Ancient Grains 101

What are ancient grains? Are they really healthier than modern wheat? In this interview with Jade Koyle from Grand Teton Ancient Grains, you’ll learn all about each ancient grain and how to bake with them, plus what makes them so good for you!

“Achoo!” I couldn’t help myself.

All my life… sneeze, sneeze, sneeze. Over and over and over.

My seasonal allergies were soooo bad. At first, it was just in the spring. Then it got to be year-round. Indoor and outdoor.

I was miserable. Always stuffed up, couldn’t breathe (especially at night), eyes burning, nose raw and burned from all the blowing, and the residual cough from junk getting in my lungs.

Then, over the course of 3 days… after 40-some years… my seasonal allergies simply went away. Yes, really!

I know it’s hard to believe… yet, it’s true. I literally went from sneezing and miserable to breathing free and clear. (And I’m still seasonal allergy-free now 10 years later.)

What?! How?! What is this magic?!

Well, it’s not magic! It’s the Lord… and specifically a gift from Him… when we put one of the last pieces in place on our Eat God’s Way journey.

We (our family) switched from eating modern wheat to ancient grains from Bible Times (like einkorn and spelt). You see, modern wheat (along with white sugar) happens to be a huge trigger for lots of people, causing seasonal allergies.

Not just for me… for many others, too. And if I hadn’t gone through it myself, I would have a hard time believing what I just said was true.

However, I did go through it myself. I went from a lifetime of seasonal allergies to them just turning off in 3 days. Never to return (now 10 years later, at the time of this writing).

And at the time I experienced this miracle, we lived in Oregon. Specifically south of Eugene… which is one of the highest pollen regions of the country, if not the world. So it’s not just that there wasn’t pollen around; there was plenty!

This was a super big deal for me, and in the years since, I have loved seeing others make the switch to Eat God’s Way with ancient grains, too. I’ve heard from many that they’ve experienced:

• better digestion (even ability to eat gluten again)
• healed eczema
• better mental clarity
• and yes, no more seasonal allergies

So… using ancient grains is a big part of what we teach in Eat God’s Way.

In fact, we have a full Ancient Grains course. If you or anyone you know might want more info about baking or cooking with the beautiful, healthy, and delicious ancient grains, contact me by email at [email protected] or by text 1-317-434-1180 for current enrollment dates and availability.

So now I’m very excited to welcome back Jade Koyle from Grand Teton Ancient Grains. He has joined me in the past to talk about how einkorn differs from modern wheat, and today he is here to expand on the topic by sharing about many other ancient grains, including not only einkorn but also spelt, emmer, khorasan, rye, barley, and even buckwheat.

There are many reasons to consider moving away from modern wheat toward the older grains, so I’m delighted to explore this topic with you!

In 2016, Jade and his family started growing einkorn on their small family farm in eastern Idaho. Now they are organically farming over 1600 acres, his brother has joined the business, and they grow many other ancient grains as well!

In this article:

• what the ancient grains are
• how to use each ancient grain in cooking and baking
• the additional steps that Grand Teton Ancient Grains takes (beyond the basic federal requirements) to ensure their products are truly organic and pesticide-free
• how they are helping other farmers learn to grow ancient grains
• and much more!

Please set aside distractions and watch or listen to the video below. Or, if you prefer to read, the complete transcript plus my summary notes are also below!

The Background

First, I’ll let Jade share, in his own words, a little bit about himself and his family.

I grew up in Gooding, southern Idaho on a small family farm. We loved farming together as a family, but it’s very difficult to make the farming thing provide, especially if you’re growing what everyone else is growing. We took our crops to the elevator, and they told us what they were going to pay for it. Sometimes it would be good and sometimes it would be very bad.

I always loved farming. I wanted to get back into it, but I didn’t know how. So I left the farm and got into a career in business. I stayed in touch with the family farm as much as I could, but I was in a different world at that point. My wife and I met in college. Julie is a very good cook and baker, and also very health conscious. Between the two of us, we love healthy things, and we love agriculture.

