Einkorn is the only form of wheat on Earth that is completely unhybridized, containing the good gluten that even sensitive individuals can usually eat. Consuming it has four main benefits.
In my home, I’ve purchased organic white wheat and spelt in bulk for many years. Grinding it into fresh flour is the most nutritious and tastiest way to bake! I also did this to avoid the conventional toxic wheat in North America.
Farmers on this continent frequently desiccate their crops with glyphosate-containing herbicides. This practice is beneficial for ease and speed of harvest.
I credit this approach with my family avoiding any wheat allergies or problems digesting grains in general. This is true provided they are traditionally prepared. Bulgur is an example of this ancestral practice still widely used today.
For those of you who do have wheat issues, you’ll be encouraged to know that my husband used to have allergy and digestive issues with wheat years ago. He no longer does thanks to careful avoidance of wheat for several years, rebalancing the gut with traditional cooking, raw dairy, and the GAPS Diet.
Having a lot of experience dealing with wheat allergies, I can say that there certainly is a huge difference between modern processed wheat, products made with it such as seitan, and what you produce yourself at home.
I remember when I was breastfeeding my youngest child, if I ate so much as a mouthful or two of processed wheat at a restaurant in the form of a sandwich, slice of pizza, or a bread roll, she would spit up for one or sometimes even two days!
If I ate wheat that I ground myself and either sprouted, soaked, or sour leavened, however, she never had any spit up issues. To me, this was a huge testament to the radically improved digestibility of wheat that is prepared using the wise methods of ancestral cultures.
Einkorn Health Benefits over Modern Wheat
Given my success over the years with incorporating traditional methods of wheat preparation in my home, you may be surprised to learn that I’m switching the type I use.
What’s more, I’m switching 100%.
I still have about half of a large bucket of organic spelt to use up and a small amount of organic soft white wheat before the switch is complete. My goal is to have my family completely transitioned to einkorn wheat within another month or two.
Here are the 4 reasons why I am making the wholesale change to einkorn. Note that this strain is not to be confused with farro or heirloom wheat:
#1:Â Better Taste
My first experience baking with einkorn occurred after I received a thoughtful gift of, among other things, einkorn flour and wheat berries. I was delighted when I ground the einkorn into flour and saw how light and white it was.
I am not a fan of bran and am not of the food philosophy that all that fiber is actually good for you. Folks just think they need a lot of fiber as they are so constipated from all the processed foods they eat! Observing that einkorn, the most ancient and unhybridized form of wheat, has less bran compared with modern wheat was encouraging to me.
I was thrilled to see that my family thoroughly enjoyed the soaked waffles made with fresh einkorn flour. It was my first einkorn dish! Ever since they have asked me to use only that flour.
Like any Mom, I’m a sucker for kids who love my cooking and tell me so on a frequent basis. So, I made the easy decision to switch to einkorn completely for all my home baking.
#2: Â More Digestible
My husband’s stomach is my canary in the coal mine. If something is not easy to digest, he can tell and lets me know right away.  As he has fully recovered from a wheat allergy, he knows which forms of wheat and which preparation methods sit best in his stomach and which do not.
While my properly prepared grain dishes made with wheat or spelt digest fine for him, once he tried the einkorn, he could tell that his digestion was even lighter for the experience. This is possibly because einkorn contains good gluten, different on a molecular level from modern gluten. It is much better tolerated by those with gluten sensitivity.
Better digestion means better absorption of nutrients, so einkorn surpassed the competition in that category.
#3: Einkorn is Visually Different
The first thing I noticed when I ground einkorn into flour for the first time was how much smaller a grain of einkorn is compared with a grain of modern wheat. They are about half the size!
In addition, the telltale crease on one side of a grain of modern wheat is absent from a grain of einkorn. The reason for the differences is that over the centuries, the genetics of wheat gradually changed due to human cultivation practices.
