Why can you eat pasta in Europe but in the US you get sick? Discover the Ancient Grain Revolution

Are you ready to discover the hidden powers of ancient grains? Join DeAnna Lozensky, the grain guru from North Dakota, as she dives into the fascinating world of these superfoods.

Ancient grains have taken the health industry by storm, offering more vitamins, minerals, and fiber than their common counterparts. But that's not all – they can improve blood sugar, reduce inflammation, and even be enjoyed by those with gluten intolerance or celiac disease!

In this captivating episode, DeAnna shares her passion for grains and reveals the intriguing journey that led her to study ancient grains. Find out how today's grains differ from their ancient counterparts and unravel the mysteries behind their transformation over time. Discover the time period we refer to when we say 'ancient' and get ready for a mind-blowing exploration into the reasons behind the differences between ancient and contemporary grains.

But wait, there's more! Have you ever wondered why you can travel to Europe and eat grains but try those same grains in the US and you get sick? DeAnna spills the beans on why the answer maybe more than just the seeds, but the entire process from ground to production.

Whether you're seeking a healthier lifestyle or looking to add variety to your diet, these ancient grains are the key to unlocking a world of health benefits!

Don't miss out on this incredible episode of Crackin Backs with DeAnna Lozensky.

Get YOUR healthy Ancient Grains with this link to Guardian Grains. 
Use coupon code, CRACKINBACKS to get a special listeners' discount. 

Hit that play button now and start your journey to a healthier you with the power of ancient grains!

We are two sports chiropractors, seeking knowledge from some of the best resources in the world of health. From our perspective, health is more than just “Crackin Backs” but a deep dive into physical, mental, and nutritional well-being philosophies.

Join us as we talk to some of the greatest minds and discover some of the most incredible gems you can use to maintain a higher level of health. Crackin Backs Podcast

Transcript

Dr. Spencer Baron: 0:01

Welcome to another episode of cracking backs podcast. We're thrilled to introduce you to Deanna Lozensky, a dedicated North Dakota in farmer farm her who, along with her husband Kelly has transformed their 2000 acre no till green farm into a beacon of regenerative agriculture since 2005. Seeding ancient grains and tending to the fields through the seasons, they've eradicated the need for seed treatments, fertilizers, insecticides, and fungicides, letting nature nourish their crops instead. For Deanna, it's not just about the seed, but a holistic process that encompasses seed, soil, milling and storage. With a staunch belief that the health of our bodies, animals, and the planet springs from the health of the soil. She offers an enlightening perspective on how ancient grains can significantly enhance digestion, and overall health. Let's delve into her soil sustaining health boosting journey right now.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:12

Welcome, it's great to have you. Yeah, this is this is awesome, you know, grains, we're gonna be talking about grains today, especially the ancient grains, which, which my host will totally get into, because, you know, he's on the ancient side. And so I just want, I just want to it, to be honest with you to talk about you're from North North Dakota, to be talking to somebody from North Dakota about grains. You know, I honestly didn't think I'd be talking to somebody from that part of the world about grains, I would always think of North Dakota as Indian territory, the Badlands, you know, rodeo and all that. So this is kind of cool to talk to somebody from North Dakota about grains, but I got to start off with grains have kind of a hot topic right now. And you hear whole grains, no grains, paleo, you know, now ancient grains, you know, can we just kind of start off with what are ancient grains and what got you into this?

