Kamut Bread

[Jeroen de Wit]

Who knows a good recipe for baking kamut bread with a bread machine? I already tried it a couple of times, although they are eatable, they are far from perfect. They do not rise enough.

Thanks!
Jeroen

[Jeroen de Wit]

Does somebody has a good recipe for kamutbread? I try to make it with my own breadmachine, but they stay very heavy.

thanks!
Jeroen

[Roy Collins]

Hi Jeroen. There are a few macrobiotic bread companies that make Kumut bread using only Kumut flour, sea salt, water, and oil but I don't know exact method. I don't think they use a bread making machine. Some say because Kamut flour has very little gluten that it works best when mixed with other flours with higher gluten content. Here is a recipe that I found on the internet for Kamut bread:

http://countrylife.net/pages/recipes/7.html

You may want to get in touch with Bruce Paine who knows how to use starter:

Bruspain@world.std.com

I personally try to stay away from bread as much as possible but like it very much when made from freshly ground flour.

Before I was married I had a girlfriend who liked to always make bread. Sometimes we used to have "kneading contests" to see who could knead the dough the longest time. This is good to do when watching a video! Once we put left over (slightly sour) sauteed vegetables (onion, carrot, cabbage, etc.) into the dough an kneaded it in. The longer you knead, the more heat and energy you put into the bread. This makes bread to rise more. It is also a good idea to put in some left over cooked grain -- like millet, corn, rice, etc. Some people think Quinoa is a grain but it is only a seed from a wild goosefoot plant. High protein -- very yin. I don't recommend this.
Kamut and Spelt are true grains, however. Let us know how it turns out.

I hope this helps.

In peace, Roy

[Jeroen de Wit]

Hi Roy, thanks for your reply. I made a kamut bread yesterday which is not bad. I used a little less sugar. I used the following:
500 kamut flour
300 ml water
some olive oil
teaspoon salt
teaspoon yeast
less than a teaspoon sugar

You wrote: I stay away from bread as much as possible. Why?
Since the start of this year I find out I am sensitive for (full grain) wheat bread. So I try to find somethings else to eat. I also wonder what it exactly is i am sensitive for. Do you have any idea what might try to find that out.

Thanks
Jeroen

[Roy Collins]

Hi Joreon. Standard macrobiotic practice does not include refined sugar in the diet on a regular basis. Maybe when you go out to eat or holiday meal. Too yin -- robs calcium stores to buffer. Very extreme food -- tropical origin, refine, not whole. Make bread without sugars if you want to be healthy and have good balance of yin/yang.

Also whole grains are most perfect of all foods (but not totally pefect). We must eat whole foods as it makes strong energy which makes blood, cells, tissue, organs, muscle, thinking, etc.
Whole foods = whole body, whole thinking. When you eat bread all the time the energy is squashed out when it is ground into flour and quickly oxidizes. Less chewing is required for bread eating and high gluten in bread makes intestines weak. Many people, especially Americans have bad habit of putting a spread on the bread -- mostly sugar type (jellY0 or high fat like butter, cheese, peanut butter, etc. This adds to problem of too high protein as well. Thinking becomes dull.

With whole grain eating energy is made clean and efficient. You can have better sense of life's wholeness. Not broken dreams. Once in a while bread is OK. Don't need to get too strict then there is unhappiness.

I hope this helps.

In peace,
Roy

[Jeroen de Wit]

ok. thanks a lot. I will keep it in mind. I am not so much into the macrobiotic field. Something else: do you know anything about the blood group diet (eat right for your type). What do you think about it?

kr
Jeroen

[Roy Collins]

Jeroen: I think there is some good in all ideas but from macro-viewpoint everything is changing through time and we have to make adjustments according to environment we live in -- like wild animals. We know to eat warm foods when weather changes to cold. We know to eat cold foods when weather gets warm, etc. No fixed rules in macro only change. Blood diet is more restrictive in this sense. Thanks for your question.

In peace, Roy

[Bo.Engborg]

I have made some experiments with the blood type diet and there is some good points in it. Of course you still have to keep your macrobiotic view. Like Roy said, it is important to change with time, seasoen etc. In the bood type diet D'Adamo says for instance that sugar is "neutral" for all blood types, and that coffee is recommended for persons with blood type O. This is of course rubbish, sugar and coffee is bad for everyone.
But with a macrobiotic view it is perfectly safe, and I found beneficial, to try the ideas in the blood type diet.

