, noting improvements such as eliminating the need for antihistamines, reducing chronic constipation, stabilizing blood sugar levels, and overall enhanced vitality for her family. These personal anecdotes underscore the profound impact of consuming real bread made from whole grains.

Sue Becker [24:54]: "The 25 years of raising nine children on real bread and real food have been life-changing. My children only had to go to the doctor twice."

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Addressing Common Misconceptions

The discussion also tackles prevalent misconceptions about sourdough and whole wheat bread available in stores. Sue clarifies that while sourdough can be healthier than regular bread, using processed flour negates its benefits. Similarly, store-bought whole wheat bread often still contains processed flour, preservatives, and additives that undermine its nutritional value.

Sue Becker [25:07]: "If you're doing sourdough with store bought flour, I think you're wasting your time. They are not getting the nutrients and the fiber that God intended us to get from our bread."

She highlights that true whole wheat flour must be freshly milled at home to preserve its nutritional integrity, something that commercial bakeries cannot provide. This distinction is crucial for consumers seeking genuine health benefits from their bread.

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Baking Process and Practical Advice

Sue provides practical guidance on how listeners can incorporate real bread into their lives. She recommends investing in a grain mill and baking bread at home using whole grains. Sue shares tips on making various bread types, including sandwich bread, muffins, pancakes, and even rye bread, emphasizing the versatility and ease of home baking with the right tools.

Sue Becker [46:05]: "If you want to start baking your own bread, you buy the mill and use whole grains. We sell several mills, and it's the key to making real, nutritious bread."

She encourages starting with simple recipes like muffins and gradually progressing to yeast-based breads, assuring listeners that with the right equipment, baking bread can be seamlessly integrated into a busy lifestyle.

Sue Becker [55:17]: "Start with muffins. They are quick and easy, with no need for yeast. Once you get the hang of it, you can move on to yeast bread."

Sue also addresses storage tips to keep homemade bread fresh longer, suggesting freezing excess bread to maintain its quality without preservatives.

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The Remedy to Heal a Sick Culture

In the climax of the episode, Sue proposes that changing the way we consume bread is a fundamental remedy to heal a sick culture. By reverting to natural, whole grain bread made from freshly milled flour, we can address numerous health issues stemming from processed foods. This shift not only improves physical health but also fosters emotional and spiritual well-being by reconnecting us with the natural provisions designed for our sustenance.

Sue Becker [67:07]: "Change your bread because it will give you the energy, it will satisfy you. Eliminate toxic foods by starting with bread, and you'll see a transformation in your health and overall quality of life."

She underscores the biblical significance of bread as a metaphor for life and sustenance, aligning her scientific insights with spiritual teachings to present a holistic approach to health and wellness.

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Notable Quotes

• Sue Becker [00:00]: "If you're doing sourdough with store bought flour, you're wasting your time."
• Sue Becker [02:37]: "Prior to the 1900s, most families had the capacity to mill their own flour, and they made their own bread."
• Sue Becker [07:54]: "Shortly after the white flour became widespread, three diseases became epidemic: beriberi, pellagra, and anemia."
• Sue Becker [25:08]: "The white flour that's left after the bran and germ are stripped away is devoid of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and phytonutrients."
• Sue Becker [24:54]: "The 25 years of raising nine children on real bread and real food have been life-changing."
• Sue Becker [46:05]: "If you want to start baking your own bread, you buy the mill and use whole grains."
• Sue Becker [55:17]: "Start with muffins. They are quick and easy, with no need for yeast."
• Sue Becker [67:07]: "Change your bread because it will give you the energy, it will satisfy you."

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Conclusion

This episode of Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark serves as a compelling call to action for listeners to reconsider their bread consumption habits. Through Sue Becker’s expertise and personal experiences, the episode illuminates the pivotal role that real, whole grain bread plays in maintaining and restoring health. By advocating for home milling and baking, Sue offers a practical solution to combat the pervasive health issues caused by processed foods, ultimately aiming to heal not just individual bodies but the broader culture.

Listeners are encouraged to explore Sue's resources, including classes and products, to embark on their own journey towards healthier living through real bread.

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Transcript

[Sue Becker]

You wanna change the health of your family, Change your bread. If you're doing sourdough with store bought flour, you're wasting your time. They're not getting the nutrients and the fiber that God intended us to get from our bread. The 25 years of raising nine children on real bread and real food. My children only had to go to the doctor twice. I haven't had an antihistamine or a decongestant since 1991, 34 years ago.

[Alex Clark]

Because you started milling your own flour.

[Sue Becker]

Yes. I have never seen one health change bring such drastic and immediate health benefits than this one food.

[Alex Clark]

Sue Becker, founder of Breadbeckers, has been the leading expert on bread making online for decades. Her bread, made with flour that she mills herself, has been a game changer for the health of hundreds of thousands. As a food scientist and expert in biochemistry, she doesn't believe gluten itself is the problem. Instead, she believes it's the type of wheat we're using in breads and baked goods across America. What we've done to wheat is the complete opposite, she says, of what God intended and why we are so sick. She says that what passes for food today bears little resemblance to the living organisms God created. Fatigue, sinus problems, constipation, high cholesterol, even warts are just some of the conditions that Sue Becker has seen families overcome, including her own. By rejecting processed foods and fueling our bodies with the whole delicious food that they were designed to use and making this special bread, you too may be able to enjoy bread once again. Watch this interview on the real Alex Clark YouTube channel or Culture Apothecary on Spotify. Leave a free five star review to support the show, which takes less than 10 seconds to do. Make sure you check out the cute servitus Facebook group. Also for female fans of the show, please welcome the legendary Sue Becker to Culture Apothecary. You are the number one bread lady on social media. I have never had so many people in my comments saying you've got to interview Sue Becker. Like you were the most requested guest I've ever had. What is going on with the state of bread in America? How has it changed?

[Sue Becker]

It's very significant. This was the information that opened my eyes to the realm of food processing. I'm a food scientist, graduated with a food science degree, which is the study of food processing. After college, after graduation, I continued to study health and how the body works because I loved it. So I knew that whole wheat flour was better, but I tried it and I, you know, buying it from the store, and I didn't see any great difference. And especially I couldn't make it taste very well. But in 1991, I subscribed to a publication. The first journal that came into my home was how to greatly reduce the risk of common diseases. In that journal, the history of white flour was presented. Oh, my goodness. It blew my mind. A little brief discussion after that of the common diseases that plague America and showed how it was directly related to the commercially processed flour that came on the scene in the early 1900s. So my eyes were completely open. I learned that whole grains are the most nutrient dense food that God has given us. If you read Genesis, chapter one, verse 29, God gave us two kinds of foods. He says, I've given you plants that bear fruit that have the seed in it. That's our fruits and vegetables, Wonderfully nutritious and healthy. But he said, I've also given you plants that bear seed for your food. That's all your grains and beans and nuts. Okay, why did he give us those two kinds of foods? I can't claim to know the mind of God, but here's what I do know. Fruits and vegetables lose their nutritional value every day that they're stored or even ripening on the tree. They decay and they rot over time. Not so with your seeds. Wheat and grains are storable. So God gave us storable food. And here's what I learned. Left whole and intact, they're perfectly storable. But only when they're eaten, either boiled and eaten whole or the flour is freshly milled do they retain all their nutritional value. They lose nutritional value as soon as that flour is milled in. As soon as that grain is milled into flour. And I learned that Prior to the 1900s, most families had the capacity to mill their own flour, and they made their own bread. Most of the bread consumed in this country before 1900s was milled at home, made at home, and consumed at home. And here's what I also discovered. As soon as you break that kernel of grain open, those nutrients then are exposed to the air. They begin to oxidize. Oxidation begins to take place immediately. You don't have to be a food scientist to have seen oxidation with your eyes. You've cut an apple, you've cut a banana, you've cut an avocado, and you've seen it turn dark. What you may not see, though, is those nutrients getting used up and degraded in the presence of oxygen. Someone in the late 1800s discovered that if we sift the very nutrient rich Bran away and the oil laden germ, because that vitamin E, wheat germ oil that's there, laden in the wheat germ, it's got a lot of fatty acids, got a lot of oils there that if when you they're exposed to the air, oxidation and spoilage takes place very quickly. So they said if we take that nutrient rich bran away, that oil laden germ away and leave only the white flower part, which is known as the endosperm and all that is for all practical purposes protein and starch. So someone came up with this brilliant idea. So they were like, hallelujah, no more food, you know, no more flour spoilage. So it led to the invention of these huge steel rolling mills that would crush the grain and then run it through a sifter because the bran and germ mill up a little more coarse than the endosperm part. So they would sift those coarse branding parts away, leaving only the protein and starch, this long lasting white flour that would never spoil. So this was in the 1900s, these steel rolling mills came on the scene. Everybody thought this is a wonderful discovery. So all the local millers went out of business. They, you know, the mills moved out to the wheat fields. And every household, every, every woman in every household was like hallelujah, I don't have to mill my own flour. Because they were hand mills, you know. And so it was a one considered a wonderful discovery. They displaced the local millers. The next thing you know, they were producing massive volumes of this long lasting, never spoiling white flower. And it came on the scene and, and now for the first time in the history, really, I don't want to sound so dramatic, but the history of the world, white flower became food for everyone, rich and poor alike. Prior to that, white flour was reserved for the wealthy, for the royalty, those that had servants that would sift, make sifters out of reeds and you know, primitive screens. They would sift the coarse brand and germ away to make fluffier bread for the king, you know, or the, or the wealthy people and the poor people were resigned to eat the peasant bread, the dark bread, the rough, you know, with the brand and germ still intact. But when these steel rolling mills came on the scene, now rich and poor alike had this wonderful white bread. It looked like it was a wonderful discovery. But there's a verse in Proverbs that says, there's a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is death. And what happened was totally unexpected. So now the world, the masses are Eating this wonderful white bread. Right. Greatest thing. White bread. Yep.

