Where the problem lies

extended flavour mutiny manifesto

The words we hear often enter our vocabulary. Working or dining in high quality restaurants, it would not be uncommon to hear things like: line-caught wild Sockeye salmon, pasture-raised Mangalista pork, single-herd Jersey cow butter, foraged ramps, badger flame beets, barrel-aged, hand-picked, biodynamic, whole-cluster…. These words emphasize the quality of the ingredient and help explain something about the breed, growing, cultivation, or culinary process that helps augment its value. It’s storytelling, and its part of our jobs as people working in food and hospitality. Too often, the quality of flour used in the top establishments is overlooked. Simply put, I don’t like the hypocrisy. I don’t think it’s alright that people (chefs, bakers, pasty chefs, restaurant owners) don’t feel more pressure or expectation for the quality of their flour to match the quality of the world-class ingredients they bring into their establishment. We get lobster flown in from the other side of the country, vintage wine shipped across the ocean, exotic ingredients from shrinking forests and jungles, and local treasures that are stealthily sought out and preserved. But for some reason, when it comes to grains, often being only wheat, our staple crop, we turn a blind-eye to the facts about the process. Sifted flour removes at least 15% of the grain, up to 45%. The germ and the bran make up less than 20% of the grain, by the time you sift away the outer 20%, the entire bran and germ has been removed. That includes 100% of the non-soluble fibre and 20 of the 21 micronutrients.

Grains and how we prepare them aren’t something of chance. We could not have had it any other way. For thousands of years grains have been the foundation of human civilization. We wouldn’t be who we are today had it not been for wheat and other grains, as well as discovering fermentation. Since the industrial revolution we have been putting profits before people, and we have to stop that. We have to recognize the harmful behaviors that have been the norm. It’s our moment to prioritize our communities and create radical change.

Whole grain should be the most alluring food trend of this moment. I think if the top restaurants and bakeries would embrace whole grains that the general public would quickly get onboard.

Part of the problem is that late-stage capitalism is like the wild west. Say what you want if it achieves the success you’re looking for, if there is fallout from making misleading or false claims you can deal with it as it comes. So when a restaurant buys flour from a local mill because its organic and stone-milled, what good is it if it’s been stripped of all its nutrition and creates mountains of food waste? What’s the difference between Red Fife and Red Spring? One is the name of a heritage variety, the other is two parts of a three-part classification. In fact, Red Fife is a Hard Red Spring. So what’s the problem with having them as separate products without giving people more information? It’s like selling “Wild Sockeye” next to “Pacific Red Fish”, “Iberico” or “Western European swine”. Actual transparency involves clarity. Do people know what they’re buying? As food producers, are we helping educate our clients or just marketing to them? Flourist makes ridiculous claims to sell their flour, like this taken from their website: “Marquis wheat is lower in the allergenic component of gluten than modern wheats, making it easier for people with gluten sensitivity to digest.” Say whatever you want, I guess.

It’s not a problem to use a modern hard red spring, we do at the bakery. It’s a problem to use the vernacular purely for marketing purposes. Our bread is 50% organic Saskatchewan HRS that we get from Fieldstone Organics through Vadim. The other 50% is called Fraser Red, that we get from Cedar Isle Farm in Agassiz, BC. It is a recently developed cultivar out of University of Manitoba’s breeding program, done with extensive field research, designed to respond best to today’s changing climate. When we talk about them, it’s okay to value one more than the other. Be a grain somm, go into great detail about the ingredients we use, with honesty and clarity.

In Vancouver, the stakeholder landscape lacks infostructure. We get immense support from our individual costumers, but there are larger stakeholders who have greater power that need to start showing up for whole grains. If part of your mission includes improving soil health, reducing food waste, responding to the climate crisis, improving community health, reducing food insecurity, whole grains have to be part of your conversation.

For my business to survive, it needs to generate more revenue. Vancouver Farmer’s Market could help with that by letting us sell at their busiest markets. But because they value seniority over practices, and see the value of our work as the same with any other cookie or brownie vendor, we were shutout of their most popular summer markets. Which means they don’t have any whole grain baking at those markets, and that the baking they do have is less nutritious and creates more food waste. VFM, like all farmer’s market organizations, could create policy not just prioritizing whole grains, but making it necessary for their vendors to adopt healthier practices to be able to sell at their markets. Copying a model used in California, I would like to see it required the bakers must use at least 20% whole grains and 20% BC grains. This would help insure the products being sold have nutritional integrity and support our local food economy. Currently, shoppers can’t even use nutritional coupons at our stall because the organization doesn’t value it as food. To them, all baking is a sugary treat.

Last week we took part in the Pollinator Picnic at UBC Farm - Centre for Sustainable Food Systems. It was one of our worst markets to date and incredibly disheartening. Not just that we didn’t get the sales, but no one from the Farm came by to say hello. I thought having worked at Blue Hill at Stone Barns Centre for Food and Education, or being the only baker to work with several different varieties sourced directly from famers, would be enough to spark their interest. It wasn’t, and I was largely ignored. I sold four cookies and drove home with more than 20 loaves. How can this work fail when partnered with a Centre for Sustainable Food Systems?

I read up on them, trying to understand more about the work they do. Even when I read the BC Sustainability Asset Guide, put out by BC Food and Beverage, it doesn’t mention whole grain once.

This is a flaw in Vancouver’s stated mission of sustainability.

We are here baking today, continuing with our mission.

I hope you will continue to support us by consuming whole grains, demanding whole grains from your other favourite bakeries, amplifying our work, and asking the media and other stakeholders to do more.

Let’s do better together.

Thank you for reading this long letter.