Year after year, farmers selected the seeds at harvest time that suited the goal of higher yields and more gluten. This worked best for big farms and larger-scale agriculture, production, and distribution of wheat products.
#4: Only Unhybridized Wheat on Earth
Einkorn is like most plants in that it is diploid. This means that contains only 2 sets of chromosomes. About 2,000 years after einkorn wheat, nature created emmer via the hybridization of 2 wild grasses. Consequently, emmer has 4 sets of chromosomes. Kamut and durum (bulgur) wheat are both descendants of emmer.
Spelt, an heirloom wheat, is the result of hybridization between cultivated emmer and another wild grass. Thus, it contains six sets of chromosomes. Modern wheat is a descendant of spelt.
Note that while humans extensively hybridized wheat over the millennia, there is currently no genetically modified wheat on the market. In the Western United States, however, test plots of GMO wheat have caused some contamination issues.
As you can see, einkorn is the purest and most ancient form of wheat available. It has only 2 sets of chromosomes with a very different composition of gluten. This form is easier to digest for many with non-genetic gluten intolerance.
Where to Source the Best Quality Einkorn
The only downside of einkorn is that it is not widely available and tends to be more expensive than other types of wheat. It is still quite new to the North American market.
My healthy shopping guide lists sources that I’ve vetted that are fast and affordable to ship to your door. I use these reliable companies myself and have for many years.
The organic einkorn wheat berries from these sources are grown and packaged on one secluded and pristine farm in Tuscany. It is very important to rotate crops on this farm. This is due to the hilly terrain, where yields are low and the land must stay fertile.
What this means is that this particular source of organic einkorn comes from fully pastured fields for five years prior. In addition, soil nutrition is enhanced using one year of crop rotation with the cultivation of chickpeas, lentils or fava beans. This ensures that there is no risk of cross-contamination with other types of grains. Each year’s crop of einkorn comes from truly fertile earth!
Have you tried einkorn wheat yet? Â If so, what observations have you made about this ancient, unhybridized wheat?
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Sarah, do you sift the einkorn flour?
I used this recipe for pancakes and they were yummy http://www.einkorn.com/recipes/einkorn-blender-pancakes-2/
Made these cookies and they looked just like the picture and were yummy
good luck
I have just started milling my own Einkorn flour and I must say I am not having very good luck with it. I have made pancakes using my own recipe and they were very stretchy and hard to flip. When they were cooked the texture was still stretchy. I then made chocolate chip cookies from a recipe on Jovial’s website and they looked nothing like their picture. Mine were very flat and they just peeled off my silicone baking mat. Again, a very weird texture. I think Jovial used their refined einkorn flour for the cookie recipe and that might be the difference. If anyone has any tips for me or help me with this problem, I would appreciate it very much.
Teresa,
I wish there were more recipes and tips out there for the freshly-milled wheat. I’ve had similar issues when using Jovial’s recipes, and later learned (from comments on the recipes) that they were designed for their flour, not the freshly milled wheat berries. :-/
I’ve had great success subbing flour in muffins, and have done half and half in other things, but can’t bring myself to experiment with using it completely because it’s so expensive for it to flop!
I am reading Wheat Belly by William Davis, MD, great informative book, which lead me to Heritage Grain Conservancy, which lead me (indirectly) to here. Love it! I’m so excited to try Einkorn wheat in my continuing efforts to get away from the ‘frankenfoods’ that overwhelm us today!
Why is Jovial’s einkorn inexpensive? Jovial is owned by Bio-Natur, a multi-national corporation that grows, mills and denatures their einkorn flour in Europe, then ships to the US. Their einkorn flour is sifted, denuded white flour that has a shelf life of over a year.
In contrast, the Heritage Grain Conservancy conserves hundreds of almost-extinct grains. I mill all my flour with my own hands each week, leaving all the bran and goodness in. It is alive. I advise you to freeze our whole, living flour to keep it fresh. I grow, mill and bake everything myself from my field to your table. I bake living einkorn sprout bread fresh for each order with my own hands. No machines are used in my bakery (except the flour mill). My husband, Cr Lawn, founded the only seed cooperative in the US .