[Alex Clark]

Bunny bread. Wonder bread.

[Sue Becker]

Oh, Wonder bread. All of it. Yeah. So what happened is three diseases became epidemic shortly after the white bread, white flour came on the scene. Beriberi, which is a vitamin B1 deficiency. It results in nervous disorders. Pellagra is a vitamin B3 deficiency. It's known as the disease of the four Ds, it's skin eruption. So a lot of dermatitis usually was. Main symptom was really horrible. Inflamed around your nose and your face.

[Alex Clark]

Like acne.

[Sue Becker]

Well, it was like more oozing sores. Yes. Really bad. So dermatitis, dysentery. So gi. Lots of GI Disturbances. Dementia. Yep. And death. Like I said, it's known as the disease of the 4DS. I'm from the Atlanta, Georgia area, and interesting. I found this so fascinating when I started studying this. Pellagra was actually the first case was diagnosed. I think it was 1902. I can never remember if it's 1902, 1905, somewhere right in there. So shortly after the mills took over the market and white bread came on the scene for everybody. First case of pellagra diagnosed in Atlanta, Georgia. There were over 30,000 cases that first year. They thought, okay, this is some kind of infectious disease that's going on, you know, with all the symptoms. Another study I read said the southeastern United States, particularly plagued by pellagra. They said that Georgia and South Carolina, the mental institutions were literally overflowing. They did not have enough beds to house the patients. Yeah, so that's a vitamin B3 deficiency. And then anemia was the third epidemic disease. Puzzled health officials all over our country. They were going, what in the world is. What's this outbreak? I said, first thought that it was an infectious, you know, issues. They eventually traced it to the missing brand that has all the vitamins, all the minerals, all the phytonutrients, lots of protein, lots of fiber. The missing germ, vitamin E, wheat germ, oil, good fatty acids, proteins, fiber too. All these diseases could be traced to those missing components that were no longer in the flour. They supplied all those B vitamins and iron and all these nutrients. In fact, in wheat alone, I've studied this. There's only four essential nutrients missing. Vitamin A, vitamin C. So eat your fruits and vegetables. Vitamin D, get out in your beautiful sunshine. And B12, it's a little. You can't get B12 from plant products. But anyway, so they trace these three diseases that were now plaguing Our nation to the missing bran and germ that were no longer in our flour and our bread. Went to the millers and said, you got to put it back in. This is. Is making America sick. So the millers were like, yeah, that's not going to happen. We found a very lucrative market for what they call the byproducts of the milling process. The Brandon germ to this day is sold to the animal feed and cattle feed industry to make cattle feed and the white flowers for us. So they were like, nope, not going to happen. So it would take until 1948 for the government to step in and say, you got to fix the flower then if you're not going to put it back in. And so it was mandated that they would, quote, unquote, enrich the flour.

[Alex Clark]

Yes. Because I see this on ingredients list. Enrich wheat or white flour or bleached.

[Sue Becker]

Oh, yeah.

[Alex Clark]

What do those things mean? And why should that terrify consumers?

[Sue Becker]

It should terrify consumers because here's what blew my mind as a food scientist when I read that word, enriched. I would go, wow, we're doing you a favor. We're making. We're putting more vitamins in there than would have been there if that we hadn't messed with it for the 35, 40. Who knows how many nutrients are lost when they take away the bran and the germ? They only put four back in. That was what was mandated to be enriched. Three B vitamins, B1, B2, B3, and iron. That was it. That was the enriching process. Supposedly it took care of beriberi and pellagra and anemia. But I always have to ask this question. How many nervous disorders do we have in our country today? How about skin dermatitis issues, Gastrointestinal issues, dementia? So supposedly it corrected those. But what you have to remember, these are synthetic forms of the natural vitamins and minerals that were in the bread when they took the bran and germ away.

[Alex Clark]

So the enriched white flour, bad, you're saying we need to be eating what.

[Sue Becker]

Type of flour made from whole grains, freshly milled. Mill it yourself. Outside of milling it yourself, you cannot get real flour so real nutritious, you.

[Alex Clark]

Can'T buy it anywhere.

[Sue Becker]

You can't. Not really. I mean, maybe if you find a local mill that might be milling it, but. And if that were not enough. Now listen to this. 50 years, they watch the rising incidence of neural tube birth defects and go, hmm, must be the folic acid that is no longer in our flour. One of the richest food sources of Folic acid or folate. The natural form is grains and beans and seeds and of course your fruits and vegetables too. So it was mandated in 1998 that they would add the folic acid back to the flour where it was missing from again. Synthetics. And this is creating a whole nother issue. I don't know if you've done any studies or interviewed anyone about mthfr, the, the gene mutation that people are having problems breaking down and utilizing the synthetic folic acid, but they can use the real thing. We've got customers that are so excited because they cannot eat the enriched flour products. So. But they can eat the freshly milled that has all the natural B vitamins and iron and folate. So you know, besides missing the nutrients and only putting a few back in, then you're. You're also missing all the fiber that helps nourish your gut, helps things, helps keeps things moving along. So. And then it didn't stop there. And America is very different in the things that we allow here. So the residual oils in that white flower made the flower turn yellow or have little yellow specks. So somebody came up with a brilliant idea. Let's bleach the flower. Nitrogen trichloride was used for more than 25 years to bleach. Did you hear the key word bleach? Our flower. And until it was discovered that it caused seizures and hyperxis activity in dogs.

[Alex Clark]

Nice.

[Sue Becker]

Yeah. So they said, okay, we won't use that. But a chlorine derivative is still being used today. Benzoyl peroxide is another bleaching agent that's used, known to cause respiratory issues. And then potassium bromate strengthens the stretch, the gluten structure of the bread and bread products and the flour that causes known liver and thyroid issues. And so this is what we're consuming. The bread that is in the store is not real. And that's why we call it bread, real bread.

[Alex Clark]

So what I really think is juicy about you back in the 90s when we started seeing this explosion of ultra processed food, you became very concerned with this trend. You saw this ultra processed food and I'm saying that in quotes, taking over grocery stores and you have a background in food science and biochemistry and nutrition. What concerns you, you already knew there was something going on with the wheat and now you're seeing this ultra processed food takeover. What were you thinking?