- Bo E -

[Jeroen de Wit]

thanks for your reply. you made a small mistake, in the btd coffee has te be avoided by o-types, for all other types it is neutral or even beneficial. I also found some good points in it, but rationally I am still a bit against it, I am an o-type, when you really follow the btd you can hardly eat anything of the normal way of eating in Holland.

bye Jeroen

[Bo.Engborg]

Right Jeroen, regarding coffee I meant "recommended for A".

- Bo E -

[Roy Collins]

Michio Kushi says that blood type is always changing and that if you maintain macrobitiotic eating patterns for a long time you should check (after 15 years) it will probably change. Kushi lits the blood types from yang to yin:

Type O = most yang
Type B = Next most yang (Roy is this type)
Type AB = Next (Michio is this type)
Type A = Yin

Much of our genetic traits are due to the types of food we ate in our past and these foods were determined by the type of CLIMATE they grew in. The foods + the climate gave rise to not only different blood types but also created different species.

Achareologist Adam Chou recently wrote a wonderful article on this topic that was presented at the Proceeding of a Symposium to Commemorate the 80th Birthday Celebration of Professor Serrzawa in Sendai Japan. The article is titled Treatise of the Two Genetic Traits in East Asia."

Chou sites that the need for an abundant amount of vegetation was required for homo erectus to evolve into homo sapiens, and that the temperate climate was crucial in the development of homo sapiens. Scientists also use the term Adaptive Radiation to show how morphology and genetic traints are altered once adaptation to a new environment is made.

Most of this work appears to prove that one needs not only to change food habits according to the environment but also that blood and genetic changes will occur once different foods (nurtients) are consumed.

I do not dispute that there is an element of truth to the btd but that there is a lot more to it that what is put forth. Please experiment carefully but always keep in mind moderation, and yin/yang thinking. Hence we don't eat chocolate in the northern climates as it is a more tropical fruit containing too much protein, fat and the stimulating alkaloid theobromine, closely related o caffeine. Once we begin eating foods from ouside of our environment it makes it exceeding difficult to adapt to the climates we live in. Not to mention that our thinking becomes more abstract and disconnected. So my suggestion is that in order to incorporate the ideas of the btd into macrobiotic practice then use your judgement and take only those foods sugested for your blood type if they are from the environment you live in and if they are prepared by yin/yang menthod.

In peace, Roy

[Bo.Engborg]

>Michio Kushi says that blood type is
>always changing and that if you
>maintain macrobitiotic eating patterns
>for a long time you should check
> (after 15 years) it will probably change.

This sounds highly unlikely to me. As far as I understand it you can't have two types of blood at the same time, so if there is a change all the blood sould change at an exact second.

>Kushi lits the blood types from yang to >yin:

>Type O = most yang
>Type B = Next most yang (Roy is this >type)
>Type AB = Next (Michio is this type)
>Type A = Yin

This fits very well with D'Adamos understanding of the blood types. He says that type O (like me) should eat a bigger part of animal food and type A mostly vegetarian.

- Bo E -

[Roy Collins]

Hi Bo. I wish I had more information on this changing of blood types. I guess more research and evidence is needed to prove or disprove Kushi's hypostesis. I'll do a little more digging around by way of the lower primates and their evolution to see if there is a trend or patteren to correlates to geography, climate and foods consumed.

It would appear (from the hypotesis) that lower primates that resided in trees and ate fruit, nut, etc. would have A type blood and that during the ice age when primates came down from trees to eat more land food that blood type would change to AB, then
as their body stuctures change and began eating more diverse diet during cold ages that B type would come, etc. It is interesting that there are a wide variety of blood types in each geographic location and climate, and that they appear to remain consistent.

So it is good to see you are on the ball and making these connections and challenging the theory put forth. I do agree that there is some truth to the BTD (as I stated earlier) but still yin/yang and climate should hold primary importance. Type-O, huh? No wonder all the girls were looking at you in the lecture hall that night. I didn't stand a chance :-(. I'll report my findings at a later date, but if anyone from the KI happens to have proof of blood type changing over time I would be interested to see these findings.



In peace, Roy