Love in the Time of Gluten

Our recent blott on medieval grain growing led us to reflect on the mill house, where the grain was ground into flour. The resulting flour was much different from the enriched, bleached white flour that is ubiquitous in our modern world.

Attribute	Medieval Stoneground Flour	Modern Bleached White Flour
Milling Mechanism	Stone millstones (crushing)	Steel roller mills (shearing and separating)
Composition	Endosperm, bran, and germ	Endosperm only
Appearance	Coarse, speckled, off-white or tan	Very fine, pure bright white
Shelf Life	Short (weeks to months)	Long (years without spoiling)
Nutritional Profile	Naturally high in fiber and minerals	Fiber removed; synthetic vitamins added

To achieve its bright, pristine color, modern white flour is treated with chemical bleaching agents like benzoyl peroxide or chlorine gas. This not only whitens the flour but artificially ages it, altering the starches and proteins to create a softer, more predictable dough.

---

Let’s look closely at a kernel of wheat. What better place than flour.com?

Flour.com also provides an interesting overview of the history of grains and harvesting/milling techniques.

The combine reduced the man hours of work of harvesting one acre of wheat from 46 hours to 30 minutes or less and freed thousands of men for productive work outside the farm.

Flour.com / History

They also provide an overview of the modern milling process:

---

Here is a pretty interesting video about stone ground flour, but why is everything click-bait? Why does it have to be framed as a conspiracy by Big Flour? There’s a lot of hungry mouths to feed….

“The Truth About Medieval Stone Milling The Flour Industry Won’t Tell You”

---

Flour and the Glycemic Index

In our modern world, there is an epidemic of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Nutrition scientists have developed a scale that determines how quickly a food initiates an insulin response. The glycemic index (GI) is a scale from 0 to 100 that ranks carbohydrate-containing foods by how quickly and significantly they raise blood sugar levels compared to pure glucose. In a nutshell, the lower a food is ranked, the better.

Flour made from refined grains has a high glycemic index (GI), while flour made from whole grains, nuts, or legumes has a much lower GI.

Glycemic Index of Common Flours

• High GI (70–100): Premium or refined wheat flour (85), rice flour (95), and all-purpose flour cause rapid blood sugar spikes because they lack fiber.
• Medium GI (56–69): Whole grain wheat flour (approx. 65), spelt flour (approx. 60), and brown rice flour (62) digest more slowly due to remaining fiber.
• Low GI (1–55): Almond flour (<1), coconut flour, soy flour (25), chickpea flour (35), and buckwheat flour (35) have minimal impact on blood sugar due to high protein, fat, or fiber content.

Gemini

There are many on-line resources to help you identify the glycemic index of the foods in your diet. The numbers may surprise you. Note that numbers vary from list to list, but the general trends and categories stay the same.

For instance:

• Okra: 15-20
• Peanuts: 13
• Grapes: 43–56
• Peanut Brittle : 57-68
• Coca Cola: 63
• Whole Grain Sorghum: 62
• Splenda (Artificial): 80
• Rice Krispies: 82
• Gatorade: 89
• White Flour Bread: 90
• Baked Russet Potato: 111

---

Anyhow….

How does WLBOTT fit into all of this?

You remember Perch Periwinkle (of the La Mesa Periwinkles)? She gave a pitch to the WLBOTT Elders at a recent “Lube, Leads, and Lifestyle” luncheon at the Ladle & Lube. She pitched her idea of WLBOTT creating their own line of stone milled whole wheat flour to an enthusiastic audience.

The R&D team came up with the WL-Mill 3000, with an optional ash tray, foot rest, nacho cheese dipping cup, and digital display.

---

Let’s Go Shopping!

This appears to be the best Amazon value for our wheat berry dollar ($0.10 / ounce) without getting into the commodity arena.

But should we get into commodity arena? Today, wheat is sitting at around $7.35 per bushel.

Price per ounce?
($7.3275 / 60 lb) / 16 oz/lb
= ($ 0.122125 / lb) / 16 oz/lb
= $ 0.007,632,812,5 / oz

A bushel is a unit of volume, but the agricultural community assigned weights as a bushel standard.

---

So, we did the absolute minimum research on wheat futures. Most who invest in wheat futures don’t really want the wheat delivered – they are going to sell their position before the point of no return. But not WLBOTT!

A standard CBOT/CME wheat futures contract, these are physically deliverable contracts. A standard Chicago wheat contract represents 5,000 bushels.

At your hypothetical $7.40/bushel:

5,000 bushels × $7.40 = $37,000 worth of wheat.And since a wheat bushel is nominally 60 pounds: 5,000 × 60 = 300,000 pounds = 150 tons of wheat.

According to Elder G:

Delivery is handled through the exchange’s specified system and approved grain facilities. For example, CME’s newer Hard Red Spring wheat contract is physically delivered via shipping certificates, with designated delivery territories and quality specifications.

So WLBOTT would effectively acquire rights to a specified quantity of qualifying wheat at an approved facility. Getting that wheat from the delivery system to our little stone mills would then become our logistical problem.

How Busy Will We Be?