[Sue Becker]

When I read just a little snippet of the common diseases that plague America and saw how it was directly related to our consumption of whole of the commercially processed flour, it Blew my mind. It made absolute perfect scientific sense and biblical sense. So I have now a three and a half hour lecture called Real the Staff of Life where I go through the common diseases that plague Americans that we think we just have to live with constipation or chronic diarrhea, sinus congestion, just being tired and not feeling good. Snotty nose. Did you know that toddlers don't have to have a snotty nose? My two youngest children that were born after bread never have had an antihistamine or a decongestant a day in their life. So this is why I'm passionate. So when I read this information, 1991, 34 years ago, and I'm as more passionate today than I was then when I started so that I read the information. My husband bought me a grain mill for my birthday and that mill came into our home. I milled flour, I made bread. First of all, it was delicious. I honestly now like I said in my studies, I had read that whole wheat was better. So I was buying the whole wheat flour from the store. And what a lot of people don't realize, when those steel rolling mills came on the scene and sifted the bran and germ away, they put the millers out of business. There's no stone ground whole grain flour anymore unless it's a small independent meal. So commercially processed whole wheat flour still sift the bran and germ away and then they recombine it according to some, some standard. Okay, so and they take the germ out, they take the oil out or the flour would spoil. So I was trying to use that flour. It was gross, it was nasty. It wasn't something we enjoyed eating. I read that information, I'm like, nope, we're never eating white flour again. And I don't care. We're going to do this whole wheat thing. If we have to choke it down, we're eating it.

[Alex Clark]

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[Sue Becker]

No. You know, in the 90s, when whole grains kind of started making the comeback, they started making 100% whole grain bread. But if you read the label carefully, you'll see that they, they have to maybe start out with that whole grain flour. But again, what is that really? It's still made on the same mills that make the white flour. They recombine it according to some standard, then they add a lot of preservatives and additives and extra gluten, which we'll get there in a minute about what that. But so it's not healthy at all. And so that's what. When people say, oh, I tried healthy whole grains. And they, they, I didn't see any different. So I, I bought a loaf of healthy whole grain bread. 100% whole grain, reputable bakery. You would know it if I said it. It's been sitting on my shelf for at least four years now. And it's never molded. Oh, yeah. And it. The last loaf, and I bought it as a visual aid, disintegrated. It didn't ever mold or rot or anything. So here's the thing. So the mill comes into my home. I'm like, we're doing this. I don. What it tastes like we're doing it. I milled flour and I made bread. It was the most delicious bread I had ever tasted. So milled flour, made bread, ate bread. My children loved it. Our house smelled wonderful. It was delicious. I was now just adding this bread to the already real food we were eating, because we were eating Fairly healthy, except for our bread. So it was wonderful. I pooped the next morning and it was like, this is glorious. I had chronic constipation most of my life. Constipated, dealt with it, you know, or struggled with it. Tried to do natural things because I knew I didn't want to go chemical laxative. But now all I had to do was eat the bread and I had no issues. So I laugh and tell everybody I haven't been constipated since 1991. I know you wanted. I know everybody tuned in to hear that. But then. So that was the first day and I had five young children when I started. I homeschooled the children and I noticed right away, energy, my energy levels up. No more slumping in the afternoon because the fiber and the real carbohydrates that are there, they're broken down more slowly. Those sugars are released into your body more slowly so you have sustained energy instead of the junk we're buying in the store. The simple carbohydrates and simple sugars. You shoot up, you know, with, with your energy or you get a high and then you drop. But I wasn't that. It was the sustained energy. It was amazing. Then within the first month, my sinus congestion all went away. I lived on antihistamines. I had to. I thought post nasal drip was just the way God made me.

[Alex Clark]

It's just. Well, I live in Georgia. This just must be what we have to deal with. Yes.

[Sue Becker]

And I think people, they think that this is normal, that this is just what we have to live with and we don't. And, you know, so my chronic sinus congestion went away. And I can stand here, sit here and tell you I haven't had an antihistamine or a decongestant since 1991, 34 years ago.

[Alex Clark]

Because you started milling your own flour.

[Sue Becker]

Yes. I used to get strep throat twice a year at least. And I haven't had strep throat since I started milling my own flour. Headaches, I had chronic headaches, migraines even every now and then, I can't remember the last time I had a headache. And then, you know, with a mom of five young children, they had their share of ear infections, snotty noses. One of my children's warts went away, which we might want to talk about that that's caused by a virus. And I'd begin to notice they were healthier. They didn't necessarily catch every bug that they were exposed to. You know, large families, one gets sick we all get sick and next thing you know, three weeks later, it's time for the next thing to come around. No more ear infections. And I like to tell people the 25 years of raising nine children on real bread and real food. We need a doctor visit. My children only had to go to the doctor twice. Doesn't mean they were never sick. But they got over it. Their bodies, their immune system was strong. Everything to strengthen your immune system is in grains.

[Alex Clark]

Okay, but what is crazy to me is that you're saying this all stems from eating real bread, milling flour. What I'm not hearing you say is it's sourdough. Sourdough. Sourdough. You're not talking about sourdough.

[Sue Becker]

Doesn't have to be.

[Alex Clark]

But sourdough is like the thing that everyone is talking about. That sourdough is like this great healing bread and like that's what it has to. So I am curious, what is the deal with sourdough? Do you think that just milling flour is better than doing sourdough bread?

[Sue Becker]

If you're doing sourdough with store bought flour, I, I think you're wasting your time.

[Alex Clark]

What if it's organic flour?

[Sue Becker]

The white flour that's left after the bran and germ are stripped away for all practical purposes, devoid of vitamins, minerals, fiber, phytonutrients. It is protein and starch proteins that your body needs. Don't hear me say you're not supposed to eat white flour because you are, but you're supposed to be eating it with the bran and germ intact. Because that's where all the vitamins, all the minerals, the fiber, the phytonutrients, the vitamin E, the wheat germ, oil, the fatty acids, it's all there.

[Alex Clark]

So people can make sourdough bread. And sourdough bread's great, but they, they have to be milling their own flour still, even if they're doing sourdough.

[Sue Becker]

Yes. Maybe they can digest it better, maybe that's an issue. But they're not getting the nutrients and the fiber that God intended us to get from our bread.

[Alex Clark]

Well, here's what's really wild. You have Hashimoto's, I have Hashimoto's. Every single doctor besides, like one that I've had on this show has told me you have to avoid gluten for life. You're never gonna be able to eat any bread unless it's gluten free again. You obviously are eating bread 34 years by having Hashimoto's. And what's going on with Your health. And what do your doctors say about your labs?

[Sue Becker]

My doctors say that. That. That my antibodies, those thyroid, those Hashimoto's antibodies are lower than most anybody that they treat. And we just had a lady, I just had a lady on my podcast who's healthy minutes that said hers are decreasing since she started milling and she was gluten free. Because that's what she was told.

[Alex Clark]

Yes.

[Sue Becker]

You know, as a food scientist and someone that loves physiology and biochemistry, I have studied this issue and studied and studied, and I cannot find a scientific connection. I think the problem is they're calling the bread in the store gluten. They're saying that's gluten or that's wheat, when that's not the whole picture. So that bread in the store. Yeah, I think it's making people sick. You just heard me say they're treating it with potassium bromate, known to cause thyroid issues. It blocks your iodine receptor sites in your thyroid. So, of course, it's no wonder that we have thyroid related issues. But I'm telling you, your microbiome, there's a connection there with thyroid issues. Toxins in our system, lack of vitamin D. These are bigger players than gluten. This is the first time in all my studies, you know, all my years of studying that allopathic medicine and more holistic natural medicine have all jumped on the same bandwagon. Wheat is the enemy. Gluten is the enemy. But it is because they are not differentiating between what's in the store and real whole grain wheat.

[Alex Clark]

I've been radicalized.