Deanna Lozensky: 2:11

Okay, that's a very good question. And there's really not a very good answer. So it basically is referring to not just basically what's been around for 10,000 years. Those are the grains that are considered ancient grains. They could be legumes, they could be beans, it can be wheats. So it's a very broad statement. And so the ones that we grow, we grow a French Heritage Week, which actually isn't an ancient grain. It's a it's a heritage variety, because it's not, it's not as old as some of the other ones. We grow a French heritage week called Rouge de Bardot. That's our, actually our best and most popular grain that we grow. And we grow spelt, which is actually one of the three original wheats and along with Emmer and einkorn, we aren't growing Emmer and einkorn this year, but we are growing spelt, we also grow an Egyptian hauless Barley, which is my favorite, it's my personal favorite. And that dates back about 8000 years. So it's a pretty great it's a pretty great grain. And it started because really, Guardian grains started without a name about a cup just about three years ago. And there was a I read a online ad through a local marketplace that was looking for desiccant free wheat berries. And first of all, I was like, What the heck is a wheat Berry? Because I'm a farmer and I had never heard it referred to that. We just always have called it wheat or seed. And so I realized that home bakers and home Millers Did you know that that's a thing people are milling their own flour at home are you did you know this? No, no. Okay, well, okay either had I had no idea about about that. But during the pandemic, when people were at home, one of the things that people really got into was what it used to be like and they got into home milling with a countertop mill you that uses little granite stones to turn grain into flour that you can bake with right I had no no idea that this was a huge resurgence and that it had been around it feel kind of like like I like I'm living out here in the hills and the rocks like I just didn't get like I did wasn't and I seem right it was true. I am but so we'll be here I'm out here in the hills and rocks and the wind And we have a lot of wind. And so um, so once I found out that a wheat Berry was really just the seed that people were referring to, as for grinding for flour, I was like I have that. And desiccant free is the other qualification he was looking for right and designated free in the farming world means that we don't go over the top of mature grain with a chemical drydown. So no herbicide application just prior to harvest. So that it's a labeled practice in the in grant with grain farming, that you can use a herbicide seven to 10 days prior to harvest. We don't do that here on the farm. So I absolutely knew that migraine would be great for this man. And I called my husband and I said, Hey, can you get me two buckets of wheat seed? And he was like, Sure, he doesn't ask a lot of questions. And he doesn't have a lot of time to like field my my backstory. So he brought me two buckets of grain and I said, Okay, so what is that worth? And he was like, Deanna, you have a bushel of wheat here. I was like, great. So $5.20. He said, Yep, that's what it goes for. At the elevator, I was like, Well, I can't charge my customer $5.20 The Bucket cost me seven, like I can't, because I got a food grade bucket because I had to do some quick research on how to sell whole grain into direct to consumer market. And it had to be in a white food grade bucket, or in a paper bag. And I didn't have paper bags big enough to fit that. So um, and he was like your customer. And I was like, right. So there's this guy that wants wheat berries for home milling for flour. And he was like, Wait, a wheat Berry. I was like, I know, right? It's just the wheat. And he was like, Okay. And I said, Well, I can't charge him $5.20 Because these buckets cost more than that. So I met my first customer in a hardware store parking lot in my nearby town of fifth 15 minutes away the very next day. And he's been my original customer. And he's still my customer. And last year he came out and harvested wheat with me and my combine. So it's pretty awesome. But really, he's the reason that Guardian grains started because I had no idea that people didn't have access to whole grains, and we grow it by the 1000s and 1000s of bushels. And I've thought that we needed to change it. And so that's how Guardian grains started with just hard red spring wheat, a modern variety. And as I started reaching out and finding new customers, they were asking me to grow heritage grains, ancient grains. I had no idea what ancient grains were, I had no idea where to find the seed. And it was as hard as you might think, to find 8000 year old seed. And my husband was very great, too. At the time, he was the only one seeding the crop. I didn't have my own little drill to seed the crop. So he was the only one seeding it and he said just find me the seed. And so I did. I found Egyptian homeless barley. And I found Rouge de Bardot. That's a French heritage wheat and spelt and spelt is one of the original

Dr. Spencer Baron: 8:35

where where do you find those? Where was 1000? Euro? I

Deanna Lozensky: 8:40

know right? Okay, so that is it's it's so random, right? But I'm calling all over the US and India, Canada to find these seeds and different grains and I the farmer that had grew them out from 50 seeds 5050 seeds that he got from a guy that brought them over from the Fertile Crescent in his pocket in the 90s. What, like from a I know from a seed bank, what's

Dr. Terry Weyman: 9:07

a fertile crescent? Oh,

Deanna Lozensky: 9:11

in the Middle East is where are these greens originating?

Dr. Spencer Baron: 9:14

Oh, my God.

Deanna Lozensky: 9:16

From the Fertile Crescent. Yeah, that is right. So and he was in my state. Yes, that's exactly right. The voice voices appears

Dr. Spencer Baron: 9:33

out of nowhere. It's

Deanna Lozensky: 9:35

well, I was really shocked that they asked me not to. I was like wait, what?

Dr. Terry Weyman: 9:44

Yeah, what Lance just because we may have heard that there's people listening to it may not have heard of it, too.

Deanna Lozensky: 9:49

Oh, sure. That's a great. That's a great backtrack. You knew all the time. I'm sure

Dr. Terry Weyman: 9:54

you did. Of course. Betcha did he's from Morocco. So he knows all about that stuff.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 10:00

Okay, I'm just a mother. I have never been.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 10:03

Hi, Mom, by the way.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 10:08

She already loves you. I got

Dr. Terry Weyman: 10:11

a question. What's today's grade changed from aging? Green? And how does a ton How's a green good title?