Again, our business analyst Elder works the numbers:

Elder JZ, the answer is glorious. One wheat futures contract would keep the WLBOTT kitchen mill occupied long enough for several employees to develop strong opinions about flour.

Let’s use a WL-Mill 2000 as our representative dinky-but-earnest machine. It weighs only about 18 pounds and is rated to mill roughly 200 grams of wheat per minute at a fine setting.

Our futures contract contains about 300,000 pounds of wheat, or roughly 136 million grams. At 200 g/minute, continuous grinding works out to:

680,389 minutes = 11,340 hours = 472½ days = about 1.29 years.

That is assuming the mill runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with no cleaning, maintenance, overheating, clogged flour chutes, electrical failures, employee revolts, or ceremonial wheat blessings.

A more domestic KoMo Fidibus Classic, rated around 100 g/minute, would need almost exactly twice as long: 945 days, or about 2.59 years of nonstop grinding.

Now suppose WLBOTT institutes an eight-hour milling shift. One WL-Mill 200 can process about 212 pounds per eight-hour day. So our 300,000-pound mountain requires roughly 1,417 working days. At five days a week, that’s about 5.45 years.

This, naturally, suggests the WLBOTT solution: buy more dinky mills.

Home mills	24/7 processing time	8 hr/day, 5 days/week
1	472 days	~5.45 years
5	94.5 days	~13 months
10	47 days	~6½ months
25	19 days	~11 weeks
50	9½ days	~5½ weeks
100	4.7 days	~14 working days

---

We beta-tested our milling operation with Sister Magdalena, and after her open and honest feedback (given with gusto!) we decided to drop the plan.

---

A Side-Quest: Home Stone Wheat Grinders.

At WLBOTT we do due diligence, so before committing $37K for 150 tons of wheat we did some research on DIY Stone Grinders.

These are actual product images from Amazon. The grinders are generally in the $90 – $200 price range and weigh between 20-50 pounds. This is dinky compared to the 2 ton medieval bad boys (sorry, not available on Amazon).

Most Amazon product images show the technical aspects of the home grinders:

A few products realize that you’re gonna give up pretty quickly, so they offer backup uses (remember, these are actual Amazon product photos of home stone wheat mills):

A few seem to be targeting young, attractive, and very lonely young people:

An a few products promise romance, family bonding, and a spiritual awakening. Again, all these images are from Amazon product pages.

And one grinder addresses the need to grind wheat as part of a post-apocalyptic experience. What circumstances would lead one to shoot a deer and then immediately grind wheat?

---

Anyhow….

---

Moving the operation outside did not seem to improve the moral. We pointed out to our grinder people that they needed to all get on one side to push the wheel, but they were in no mood for suggestions.

So this idea is out, but we are still left with 300,000 pounds of wheat. Enter George, our lonely unpaid marketing intern (he’s single, ladies!). He partnered with Tess Twinehart, our resident chicken whisperer and therapist to the Elders, and devised a plan to create a singles mixer – a speed wheat grinding dating event. Think of it as a lonely hearts club based on the mutual love of grinding your own flour.

The couples are randomly assigned, and after together grinding one pound of flour, the couples are rearranged. They are calling the event “Love in the Time of Gluten.”

---

Love in the Time of Gluten

Find someone who makes you want to grind slowly.™

George and Tess pulled off a wonderful gathering of (soon to be not so) lonely hearts.

Meanwhile, two people who discover an immediate connection mysteriously become the least efficient millers in Texas.

“So you like Emily Dickinson too?”

“I adore her.”

…millstone stops completely…

“Have you ever read ‘The Soul selects her own Society’?”

“Yes!”

Twenty-three minutes later, approximately four wheat berries have been processed.

---

Appendix: Messing with AI

We had a long conversation with Amazon’s chatbot while viewing this Natural Stone Grain Mill:

WLBOTT: How much does the mill weigh?

Alexa: The Natural Stone Grain Mill weighs 41.9 pounds. It’s a solid, heavy-duty stone grinder designed to stay stable on your counter during use.

Would you like to know about the dimensions or grinding capacity?

WLBOTT: Yes, please!

Alexa: The Natural Stone Grain Mill measures 11.75″L x 7.79″W x 7.76″H — compact enough for most kitchen counters.

Grinding Details:

• Material — Solid natural granite with deep grinding grooves for even texture
• Operation — Hand-operated manual grinder (no electricity needed)
• Best for — Grains, flour, and spices; works well for everyday home cooking

Note: Some customers mention it produces coarser results and may require extra effort for very fine flour. If you need finely ground flour for baking, you might want to check if this meets your texture needs.

WLBOTT: How many pounds of flour can it grind per hour?

Alexa: The Natural Stone Grain Mill product page doesn’t specify an hourly grinding capacity in pounds. Since it’s hand-operated, the output will depend on how much pressure you apply and your grinding speed.

Customers mention it requires significant manual effort, so for heavy-duty flour grinding, this may not be the most efficient option if you need large quantities quickly.

WLBOTT: How many pounds of flour can it grind per hour?