[Sue Becker]

Sue Becker. Yeah, I love it. I tell people, I said, look at this piece of paper. You know, is this a tree? No, it came from a tree. But would you say this is a tree? And that's the problem. They're saying that stuff in the store is wheat. It's made from wheat. But it is so, so far removed.

[Alex Clark]

The flour that you use in your baking recipes and things like that to make a roux or whatever, you're doing this milled flour?

[Sue Becker]

Yes. Yes.

[Alex Clark]

Okay.

[Sue Becker]

I have a little mill that sits on my counter.

[Alex Clark]

How much?

[Sue Becker]

300.

[Alex Clark]

Okay.

[Sue Becker]

My favorite meal. Yeah, it's the wonder mill. It sits on my counter. It's a tiny little machine that sits there. I pour. I turn it on, pour the grain in, and seconds, it comes out flour faster than you can get a flour canister out of your cabinet.

[Alex Clark]

Why is the art of making bread a crucial skill we need to relearn.

[Sue Becker]

We definitely need to relearn it, because I have Never seen one health change bring such drastic and immediate health benefits than this one food. Just about every nutrient to sustain health, promote life is in grains, the most nutrient dense food God has given us. It's all there, only missing a little bit. Get your fruits and vegetables, it can cover so many and affect and improve so many health issues. I just stand amazed. The testimonies my customers have, they call them it's the bread stories. They call me and say, it's the bread, it's gotta be the bread. All I've changed is the bread. And I've seen my cholesterol drop 85 points in a month. I've seen my blood sugar stabilize. I've seen chronic irritable bowel stabilized, you know, healed. I had a lady some years ago, I, I used to call her older because when I started telling this story, she was 65 and I'm now older than that. But so she was a very young lady. And she couldn't leave her house. She could not leave her house. Been on steroids for 10 years, have bleeding bowels. Her daughter was a customer bower. She told me about her mom and she was going to visit her. We got her mom a mill. And you know, of course they told her, you know, maybe you need to go gluten free, maybe that would help. And she, the daughter scratched her head. She goes, I don't know how to do gluten free, so just give me a bucket of hard red wheat. She left with a mill and a bucket of hard red wheat left to go visit her mother. Her mother could not sleep through the night. She was getting up five times in the night, chronic diarrhea. She couldn't leave her house because she couldn't be that far away from a bathroom.

[Alex Clark]

Oh, my gosh.

[Sue Becker]

So the daughter takes the mill, mills grain wheat and makes bread. In five days. Her mother was sleeping through the night. In two weeks, her mother's symptoms and all her issues completely reversed. She went shopping, she was out in the yard working. Her father had blood sugar issues. They were stabilized and they were enjoying life. I look at them and I go, I could not imagine being homebound, couldn't imagine it. And here she was completely debilitated. And we hear that all the time. And you know, from brain fog to joint pain, inflammation, wheat is not inflammatory. The stuff in the store is inflammatory. So we hear people say, I have my life back. People come to me in tears and say, you saved my life. No, I didn't. God's perfect provision did. I had a young man, one Time come up to me. They came through Atlanta, stopped at our store, and he looked at me and he said, can I hug you? And I said, well, sure, of course. What's up? And he said I had some kind of skin inflammation all over me. And he said it felt like fire ants were stinging me. He said it gone to doctor after doctor, steroids, nothing healed it. And he said I was almost to the point. It was so painful, I wanted to die. A skin issue. And he said, my wife heard you at the conference. She bought the mill, she started making bread. And within just a couple of months, it is all gone. A young man, he wanted to die. And this just goes on and on. A lady living on iron transfusions, very painful to get. Within just a few months of changing to the bread, it's all gone. She doesn't need that anymore. Anemia. Lifelong anemia. Completely corrected.

[Alex Clark]

Ms. Sue Becker, I'm not familiar with your game. What are you guys doing in Georgia? I mean, you're doing classes, you're selling bread like a bakery or both or what?

[Sue Becker]

We don't have a bakery anymore. So in when we first started. So when I learned this information, I was all in. I just, I started milling. White flour's not been our house. I made all the cakes, cookies, bread, muffins, pancakes. If it was made out of flour, I milled it. Cornbread, I milled it. I made it. The health of our family changed so much. I began to tell other people. I began to make bread for other people. The next thing I know, I was making bread for everybody. All these people. I mean, this one lady's cholesterol who dropped 85 points a month, she told all her elderly friends. And so they were all getting me to make bread. And I had. By this point, it was 1992, I had just had my sixth child. So here I am, homeschooling my children, making bread for my family, making bread for all these people. How the hell do you have this time? 1,300 square foot house, which I still live there with a wall unit oven. I'm baking all day. And I'll never forget, in the fall of 1992, I met my husband in the driveway. I was worn out. I was completely tired. And I think God put these words in my mind. And I met him in the driveway when he came home from work. And I sat there and I said, I don't think I'm supposed to make bread for the world. I think I'm supposed to teach the world to make bread for themselves. People Were eating the bread that I was making and one by one they were coming to me going, okay, I'm feeling a lot better. Where can I get a grain mill and will you teach me how to make bread? So honestly, Customer base of four. That's how I started my business in 1992. Customer base of four. I tell my husband that was my world. I think I'm supposed to teach the world to make bread for themselves. I want to sell grain mill. So we. I became a distributor of the grain mill that I owned at the time. So started out there. The next thing, of course people say, okay, where do I get wheat? You don't just walk in the grain. That's my.

[Alex Clark]

I don't know where to get those little pellets.

[Sue Becker]

So the little pellets, I love it. So that's how we started. By 1998, because of the testimonies of other people, the health benefits they saw, our business grew so large by 1998, six years that we could not do it ourselves. My husband came home from work full time. We incorporated with a longtime friend and partner. We moved into our current location in 1999. It's a big 10,000 square foot warehouse. We have, and then we acquired just a few number of years ago, another warehouse where we are one of the largest grain packaging facilities in the southeast. We bring in wheat by the semi truckload, £45,000 at a time. We package it down for consumer ready.

[Alex Clark]

And I'm guessing organic, non gmo, all that.

[Sue Becker]

Yep. Wheat is not genetically modified, but we'll get that in a minute. But yes, organic. And we have regular. We feel really non organic. We feel very comfortable with our grain suppliers, you know, to, to go for a non organic. But we do have certified organic. We have a big full fledged kitchen store, Breadbeckers. And we have a big, I don't know how many square feet the studio kitchen is. It's big. We can seat 100 people for classes. We had 78 in class.

[Alex Clark]

How often are you guys doing classes?

[Sue Becker]

At least once or twice a month. I do the big what we call getting started class where I take you from. Here's the grain mill that you need. Show you how to mill the grain, make the bread. We make muffins and pancakes and brownies and all sorts of bread during the class. And we sell bread machines and mixers and just teach people how to incorporate this into busy lifestyles. Face it, we're all busy.

[Alex Clark]

Yeah.

[Sue Becker]

You know, no one's any busier than I am, so. But you have time to do it. And we. If you get the right tools, the grain mill mills a pound in 30 seconds of flour.

[Alex Clark]

Okay, so this is my question, because to me, and I've done a sourdough class with a phenomenal teacher, but it's. It's intimidating. I think sourdough is intimidating.

[Sue Becker]

It can be.

[Alex Clark]

Is this a lot easier to make?

[Sue Becker]

Yes. Yes.

[Alex Clark]

Oh, I love this.

[Sue Becker]

Yes. You can have bread on the table in an hour if you want to. From milling to kneading to baking. I use a bread cloche if I really need it in an hour. And it bakes it really fast.

[Alex Clark]

So do you have, like a routine, like every Tuesday we make six loaves of bread for our family? Or like, how do you do this.

