Progress Can Be Demoralizing

Do you ever find yourself moving slowly but surely towards a goal then all of sudden you get demoralized? I was feeling that way last week.

I have been reading on Food Renegade about how grains should be prepared in order for our bodies to make the most of them. I was just getting used to baking my own bread from whole wheat flour, and eating oatmeal for breakfast everyday. Now it turns out I should be soaking that oatmeal in yogurt overnight, and only using freshly milled sprouted grains in my bread.

I might could deal with the yogurt idea. We all love yogurt around here and the thin consistency of homemade yogurt  would lend itself nicely to our morning oatmeal. But you can't just buy sprouted flour at Meijer. Or even Trader Joe's. You have to frickin' order it off the Internet and it is expensive!

This stuff can be overwhelming if you discover all these new ideas and try to implement them all at once. When I read that "sprouted, soaked, or fermented" thing I dutifully soaked some steel cut oats that very night. It wasn't that hard and it was pretty tasty the next day. I sat there staring at my tangy bowl of oat-gurt trying to convince myself that this change was no big deal. But really I just felt defeated. My thoughts quickly changed from "I can do this" to "I am baking my own frickin' bread and I am still doing it wrong?!"

I didn't bake any bread for a week after that and that's when I knew it wasn't time to make this change. I get the grain thing and the stuff about the phytic acid... I really do. I just don’t think I can go that route right now. If a change is too overwhelming it ends up being demoralizing. I would rather go slow, then go backward. 

So let's just forget about the sprouting and the yogurt and save the fermenting for beer. I am much more excited about trying raw milk.... One thing at a time.