Then we came across an ancient grain called einkorn — the most primitive form of wheat. We got my dad to plant some of it. Meanwhile, we’re growing our family and decide to move back to Idaho. We bought a few acres, and grew einkorn as a kind of hobby, although we didn’t plan to farm. But in 2016, there we were, working together on the farm! And now, every morning, I get to go out with my kids, and we get to irrigate together and work together.

My brother joined with his family in 2018. He was the first to go full-time on the farm. There was a lot of interest in einkorn, and the business was starting to grow. We loved eating and using einkorn and sharing it with the few customers we had. Then in 2021, I went full-time. Now I’m solely focused on ancient grains!

Grand Teton Ancient Grains is the name of the business today. Einkorn is still our flagship, but we grow a variety of ancient grains now. Those very first recipes that went up on our website back in the day were Julie’s, and they were some of the first einkorn recipes on the internet.

We get to bake with these different ancient grains that we grow and share them with people across the world. Our oldest is 22 years old and our youngest is six. That’s the journey we’ve been on!

What was the pivoting point for your family to consider growing and selling ancient grains?

A family friend, Stan Ness, first told us about einkorn. I started looking into it, and realized that the domain name einkorn.com was selling at auction. I put in a bid and told Stan, “If you want to, we can throw up a blog and see what happens.” So we did. I won the domain name. We started writing articles. People contacted us from all over. Since Stan wasn’t really involved in the agriculture side of things, he eventually moved on to other projects, and Julie and I continued with einkorn.

Julie’s interest in baking and experimenting with einkorn, making it a viable food for our family, allowed us to help others learn it as well. We got my dad to grow it on his farm, and then began working with other farmers. We stored the packaged einkorn in our basement at first, and shipped out little packages from our home in Utah.

Do you lease land or have other farmers growing for you?

Since my brother Jaxon came on, we’ve been able to get more land. We started with our small 40-acre farm right around our house, and then in addition to leasing, we’ve been able to pick up another hundred and twenty acres. All told, there’s about 1600 acres that we’re farming ourselves.

It’s a challenge to get farmers on board because it requires them to adapt. We are organic, we don’t use growth inhibitors, we manage everything naturally. And yet, we have a network of small organic farms throughout southern Idaho and Montana that work with us. Last year, a good friend and neighbor of ours came on board. His land is now in transition to being organic.

One of the reasons we want to grow as many acres as possible is to be able to experiment with the grains so we can take them to other farmers and say, “Here’s how to do it.” It takes several years to learn how to grow each of the ancient grains. Currently we’re growing emmer, spelt, einkorn, khorasan, rye, and hard white wheat on our own land.

Some people say, “Why can’t you grow it all on your own farm?” With organic farming, you have to do crop rotations to maintain fertile soil. For example, we’ll grow einkorn for two years and then we won’t grow it again on that land another three or four years. It’s not that einkorn is hard on the soil. It plays its own role in building up the soil. But we have to rotate through other crops to build up the soil in different ways and help fight disease.

What other methods do you utilize for the health of the soil?

We do a lot of things on the farm to build up soil fertility. Of course, fertile soil means healthy foods, and that’s ultimately what we’re going for.

In addition to crop rotations, we also grow hundreds of thousands of species of microbes and inject this “microbial tea” into our irrigation system twice a year. These microbes help…

• break down the soil
• make plants healthier so they can fight off bugs and disease
• make minerals available to the plants
• increase the ability of the soil to hold water
• increase the percentage of organic matter in the soil

It’s really important in this area because we had a huge flood in the ’70s (the Teton flood) that washed away all the topsoil. Since then, local farmers have been working to restore the soil. But in the meantime, they’ve been using practices that aren’t conducive to rebuilding the soil. The pH here is really high; the organic matter is really low. We’re trying to reverse that and bring things back into balance again.

Every year, we measure different characteristics in the soil, looking for the right balance of minerals and nutrients so plants grow well and can access the whole profile of nutrition in the soil. We’re seeing a lot of progress!

 

What sets your grains apart?