[Sue Becker]

When the kids were home? Yes, I had a kind of a routine that I made six loaves of bread twice a week. And I have a big mixer, the ankishroom mixer, that will need some six to nine loaves at a time. So I need enough dough to make six loaves. And so when the kids were home, I would maybe make a sandwich loaf. I would make some dinner rolls, and I would maybe make a cinnamon rolls or cinnamon bread. So I had breakfast, lunch, and dinner covered for several days. And then interspersed in there would be muffins, cornbread, tortillas. I make my own tortillas out of freshly milled flour. Pancakes, coffee cake, cookies, you know, so I just interspersed all of that. Anything we made and enjoyed, it was made with the freshly milled flour. Yes, you might. If you don't know that you have a kitchen in your house, you don't know what that room is, and you've never turned on your oven. Little bit of a learning curve. But most people, you. We can. We can come back to this way of cooking, and it's super, super easy.

[Alex Clark]

So I'm glad you mentioned that, because so many women starting families today truly don't know how to cook or bake.

[Sue Becker]

They don't. I understand.

[Alex Clark]

They're embarrassed, they're overwhelmed. They have no idea where to start. So what is your advice to them?

[Sue Becker]

Start with your bread. You know, Jesus compared himself to bread. And I tell people, as surely as we're physical beings, we're spiritual beings. And if you're spiritually dying, where do you start? You start with the bread of life. You can go to church, you can fast and pray, you can give all your money to the poor. But if you don't know the real bread of life, Jesus Christ, none of that means anything. Well, I take it over Here, maybe that's too spiritual for the M.O. you know, spiritualizing it too much. But, but I take it over here to the physical. Every nutrient to sustain life and promote health is found in bread, except for a few. And you can get that from the fruits and vegetables. It is the most nutrient dense food that God has given us. If you start there, you want to change the health of your family, change your bread. Not just whole wheat bread in the store, freshly milled whole grain, real bread. And I've never seen one food so drastically improve the health of now thousands of people that we've, the lives we've seen changed. So that's what I tell people. How do you want to spend your time at the doctor's office, at the urgent care, at whatever. Or do you want to enjoy life and not be sick all the time and, and give your body what it needs to boost your immune system to have good skin and hair and just feel good? You know, being healthy is not just not being sick. Being healthy is having the energy to do what God's called you to do.

[Alex Clark]

Thriving.

[Sue Becker]

Yeah, thriving. Not going, you know, dreading to face another day. I get up each day and I'm like, I love today, Lord, what do you have for me? And I'm thrilled that I'm 70 years old and that I can, can still do what God has called me to do. And I'm, I'm looking forward to many more days.

[Alex Clark]

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[Sue Becker]

So this is a combination.

[Alex Clark]

I'm dying to try it. I'm so anxious to see what this is like.

[Sue Becker]

I want you to. So it's hard red wheat. This is my favorite combination of hard red wheat and an ancient grain called kamut that I use. And I do use hard white wheat sometimes. There's different varieties. I've used einkorn, I've used spell, I use rye. I can make rye bread. And like I said, I make cornbread. My favorite though right now is this hard red and kamut mixture. It just makes a really nice flavorful. Bread has just. It's just so good for you. You know, people will say, what's the most nutritious grain? And I'm like, that's like asking, what's the most nutritious fruit or vegetable? You know, it. It just. Just go by flavor. You know, if I'm gonna. If I'm gonna make a cake, I might use a soft white wheat. If I'm gonna make a muffin, I might use a soft red wheat. I also love Ezekiel mixture. The fourth chapter of Ezekiel. God told Ezekiel, take wheat, spelt, barley, millet, lentils, and beans, put them in one vessel, and make a cake out of it. So we make a mixture.

[Alex Clark]

Now there is that Ezekiel bread brand. Is it bad?

[Sue Becker]

It is not what you think is really.

[Alex Clark]

Tell us the tea.

[Sue Becker]

Well, the truth is, you want to mill the grains fresh. So we have a mixture that we sell. It's an Ezekiel mixture. We sell it already combined, and I make bread out of it. I make muffins and pancakes and brownies. And it's so nourishing. There's an amino acid, lysine, that's slightly deficient in wheat. Not for adults, but for growing children, they need a little bit more than wheat supplies. Beans, supply it. Beans are a little low in methionine. Grains, supply it. So grains and beans are a wonderful combination to complete your essential amino acid profile. So it's. So Ezekiel mixture is a nice combination. Wheat, spelt, barley, millet, lentils, and beans.

[Alex Clark]

Okay, so let's say you're stranded on a desert island. You didn't get to bring any Su Becker bread, and you have to go, there's one Walmart on this island. Okay. And so you have to get bread. What brand are you choosing? You know, gun to your head at the store.

[Sue Becker]

I'm not.

[Alex Clark]

You're just not eating bread.

[Sue Becker]

I won't. I'll stick with fruits and vegetables. If you can find brown rice, you might do some brown rice or some beans. That. That might be good. And see, rice. With most of your grains, your bran is the outer surface several layers thick. Your germ is in the interior, and that's where those oils are. But with. And so it's protected if you keep it whole and intact. But with brown rice, the. The oils are in the bran part, so once they take off the husk, those oils are exposed. So rice spoils. It's not storable. So guess what? They decided to polish the bran off and give you white rice. So white rice is no different than white bread.

[Alex Clark]

Wait a minute, wait a minute. Now you're confusing me because I thought I've been reading a bunch of stuff lately that white rice is actually a lot healthier than brown rice.

[Sue Becker]

Why would that be?

[Alex Clark]

I don't remember.

[Sue Becker]

It's starch. It's starch. And in fact how they traced berry. Berry. Remember in the beginning when I said beriberi is a vitamin B1 deficiency resulting in nervous disorders? How they trace that to the missing vitamins in the. In the wheat flour? Is that in Asia? When they started polishing the bran off and they lost that B1 source, they started having an outbreak of beriberi nervous disorder.

[Alex Clark]

So if you're wanting to start baking your own bread, where do you start? You buy the mill.

[Sue Becker]

Buy a mill. Mill is the key. And then grains, whole grains.

[Alex Clark]

And you can order the grains off your site.

[Sue Becker]

Yes, you can. And we have co ops all over the country.

[Alex Clark]

Oh.

[Sue Becker]

So yeah, was that was a co op. The machines, the mill. And we sell several mills. The wonder mill is my favorite. We sell bread machines by Zoharoo she and mixer by Ankishroom. Those ship free. So that's not an issue on every bread machine. Yeah. Like an auto bakery. Like bill your flour, dump your ingredients in, in five minutes or less, hit the start button and come back to a baked loaf of bread. You can.

[Alex Clark]

You don't have to do your oven.

[Sue Becker]

No.

[Alex Clark]

You don't have a little thing to go on the counter.

[Sue Becker]

Yep. Oh great.

[Alex Clark]

Okay. And I can order all this from you?

[Sue Becker]

Yes.

[Alex Clark]

I really want to try.

[Sue Becker]

I really want you to. I can't wait. And so then. So the grain, we package it in food grade buckets because the enemies of grain storage are moisture bugs, rodents. So you gotta protect it. So we package our grain in 6 gallon food grade buckets with carbon dioxide gas that protects it from anything that could possibly hatch out or be in there. So to ship those, once we box it up, it's 50, about 49 pounds. UPS could care less how much that's worth. They all go by weight. So it's kind of expensive to ship UPS though. We do. And we ship all over the country. Ups. But what we started was a co op program. So we have someone in the area that's the coordinator and we coordinate all the orders in that area for on a specific date or month. And then we compile those orders. Orders. And then we put it on a freight line on a pallet and send it. It's called ltl Less than a truckload. Good.

[Alex Clark]

Great.

[Sue Becker]

Yeah. So, yeah, we have about a hundred and probably 30, 40.

[Alex Clark]

Geez, I hope one of them's in Phoenix.

[Sue Becker]

I don't know if it is or not. Okay. We have so many now. Yeah, I. I don't remember all the ins and outs of that, but you can certainly, you know, we can find sources of wheat and like I said, we ship it ups. It's just when there's a group in, in the area that gets interested, then it's. It. It is more advantageous if they do bulk orders and get it in that way.

[Alex Clark]

Lots of people think if they want to lose weight, they have to get rid of bread. What do you think about that?