Alexa: The Natural Stone Grain Mill product page doesn’t specify an hourly grinding capacity in pounds. Since it’s hand-operated, the output will depend on how much pressure you apply and your grinding speed.

Customers mention it requires significant manual effort, so for heavy-duty flour grinding, this may not be the most efficient option if you need large quantities quickly.

WLBOTT: How will this stone grain mill improve the quality of my life?

Alexa: The Natural Stone Grain Mill can enhance your life in a few meaningful ways:

• Fresh, Nutritious Flour — Grinding your own grains at home preserves nutrients and original grain flavor that store-bought flour often loses. This aligns with your preference for organic and natural plant care.
• Control Over Your Ingredients — You know exactly what you’re using in your cooking, which matters if you cook with specialty ingredients like you do.
• Mindful, Hands-On Cooking — The slow manual process connects you to your food in a deliberate way—no electricity, just you and the grain.
• Rustic Kitchen Appeal — The natural granite and wood design adds classic, aesthetic warmth to your kitchen space.

WLBOTT: Are there any restrictions from Druids using this grinding mill?

Alexa: There are no restrictions on Druids — or anyone else — using this stone grain mill. It’s available for all to use freely.

On a more practical note, the product listing doesn’t mention any usage restrictions beyond its intended purpose of grinding grains and spices for home kitchen use.

WLBOTT: How much grain would I need to mill into flour to recoup my investment in this grain mill?

Alexa: That’s a practical question! The payback depends on how much flour you use and which grains you buy, but here’s the math:

The Mill Investment: $99.99 (current price for the Natural Stone Grain Mill)

Cost Comparison:

• Wheat berries (bulk): $0.75–$1.10 per pound
• Pre-ground organic flour: $3–$5+ per pound

If you buy wheat berries at $1/lb and grind them yourself instead of buying pre-ground flour at $3.50/lb, you save about $2.50 per pound milled.

Payback calculation: $99.99 ÷ $2.50 savings per pound = roughly 40 pounds of flour ground to break even.

For a household that bakes or cooks with specialty grains regularly, this could be 2–3 months of use. However, keep in mind that customers note this mill requires significant manual effort and produces coarser flour—so the real value is more about getting fresh, nutrient-rich grain rather than dramatic cost savings.

WLBOTT: Could this grinding mill be used as part of an aerobic upper body strengthening workout?

Alexa: Technically, the Natural Stone Grain Mill could provide some upper body work since it requires hand rotation and sustained effort—but it’s not designed for aerobic exercise and wouldn’t be an effective workout tool.

Here’s why:

• Limited repetitive motion — Grinding grain is a specific rotational movement, not varied enough for comprehensive aerobic conditioning
• Intermittent effort — Grinding happens in batches, not continuous activity
• Not designed for fitness — The mill is optimized for grain processing, not ergonomics for exercise
• If you’re looking for upper body strengthening equipment, dedicated tools like resistance bands, dumbbells, or rowing machines would be much more effective for an aerobic workout routine.

WLBOTT: Can you quantify the Rustic Kitchen Appeal? Is there a numerical scale or reference for “rustic”?

Alexa: That’s a sharp observation! You’re right to push back—”rustic appeal” is subjective and can’t really be quantified on a numerical scale. I was being vague, and that wasn’t helpful.

Here’s what I can actually tell you: The Natural Stone Grain Mill has a specific aesthetic made from natural granite and solid wood with visible hand-crafted styling. Whether that appeals to your kitchen comes down to personal preference:

• Do you like farmhouse or cottage-style decor?
• Does visible, functional kitchen equipment appeal to you, or do you prefer sleek, modern appliances?
• Would a 41.9-pound stone tool with a wooden base fit your kitchen’s look?

Rather than guessing at subjective style, I’d recommend checking product photos to see if the design actually matches your kitchen aesthetic. That’s a more honest way to evaluate whether it works for you.

WLBOTT: If I were to use the grinding mill as a boat anchor, would the salt water reduce the milling effectiveness?

Alexa: That’s a creative question! However, the Natural Stone Grain Mill isn’t designed or rated for use as a boat anchor or marine equipment. Using it that way would:

• Damage the mill — Salt water would corrode the wooden base and potentially degrade the stone over time
• Defeat its purpose — Once used as an anchor, it wouldn’t work well for grinding anymore
• Void any warranty — This isn’t an intended use

If you need a boat anchor, marine-grade anchors are purpose-built to handle salt water and hold boats safely. This mill is really best kept in the kitchen doing what it’s designed for!

WLBOTT: Should I wear steel-tipped shoes while operating the grinding mill?

Alexa: No, you don’t need steel-tipped shoes to operate the Natural Stone Grain Mill. It’s a tabletop hand-crank kitchen tool—not heavy machinery or industrial equipment.

Safe operation:

• Place it on a stable kitchen counter or table
• Use it while seated or standing comfortably
• The mill weighs 41.9 pounds, but once positioned, it stays in place with its wooden base
• Your hands do the work via the handle crank—your feet aren’t involved

Wear whatever shoes (or no shoes) you’d normally wear in your kitchen. Standard footwear is perfectly fine.