It’s really important to my family that we’re eating nutritious foods and stewarding the earth. That’s why we love hearing about Jade’s efforts to make his land better year by year.

Glyphosate testing

Of course, we’re an organic farm. We’re in a great location for this because we are so isolated. But we want to go beyond the minimum requirements of not using herbicides, pesticides, or chemical fertilizers on our crops. We also test all of our grains for glyphosate, mold, yeast, and coliform bacteria such as E. coli before shipping them out to our customers, just in case there’s any contamination from other farms.

We not only test, but we implement prophylactic measures to help prevent the contamination in the first place. As I discussed above, our crop rotations and microbial tea build up the soil so it is more resilient. There’s toxicity everywhere. The microbial activity and ecology of healthy soil can help the plants deal with the toxicity. We have a theory that even if there was glyphosate in the rainwater, that the microbes would offset that.

We think a healthy microbial environment in the soil can take care of so many problems.

Saving seeds

Ancient grains have been around for a long time, obviously due in part to the fact that there have been caretakers of these seeds over the years. These people are very important. I know of a big group, the Rocky Mountain Seed Association, but there are groups all around the world. They do a great job of maintaining their gardens of seeds.

As a farm, we do the same. A portion of our farm is dedicated to growing, maintaining, and storing our seeds. We don’t rely on an outside company to do this, which is rare! But I think it’s important. We couldn’t do what we do without being a part of the process of growing and keeping seeds.

The nice thing about these ancient grain seeds is they have a hull or husk on them that preserves them really well. Some of these seeds may not get planted for a year or two, so it’s important to keep the hull on. The hull protects them from bugs and disease, and keeps the germination rate high until we’re ready to plant them.

Freshness

When we need a batch of grain, we bring it out to remove the hull and clean it. Then, it is either planted or milled and/or packaged. We don’t keep bags of products sitting on our shelves. Instead, we prepare our grains as the orders come in. Every package of grain or flour that leaves our place has a date on it so you know when it was packaged. You’ll notice how fresh it is when it arrives.

Quality guarantee

Additionally, if there’s ever a problem with our grains, we will make it right. And we want to know about the problems! We ship our grains in paper bags, which is unusual nowadays. Occasionally bags can get wet or split open during shipping. But we want that traditional experience of a paper bag, and we want you to know your food hasn’t been stored in plastic. If there is ever an issue and your grains are damaged in shipment, we will send you a replacement.

Finally, people can buy our grains several places, but you will get the best value and the freshest grain ordering directly from our website. [Use code TCS5 to get 5% OFF at Ancient Grains; members, contact us or check the member portal for your deeper discount code.]

What are some of the challenges and advantages of growing ancient grains?

Ancient grains have not been bred for agricultural performance. They developed naturally in the wild and through some form of natural selection. For the most part, any farmer can grow and plant them with standard equipment if he’s willing to adapt. For example, these grains grow really tall. The height of them is a challenge depending on how you irrigate. It requires more labor and hands to get the job done, and puts an extra strain on your equipment.

Dehulling

The cleaning process does require a lot of special equipment. Once we’re ready to sell the grain, it has to be dehulled. My brother Jaxon designed the system that cleans our grain. It goes through about 15 different machines in all. One is called an optical sorter which sorts every grain and removes the ones that are the wrong size or color.

Resilience

As far as advantages go, these crops tend to have longer roots and don’t require as much water. Einkorn is very resourceful at using what’s in the soil. It doesn’t require as much nitrogen or water to grow. That has been a trend across the board with these ancient grains.

In our area, the winter crops do struggle a bit. But some of these ancient grains can also handle winters better, the ones that grow through the winter.

Organic farming

We’re an organic farm, so we don’t use herbicides, pesticides, or commercial fertilizers on the crops. This means we have to find other ways to keep weeds at bay. For example, crop rotation not only increases soil fertility, but it also helps suppress weeds. Many farmers expect to see an organic field overrun with weeds. That happens sometimes, depending on where you are in the rotation. But generally, our organic fields are “cleaner” than conventional ones.