If you want to buy from a multi-national corp, buy from Jovial. If you want to support an American organic family farm, the conservation of almost-lost species in our ‘eat it to save it’ program, and a one-woman artisan bakery on a farm – buy from Eli Rogosa!
Is this Eli the same as Eli Kafufman? If so, this is the family from MI with the small farm that has sent you a few emails.
How can we help to bring the price of this einkorn down? As you know, we are experimenting with growing it. Maybe there is a way we can help to bring your costs down so that everyone on this forum, and everyone that has yet to meet einkorn, can have easy-to-access and price-friendly einkorn!
Mary Lawton
Eli, when you can offer whole organic wheat berries for me from which to grind my own flour – which is what I do with the wheat berries from Jovial – for $3/pound and free shipping, I will buy from you.
Sometimes income dictates our actions and we are not bad people to buy what we can afford. I am delighted to be able to get this resource at a price my family can handle – we make about $30,000/year.
What you’re doing is great and I support USA when I am able, but sometimes it is just not possible. Much better for you to sell at an affordable price.
Also, I copied and pasted this directly from your website:
“Einkorn’s natural gluten may be safe for some wheat sensititives*. Why? It is not genetically modified like modern wheat. Einkorn evolved from pure wild einkorn from the dawn of agricultur.”
It is inaccurate, as there is not genetically modified wheat on the market today. Wheat is hybridized. There is a huge dofference. You might want to correct this misinformation, though I don’t believe it was deliberate on your part.
I just bought my EINKORN wheat Einkorn.com located in Sugar CIty, ID. There site is http://www.einkorn.com/ I purchased 15 lbs for $57.35 which included shipping. They also have other ancient grains for sale and they are organic. Plus bulk.
Lynn, since you are in ID, you could get a better deal from Azure Standard. They deliver in ID. Also,the amount you bought would have cost $45 from jovial.com – including shipping.
Denise, actually I bought the Einkorn from ID online. I actually live in OR, but never thought to check Azure Standard. We pick up from Azure most every Wednesday. Just ordered einkorn for Wednesday. Thanks for the tip.
Sure thing!
Just made an einkorn sourdough bread loaf for my wheat sensitive family for the first time. We have been wheat free for years (including spelt). All but one could tolerate the einkorn and I think it will be simply a matter of time and all five of us will be enjoying the einkorn bread. Unfortunately we could not tolerate the noodles. We never thought wheat would be a part of our lives again. Super excited!
There is mention in this article about einkorn being $3 per pound and free shipping. Clicking on the link takes me to a $9.99 site. Where is the $3 per pound free shipping?
Thank you!
Mary
That is likely through Azure Standard. Their 25 pound bag is $72 and ships free to an established Azure drop Point. They only deliver in the western half of the U.S., though.
Mary, go to Jovial.com
Excellent article. Thank you! I grow einkorn on my 12 acre organic farm in Western Mass, have an einkorn-only bakery, Mystic Sheaf, and offer our MA-grown einkorn grain and flour on: growseed.org. Our flour is whole grain with all the goodness, fresh-milled for each order. We sell at bulk discounts of $5/lb + shipping to restaurants, coops or groups.
See: growseed.org Eli Rogosa: [email protected]
PS: I would be pleased to sponsor your informative blog as well!
If anyone knows as to a retailer in canada that markets Einkorn wheat or the finished products, please post a reply. Einkorn is amazing, incredible taste, and you don’t feel gross after eating it like the modern hybridized wheats. I’ve ordered some from the U.S. so far… but it’s already expensive price is killer by the time shipping is paid too. Hope somebody knows of a canadian distributor.
(Jovial… open up a canadian outlet!!!)