[Sue Becker]

That is another myth that needs to be busted. Okay, so Proverbs 23 says this. Be careful when you sit down at the king's table. Do not crave his dainties and his delicacies. They are deceitful food. What do you think those dainties and delicacies are? Okay, I. I used to think maybe snails, eels, you know, things that God didn't want us eating. But I think it's white flower, fluffy things. Now, dainties and delicacies, the scripture goes on to say, listen, you think I'm passionate? It says, put a knife to your throat lest you be given to gluttony. What has happened in America? When you take the bran and the germ away with all the vitamins and all the minerals those nourish your body, they satisfy your body, you also lose the fiber. Fiber is known as a cheap belly filler. It fills you up, right? It sustains you. You feel full longer because it's broken down more slowly through your digestion. So what has happened in America? The bread we're eating in the store, high in sugar, virtually no fiber, very little real nutrients there. So it doesn't fill us up, it doesn't satisfy us. It actually makes us crave more, right? I mean, you can sit down and eat a whole bag or box of cookies or whatever. You can't do that with my freshly milled flour cookies. So that's what's happening is America is not full. They're not nutritionally satisfied, so they're craving, craving, craving, always looking for more. And then the food industries put sugar, salt, caffeine, you know, all these other things that make you addicted to that. Whereas the bread, it fills you up, it nourishes you, it satisfies you. What did Jesus say? I am the real bread of life. He who comes to me shall be be satisfied. Real bread is filling and it's satisfying. Prior to bread, real bread, I would buy the whole wheat flour from the whole wheat bread from the store. Even though I after learned and read the label that it was white bread with caramel coloring and it was labeled wheat bread. So you think whole wheat. Yeah, yeah. Ooh. So you know, I would buy that, make the whole loaf into sandwiches and they would fight over the last one after bread had five children, made five sandwiches. They, there was, there was food left. The bread was filling does not make you fat. People are losing weight eating this bread. My husband lost six pounds a couple of weeks ago just. And he was eating a half a loaf of bread a day because I, I tried this new recipe and he liked it so much.

[Alex Clark]

And what's the consistency like of your bread? What's the texture like? I mean, is it soft, fluffy, like how we think of store bought sandwich bread?

[Sue Becker]

It can be if you want that. So this, this loaf here is my basic bread. This is what I would call nice. Can feel it. It's nice and soft and fluffy.

[Alex Clark]

Oh, very.

[Sue Becker]

Yeah.

[Alex Clark]

This feels exactly like store bread.

[Sue Becker]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Alex Clark]

So that's what I miss the most is I like, oh my gosh, the other day I was just like, man, I would do anything to just have a peanut butter sandwich.

[Sue Becker]

I know. And that's it. So that's a sandwich bread. That's my basic bread dough. And it's got oil and honey and things like that. But I also make a, a no need bread.

[Alex Clark]

Yeah. So what are all the ingredients to make the perfect sandwich bread? What are you doing?

[Sue Becker]

So water, oil, oil, honey.

[Alex Clark]

What kind of oil?

[Sue Becker]

I use extra virgin olive oil. We sell an incredible extra virgin olive oil. We import it from the Isle of Crete in Greece and it is truly extra virgin olive oil. That's a corrupt industry.

[Alex Clark]

Totally.

[Sue Becker]

But I know that ours is. They test it and they send us the, the testing and single origin and all that. And it has to be as an acidity level. It has to be less. 0.8 acidity or less.

[Alex Clark]

Okay.

[Sue Becker]

And ours are guaranteed that some of them are even 0.3, some on 0.5. So. So water, oil, honey, raw unpasteurized honey. Yes, I love the raw. Honey is my preferred sweetener. I do have some other sweeteners, but honey, I'm going to use it where honey works. It's the only truly unrefined sweetener.

[Alex Clark]

There is also another biblical food.

[Sue Becker]

Yes, absolutely. Yes. So salt, I use natural mind mineral salt. This was the thing that blew me away the more I've studied, it just keeps it just. You just want to go to the next level. You know, us. Yes. It's good for you. But why did they refine it? Did you know they refine salt? I'm like.

[Alex Clark]

And they're bleaching that, too? Yes.

[Sue Becker]

And I'm like, I get why you're doing this with flour. Because flour spoils. But salt doesn't spoil. They strip the minerals out of it. So they can sell it to another industry. And they sell you And I pure sodium chloride. Yes. They bleach it and read the label. There's dextrose in it. Like, why does salt need that? Anti caking age agents. So I use water, extra virgin olive oil, raw unpasteurized honey, natural mind mineral salt. I do use in my sandwich bread, I use sunflower seed, lecithin. It does help the bread to have a nicer, softer texture, which is perfect for tomato sandwich, peanut butter sandwich. So I do use that. And then yeast. This is a. This is a basic yeast bread. I. I do make sourdough from time to time. I do have other. I make a rye bread that's a little denser, heavier. The Ezekiel bread is a little heavier.

[Alex Clark]

Is there anything we need to know about sourcing yeast?

[Sue Becker]

Not really. I just. I mean, I use commercial yeast. Yeah, you can just get it. And, you know, like I said, if you want to make sourdough, make sourdough, but make it out of your freshly milled flour.

[Alex Clark]

Okay.

[Sue Becker]

And, you know, and there's a misnomer there, too. People say, oh, this is sourdough. It doesn't have any yeast. No. Sourdough is a symbiotic relationship of Lactobacillus bacteria that produce an acid. That's what gives it the tart flavor. And the exact same yeast I'm using in my yeast bread. It's just. There's a combination there.

[Alex Clark]

What is the best measure of success when it comes to starting to bake your own bread?

[Sue Becker]

Well, that your family loves it. Your family loves it. And even the worst, I mean, I have. Even if you have a failure and I had some, you know, you can still cut it up and make croutons of it. That is what is so exciting to me, is that my family, my children loved this. This was a healthy food my whole family loved. And as a young mom, that's important because as adults, we'll do most anything to get healthy. I mean, I did green drinks, but now after the bread, all I had to do is put this bread on the Table. And I, I laugh. I said, before bread, you know how when you have a toddler and they don't want to eat anymore, they just would rather play, so they eat kind of minimal. So you go, go, okay, so you take the sandwich and you take the meat off the sandwich and you say, okay, just eat the meat. That was before bread. After bread, I would take the meat or whatever off the sandwich and say, just eat the bread. Some days, my children, it was roll with honey. My little toddler, she'd come and say she was hungry and she'd go, I wanna roll with honey. So the bread was the mainstay. And it was. They ate it, they loved it. They loved the muffins and the pancakes and the coffee cake and the donuts. We made donuts.

[Alex Clark]

What expectations should somebody set for themselves when baking bread for the first time? So they don't get discouraged?

[Sue Becker]

Start with muffins. They're a quick bread. They stir up in five minutes. There's no right, you know, baking powder, baking soda, salt. So we've talked a lot about yeast bread, a lot of people. That scares them, you know, and. Or there is a learning curve there. It's not as hard as you think, and especially like with a bread machine that can do it all for you. But start with muffins and pancakes. And some days for me, muffins were what was happening. You know, something happened. And bread, bread dough didn't get mixed up in the morning. And so it was like, oh, we better. We don't have any bread. We'll just have muffins. And then lunch comes around, oh, we don't have any bread. We'll just have muffins. I just would change the muffin recipe from blueberry to banana. Or I would use corn flour in the same muffin recipe and just make it savory with cheese and whole corner corn in it. And that was a corn muffin for dinner. So those, those are so easy. And those wire whisk and a bowl, you know, the mill, you mill your flour. Wire whisk in a bowl, stir up in 5 minutes, bake in 15 to 20. Coffee cake, maybe 30. Those are easy.

[Alex Clark]

Now when you're making sandwich bread in yeast. Again, I'm ignorant and I've never baked bread in my life. Is there something like you got to let it rise or something before baking?

[Sue Becker]

Yes. So the yeast is a living organism, and as it feeds on the carbohydrates that are in your whole grains, it produces carbon dioxide gas. Gas. So you've got to Give those yeast organisms time to feed and reproduce and make that carbon dioxide gas. So, and that's what enables the bread to rise.