 

All About Ancient Grains

There are many ancient grains that date back, largely unchanged, for thousands of years. But for the purposes of our discussion with Jade, we’re focusing on einkorn, emmer, spelt, khorasan, rye, barley, and buckwheat.

Einkorn, emmer, spelt, and khorasan are the four ancient wheats that Jade sells. Grand Teton Ancient Grains also sells hard white wheat (pictured above), because it’s pantry staple for many people, and they are experimenting with growing and selling the other grains as well.

Which ancient grain is the oldest one?

Genetically speaking, einkorn is the most primitive form of wheat on Earth. It contains 14 chromosomes, whereas modern wheat contains 42 chromosomes. That speaks to how many times wheat has hybridized over the centuries. That hybridization happened naturally in the wild, although it’s very rare. Sometimes it just happens in nature that one species will cross with another and make a new species.

Einkorn isn’t really an ancestor of modern wheat — it’s more of a cousin of the parent of modern wheat. Some say the parent of modern wheat is emmer or another unknown grain closely related to emmer. Emmer is the second oldest grain, with 28 chromosomes.

 

Einkorn

Einkorn has been found in the digestive tract and on the clothing of Ötzi, the Iceman that was found in the Alps, as well as in shipwrecks at the bottom of the ocean!

It is probably the most nutritious wheat, and yet it’s also known for being the most difficult to work with. In breads, it tends to process more quickly and you have to develop the gluten more. You can make just about everything with it, but it takes more experience and experimentation. If you want a grain that isn’t as bulky as emmer in your soup or salad, I like einkorn. We also like to pop it in oil to put on salads for a nice crunch. Einkorn pancakes are especially amazing!

Of the wheat grains, einkorn is the highest in protein. In fact, the lower a wheat yields, generally the higher protein it will be. This is true for einkorn. Einkorn is also higher in lutein. That’s the yellowish color.

If you’re an experienced einkorn baker and you come across an einkorn that doesn’t bake well at all, it’s probably coming from a farmer who planted a winter einkorn. Spring-planted einkorns tend to do better.

There are 300 different varieties of einkorn. In the 1950s, the United States gathered seeds from all over the world into national seed banks. I’ve actually requested and inspected the different varieties of einkorn. They vary a lot, but they still have the unique shape of einkorn. It’s almost rice-like, but flatter.

Here are a few of our favorite einkorn recipes!

• Whole Grain Sourdough Bread (einkorn, spelt, or whole wheat)
• Einkorn Sourdough Chapatis {Indian Flatbread}
• Deep Dish Blueberry Pie
• and many more in our einkorn recipe archives!

 

Emmer

Emmer, the second oldest wheat after einkorn, starts to show up around the time of the Egyptians and Romans. It is not the best for making bread. I prefer emmer in soups, cereal, and pasta. Often, we’ll keep a small amount of pressure cooked emmer in the fridge to add with yogurt for breakfast.

Here are a few of our favorite emmer recipes!

• How To Sprout Grains
• Basic Easy Artisan Bread — calls for a combination of sprouted emmer and kamut

 

Spelt

Spelt also shows up with the Romans. Both modern wheat and spelt have 42 chromosomes, so genetically speaking, they are the most similar. This is true for ease of baking as well.

On the farm, spelt has yields more similar to modern wheat. And yet, it maintains a bit higher protein and weaker gluten than modern wheat. You have to learn to work with that. But overall, it is the most similar and has a great flavor, too. We love to make hamburger buns and breadsticks with spelt.

Some who can’t tolerate wheat can eat spelt without digestive problems, so there’s that health benefit. For even better digestion, try sprouting grains or soaking whole grains.

Here are a few of our favorite spelt recipes!

• Whole Grain Sourdough Bread (einkorn, spelt, or whole wheat)
• Sprouted Spelt Crackers (easy & delicious snack!)
• Homemade Sprouted Spelt Biscuits (flaky & buttery!)
• Sprouted Spelt Tortillas
• Soaked Spelt Banana Bread
• and many more in our spelt recipe archives!

 

Khorasan (Brand Name: Kamut)

Khorasan, another ancient grain, is a relative of emmer. Both are in the durum family of wheats. Traditionally, durum is used for making pasta. And yet, for a durum, khorasan makes quite good bread. It works really well for cakes and cookies.

Anybody who has worked with white khorasan flour knows that it’s actually quite versatile. If you’re using a whole grain khorasan flour, it’s not quite as versatile. But you can still learn to bake with it and make beautiful loaves and pizza. It’s not as easy to bake with as spelt, but you can do almost everything with it.

Khorasan is also pretty high in lutein, though not as high as einkorn.

Most people haven’t heard of khorasan because they’re more familiar with the brand name Kamut. Kamut is the name of a company in Montana that sells khorasan. Kamut and khorasan are the same grain, but kamut has specific standards of purity, protein and ash content. We recognize and follow the same standards when we plant and grow khorasan, we just sell it under the generic name.

Here are a few of our favorite khorasan recipes!

• How To Sprout Grains
• Homemade Soaked Kamut Pasta
• Basic Easy Artisan Bread — calls for a combination of sprouted emmer and kamut

Rye

Now, rye is also considered an ancient grain. Many people don’t realize this, but it’s primitive, genetically speaking. It’s great for adding flavor to baked goods. It has higher enzymatic activity which is great for sourdough, including sourdough rye brownies!

 

Buckwheat

Buckwheat is a pseudo-cereal. In many parts of the country, it’s considered a weed. But it’s actually a great food source, and a great crop to grow. It grows very quickly. It helps suppress weeds. We will be experimenting with it on our farm. The challenge is that it is a warm season grass, and we have a short warm season here, but I think we can grow it by incorporating it into our crop rotation.

I don’t know much about the history, genetically or taxonomically, of buckwheat, but I do know it is very old. We use it a lot at our house. You can turn it into flour. It’s gluten-free. You can soak and dehydrate it, and it makes a really nice crunch for granola bars.

Here are a few of our favorite buckwheat recipes!

• Buckwheat Flour 101: Choosing, Milling Flour, Sprouting, Recipes & More! #AskWardee 141
• Buckwheat-Sorghum Pancakes (Gluten-Free)
• Sprouting Hulled Buckwheat for Breakfast

Barley

Barley is interesting. There are so many different types of barley. Genetically speaking, it is very old, most likely dating back to emmer. It’s definitely older than spelt. Baking wise, it is very low in gluten. It doesn’t make the best breads, but adds great flavor, especially if you soak it and incorporate it with other types of wheat.

We do grow a fair amount of barley, but we don’t have a strong market for it. We have to be able to do enough volume so that we can be sure to always turn over the crop every year and we don’t get a stale inventory.

One barley that we do offer right now is a Black Nile barley. It’s a little bit stronger tasting than regular barley. It was sourced in the Egypt area, so it probably originated from somewhere over there. We don’t publicly offer it because we have very little of it, but it’s there if you search for it on our site.

Closing Thoughts

We are a family business. Our job is to make ancient grains as cost effective as possible so people have access to them. There’s always the challenge of being big enough to offer our grains at a low enough price, but not so big that we can’t be there for our customers.

We would not be here today if it wasn’t for people from all over the country who support us. If anyone is ever in our area, you are welcome to contact us ahead of time and arrange to come tour our farm. We want those who buy from us to feel like they’re a part of the family. We’re located about an hour south of West Yellowstone and an hour west of the Grand Teton Mountains. The name of the town is Teton.

Links & Resources

• Grand Teton Ancient Grains website
• use code TCS5 to get 5% OFF your order at Grand Teton Ancient Grains; members, check the private member portal for your exclusive deeper discount codes
• Grand Teton Ancient Grains on Facebook
• Grand Teton Ancient Grains on Instagram
• “Eat God’s Way” Ancient Grains course at Traditional Cooking School — contact Wardee by text at 1-317-434-1180 or email [email protected] for current enrollment dates