[Alex Clark]

And so how long is that process?

[Sue Becker]

It can be, it can be as little as an hour if you, if you want to skip some bulk from what's called bulk fermentation. So normally though, I mix up my dough, I let it rise just as bulk does dough, batch of dough. And I maybe let it rise 20, 30 minutes and then I might take it then and shape it into a loaf and then let it rise. You have to let it rise at least once after you, you know, once you've shaped it, it has to rise before you bake it. But you can let it rise as a big, you know, bowl full of dough one time, two times, even three times if you want to, before you shape it. So it can be a one hour process, it can be a three hour process, four hour process if you need it to be or want it to be or whatever. When my kids were all at home, I would mix up dough in our big mixer and it would sit there for a couple of hours and sometimes they would call me and go, mom, you have a bread dough waterfall. Because it would be had risen over the bowl and down, you know, and I would just come back then and shape it into my loaves and then let them rise and then bake it hands on time. You're talking 30 minutes, 10 or 15 minutes to mix it up, 10 or 15 minutes to shape it, and then popping it in the oven and taking it out. But hands on, it's not much time at all.

[Alex Clark]

How are you storing it so that it doesn't go bad or go stale quickly?

[Sue Becker]

So you want it to cool completely before you bag it in there. They make linen bags and cloth bags. I like for my yeast breads, I like plastic. I'm not a big fan of plastic, but that's just the most convenient storage. And then for yeast bread, breads room temperature or freezing, you really don't want to store it in the refrigerator. Something about the refrigeration temperature dries it out. Now if you've got meat or something in it where you have to put it in the refrigerator, you know. Yes, of course, the key is milling the flour fresh and baking it. The flour spoils and loses nutritional value once the bread is baked, the nutritional loss is minimal. So bake up six loaves of bread, have a bake day if you need to, freeze it if you need to, and then take it out as you need need it is There a special.

[Alex Clark]

Dish you like for baking bread?

[Sue Becker]

I have some bread pans. They're by usa. I really love the USA bake pans. They're made in the usa. I do love a bread cloche which we sell two or three styles. It's an enclosed system and some people use a Dutch oven, which you can do that too. I have a lodge iron, cast iron that I use. The enclosed system kind of traps the moisture in that is escaping as the bread is cooking and it really gives a nice texture to the crust. So I have that. I have French bread pans, I have baguettes. So it's hard for me to identify. Yes, I like this. But I have basic bread pans and cookie sheets. But I love, I love baking in a, in a cloche or a Dutch oven or some kind of enclosed special baking pot.

[Alex Clark]

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[Sue Becker]

Maybe start with boiled grains, get some wheat, boil it, eat it like that. Make a boiled grain salad. Add a vinaigrette, good olive oil and a good balsamic vinegar. Chop up vegetables, you know, whatever. I have one that. It's a spelt salad. I boil spelt, drain it, cool it. I have put fresh peaches in there and I make a vinaigrette with orange juice and just pour over it. It's so delicious. So those are things you can do, Incorporate boiled grains and just eat them like you would rice. Go with brown rice instead of white rice. That is something that you can do. You know, there's a lot of whole grains available now in the store that we, we didn't used to have available to us. So that would be my suggestion is if, I mean, you're obviously cooking because you care about the health of your family. I would think so those are some easy things that maybe you could do. Incorporate those and just eat real food. Just start there, shop the perimeter of the grocery store is what I say. Yes, and, and, and there's so much available, more available today than there was when I started.

[Alex Clark]

With your food science background, I'm curious what you think about all of these food scientists on the Internet now saying things like, oh, ultra processed food isn't something to be scared of. Seed oils are good for you.

[Sue Becker]

Oh my goodness.

[Alex Clark]

What do you think about that? How do you explain that someone with your food science background was given totally different information? Now these food scientists are saying this stuff is okay.

[Sue Becker]

Yeah, I don't know where they're getting that information from because the ultra processed foods, are they even foods anymore? Every now and then I'll buy a cracker and one of my favorite that I always thought was nutritious, I just read the label and it said bioengineered ingredients. And I'm like, why do I want that? So I don't know why they would think that. Well, I don't know, maybe like me, they don't totally understand. They're looking at, I think the curriculum.

[Alex Clark]

Is bought and paid for by food companies.

[Sue Becker]

Probably. Yes, probably. But, you know, maybe like me, I thought that, you know, we're doing good things by preventing food poisoning. So that was my, my focus was food microbiology. So I did a lot in fermentation and food poisoning and things like that. So some of those things, you seem good or processing where this food can now sit on the shelf forever and ever. And so you think you're doing such a great thing, but you've had to totally denature that food and strip all the good stuff out of it to make it sit on the shelf and heat it and preserve it and add this and that. And it saddens me. It saddens me, but I understand.

[Alex Clark]

What do you wish more homeschool co ops were doing when it comes to teaching kids about food and nutrition?

[Sue Becker]

Eat real food. I see, you know, homeschooling families, they're stressed, they're busy. I get it. And it saddens me that, that we, that we're so addicted and we're so feeling like we have to do convenient things when it just doesn't take that much more time to put a little more effort and just eat real food. You know, I tell people, why eat an apple flavored fruit bar when you can eat an apple? That's, that's not difficult. People also think that it's expensive. So here you're homeschooling, you're buying your own curriculum. You're not getting, getting government subsidies. You know, you're, it's expensive to homeschool your children. And so you're thinking, oh, it's, it's expensive to eat healthy. But if that apple fills you up and satisfies you and nourishes your body, the apple flavored fruit bar, they're not satisfied. They're gonna be hungry in 30 minutes. Just eat real food. You'll be surprised at how much it will save you time. Your kids won't be sick all the time. You'll enjoy life. They'll enjoy life. Life, it's just such a way of life for me now that I don't even know how to go back and. But I know I was a busy mom and I just did it. I was home. People would ask me, how do you have time to do this? I was home because we homeschooled. So I just worked it into my routine. I'm an early riser, so I would get up. I'd mill my flour. I'd get a batch of dough mixing in the mixer. That's the thing. Get the right tool, tools, you know, your husband or you or whatever, you have your yard tools to make it easy so you don't use the push mower anymore. Growing up, we had little hedge trimmers. We went out and clipped the sidewalk. Now you have weed eaters, you know, so get the right tools to make the job easy. And I would get dough kneading the six, you know, the dough for six loaves of bread kneading at a time. Wake the kids up. We'd sit down and have breakfast. After breakfast, I'd go shape the loaves, we'd do the dishes, and then it was time to bake the loaves. All while we were doing school. School. So it was very easy to incorporate into our lifestyle. And like I said, before bread, when we finished breakfast, you know, we got everything cleaned up. Finally sit down to do school. I'd be doing reading with the little ones. The teenagers would be in the kitchen looking for food again, after bread, they would come to me at 2:00 and go. And we ate breakfast at 7. You know, they would go, are we gonna have lunch? Nobody even thought about snacking. Yeah. Or going in and getting food.

[Alex Clark]

I like that you say after bread. It's like BB before bre. A b. After bread.

[Sue Becker]

Yes. Yes.

[Alex Clark]

Okay.

[Sue Becker]

So that, I mean, I just don't know how to encourage moms any more than just do it. Just do it. You'll be as surprised and shocked and satisfied as I was when I first started. And I can tell you this, there was nothing, to me, more satisfying than putting good food on the table for my family. And I already did. I cooked from scratch. We already ate real meat. We had gardens, so we. We had fresh green beans. We had tomatoes. We grew our own corn. We grew peas. And, you know, so we were already eating healthy. But, man, putting that bread on the table with what else we were eating, it was noticeably different and noticeably satisfying. And it was satisfying to me to know that I was giving my family the absolute best that they could get.

[Alex Clark]

If you could offer one remedy to heal a sick culture, and it could be physically, emotionally, or spiritually, what would it be?

[Sue Becker]

Change your bread because it will give you the energy, it will satisfy you. I mean, remember the diseases that plague America? Nervous disorders, dementia, mental insanity. Those were diseases that came on our country right away. How much depression and mental issues are we seeing in this country? And I believe, believe it's directly related to the food we're eating. And you know, one of the number one foods that is so processed and colored and denatured and chemical laden is all of the flour products. You change your bread, you've just eliminated most of the really toxic foods. Toxic food. That's the word I was looking for. Because you know, if you think about, you know, we all, you know, know the, the slogan, you know, shop the perimeter. Because that's where the real food is. The real fruits and vegetables, meat, dairy, eggs, meat, you know, whatever. Once you leave the perimeter, if you ever thought about this, once you get past the canned fruits and vegetables and the juice aisle, every other food aisle in that grocery store is a denatured flower product, a commercially processed, processed, chemical laden flour product. Look at what your feet. The cereals that are marketed for children is terrible. Get rid of that. Give them, give them a muffin that you've made. And that's another thing. You know those boxes of cereal, they say they have 13 servings in that. Yeah, right. Most of your children, two or three could eat that whole box in one situation. Getting colors, flavors, all this high sugar, not satisfying at all. Yet you can make a dozen muffins for cheaper than you can buy that box of cereal and that will feed 12 children.

[Alex Clark]

Yeah.

[Sue Becker]

You know what I'm saying? Sometimes I'll go in the back, you know, and I'll have to come towards the front to pay for my groceries and walk down the aisle. It smells horrible to me.

[Alex Clark]

Oh yeah.

[Sue Becker]

It smells like chemicals.

[Alex Clark]

Well, and I had the same experience now when I go out to eat.

[Sue Becker]

Yeah.

[Alex Clark]

I can immediately tell if a restaurant is cooking with seed oils. Yeah, I smell that rancid oil. It makes me want to throw up. Yeah, I, I totally notice it now when you remove yourself from the poison, toxic fake food sludge in America and then you try to re enter that your body will reject it. You do not want it. You're like, how could I ever give up my Chick Fil A or whatever. If you start to do it, if you just take like a month off, you are literally never going to crave it again. It's just wild how your body will immediately reject it because then it starts to realize, oh, this wasn't ever food. I don't ever want that again.

[Sue Becker]

I know. And you know, it's. My children even did that. We had been doing the bread for a little while and we went to an all you can eat, you know, family restaurant. Children 10 and under 8 free. So we went there a lot, you know, when we would eat out with friends and stuff. Cause we could eat there. Well, it was one of my children's birthday and they brought him some cake and he would have eaten it like anything before. After bread, he took one bite and he goes, this tastes like chemicals. He didn't want it. And you know, it's amazing. And things that we think we love now and that we can never, never do without, they just don't appeal anymore.

[Alex Clark]

So somebody wants to hire you or work with you or do your class.

[Sue Becker]

Where do they go? They go to. Breadbeckers.com is our website. I encourage you if you want to do a class with us, subscribe to our email newsletter. We send out one a month and we won't inundate your emails with emails every hour, day, whatever. So we send out one a month and that will let you know what classes are coming up for the next month. Month where I'll be speaking, teaching, just events that are coming up. And usually I write an article and give a recipe. So that's. That's a good thing. They can go to our YouTube channel. I realize not everybody is local to Atlanta, but we have people come in, they drive in from all over. So. But you can go to our YouTube channel and sometimes we live stream the classes. But we do have a lot of classes already Online.

[Alex Clark]

What's your YouTube called?

[Sue Becker]

Bread Beckers.

[Alex Clark]

Cool.

[Sue Becker]

Yeah. Can I close with one Scripture?

[Alex Clark]

Yes.

[Sue Becker]

And one. Do we have time for a quote?

[Alex Clark]

I'd love it.

[Sue Becker]

Bread is getting such a. A bad rap. It's being demonized. If you would. Gluten is being demonized. And most people don't even understand what gluten is. Gluten is formed. It's the stretchy substance that forms when these two unique proteins to the wheat family are hydrated. That's all it is. It's just protein. But God never intended us to eat those proteins without the vitamins and minerals and fiber that the bran and germ provide. Because those proteins are in the white flour. So this is a quote. And this makes me sad because it's a well known doctor. If I said his name, you would know him. But listen to this. Damage to the gastrointestinal tract from the overuse of antibiotics, anti inflammatory drugs like Advil or Leave, and acid blocking drugs like Prilosec or Nexium combined with our low fiber, high sugar diet leads to the development of celiac disease and gluten intolerance or sensitivity and the resultant inflammation. Did you hear what he's saying? I Agree with all of this. My children only had to have antibiotics twice in 25 years. Very rarely Advil or leave acid blocking drugs. It is really compromising our protein digestion. Okay, so I understand that combined with our low fiber, which fiber is in the bran and germ high sugar diet, all that bread stuff in the store, low sugar leads to the development of celiac disease, gluten intolerance or sensitivity and the resultant inflammation. I agree with that. But listen to the conclusion that both allopathic medicine and functional medicine health practitioners are making. That is why the elimination of gluten and food allergens or sensitivity can be a powerful way to prevent and reverse these and many other chronic diseases. The biggest problem is wheat, the major source of gluten in our diet. Did you hear wheat in the lineup that caused the sensitivity? Wheat didn't cause these. And quite the contrary, it can be the cure. But wheat weaves its misery through many mechanisms, not just the gluten. Gluten. Listen to this. The history of wheat parallels the historic history of chronic disease and obesity across the country. Supermarkets today contain walls of wheat. They do not. Yeah, they contain walls of something that once upon a time was the most nutritious food that God has given us. Yes, I find bread scriptures everywhere. Isaiah 55, verse 2 says, why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your earnings for what does not satisfy? I didn't know until I read this, but here's the most fascinating one. Deuteronomy 24, verse 6 says this. You know, in the book of Deuteronomy is the book of the laws and God's instruction of how to love him, how to love our neighbor, and how to love ourself. And in those days there was a law for borrowing and lending. If I was going to borrow something from you that was of value to use, I would give you something of value of mine as a pledge that I was going to return what I borrowed or I was going to pay you back. Did you know that God had a law for what you could not take as a pledge? He said, do not take a man's millstone as a pledge, for you would be taking his life. That gives me chills every time I quote it. And I've been at this 34 years now. But what I read when I read that history of White Flower, we let someone take our meal out of our home and take bread making out of the home and we have been losing our life and our health ever since.

[Alex Clark]

Well, if we're trading bread quotes. You know what my favorite one is? A little Do Diddy from a show called Madeline.

[Sue Becker]

Uh huh.

[Alex Clark]

We love our bread, we love our butter, but most of all, we love each other.

[Sue Becker]

Yes, I love it. I love my bread. I love my butter. Thank you you so much for having me.

[Alex Clark]

The Hashimoto stuff fascinated me that she has it and that all of her markers are like pristine, crystal clear. I just struggle so much with being told to avoid all gluten when I eat good bread or like organic sourdough bread for example. I feel amazing when I'm eating bread and butter. Like I feel like I need those carbs. I feel great when I'm having organic grass fed butter and I never ever feel feel any like bad symptoms eating gluten. I am totally inspired by Sue. I'm going to be ordering her bread machine, I'm going to be ordering her flour mill and I'm going to attempt to make this bread. Try it out, see how I do on it for a couple months and I'll keep you posted. This would be a game changer because not only am I supposed to allegedly be gluten free, but my boyfriend Steve and you know, things are really serious. He's being told also that he has a severe gluten allergy like his is off the charts and does make him feel sick. So he's supposed to be avoiding it. I want try this out and see if we can both eat it because that would be a huge game changer for our future family. If so, if you love this show, please leave a five star review. Tell others why they need to be listening to Culture apothecary if they haven't or leave a recommendation and a plea for a certain guest that you want to have on the show. Because you know what, I didn't know who Sue Becker was until you guys told me I needed to interview her. So I really love suggestions. We're on a mission to heal AIT Culture. Twice a week new guests are bringing their own unique remedy to do just that. Subscribe to Real Alex Clark on YouTube. Follow me on Instagram at realalexclark. I'm Alex Clark and this is Culture Apothecary.