Deanna Lozensky: 10:18

Huh? That's a good question. So they, okay, so back in the 1800s. It started with hybridizing. Right? And changing and selecting different characteristics for grains that would go better in different areas, right? So that's where the grains start changing. And every grain every wheat variety actually can be linked back to iron corn, which is a 10,000 year old variety. It's basically the mother wheat. Right? It has a very different chromosome profile. But that is and so everything has been hybridized and changed from that. And so I had customers who said, Well, I can't I don't have I have gluten intolerance. And I don't have very good luck with modern wheat. But I have very good luck with heritage weeds and ancient grains. And I was like, I'll find the seed and I'll start growing it I don't know if it'll grow here. I'm sure it will we grow wheat like it were we'd state and so so yeah, and so it went down this rabbit hole of trying to give customers what they want it and I was interested in my husband is very onboard and he had no idea the rabbit hole I was dragging him down of delivering a food grade grain to direct to consumer it was it's it's been a lot and it but it's been awesome and rewarding all at the same time. So how does it get a name? That's a? That's a good question. That's basically all the breeders decide what it should be called. Our Rouge de Bardot is named that because it came from the Bordeaux region of France. So and it has actually dates back to Roman times. But the name came from the 1800s. So it's just kind of it's really a neat, it's really neat.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 12:15

What time period is, are we considering to be called an ancient grain.

Deanna Lozensky: 12:21

Okay, ancient grains. Uh, we were just at I was just at a conference the other day and the kind of somebody I consider an expert in ancient grains. He thought he kind of said, as long as it's 1000 years old. It's an ancient grain. Good Lord.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 12:39

That's what I was. Yeah.

Deanna Lozensky: 12:43

So you already know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 12:47

I used to eat. Listen, let me do let me ask you. You mentioned something earlier. That was you brushed right over. But I think it's really important. You said, What did you say about herbicide herbicide that who's allowed seven to 10 days prior to harvest to use an herb. Okay, so

Deanna Lozensky: 13:08

there, how's that? So, just very briefly, there are up until recent Well, up until very recently, there have been two different types of farming. There have been a conventional way to farm using fertilizer, Insecticide, Fungicide, and herbicide right, conventional method that's kind of falls under that umbrella. And then there's been organic, right, so there's been two fields of growing practices, organic steel is allowed to use chemical, it's just not the same chemical that's allowed in conventional agriculture, it doesn't mean chemical free, like a lot of the labeling suggests it's just a different, there's a different spectrum of chemicals that they're allowed to use in the organic industry. So for herbicide is a way to kill weeds without killing your crop. Right. And so the, the herbicides, so in the conventional farming model, it is labeled by the EPA and the USDA, that you can spray a chemical herbicide over the top of a nearly mature grain to help dry it down to make it dry down easier, so it's easier for harvesting, you get a more consistent moisture level on the grain which the elevators like which is where most of the commodities are delivered, and and it kills any weeds that could in make it harder to harvest the crop. So that's it doesn't have anything to do with maximizing yield in any way. It's really a method of being able to be as efficient with harvest as possible. And while like I said, it is labeled that you that farmers can conventional farmers can spray seven to 10 days prior to harvest. We don't do that here on our farm. Because I don't think it can end up in the grain. Okay, so

Dr. Spencer Baron: 15:20

that's impressive. I felt that that was necessary to bring up because there's so many things that you I mean, we were trained to look at a label. Some people don't care about looking at them when we look at a label, and we trust what it says. And yet, we're not really clear. Like you also said something about desiccant. Free. Now, a desiccant. Who thinks that there's such a thing as a desiccant in used to dry out, you know, your crop or the harvest? What is it? What desiccant are used? And how does it how does it affect

Deanna Lozensky: 16:02

the consumer? Well, according to the label, it doesn't affect the consumer. Right. But so the two of the most common desiccants used for wheat, or small grains, so wheat, barley, oats, they are glyphosate and GrowMark. Zone, those are the two. So GrowMark Stone you may have heard is paraquat those are the two, those are the two chemical agents that are most commonly used if they are used. Now I need to like let you know that most farmers are not going to go in with a desiccant unless the conditions were requiring it. Number one, it's very expensive. Number two, they don't want a second another pass over the cropland prior to harvest. Right. So it's a very, I wouldn't I wouldn't say it's common, but it is allowed. So yeah, so that's how interest desiccant free. So how does it affect the consumer? They say it doesn't. But we don't designate on the farm, because I don't believe we can keep it out of the end product, which is the goal. So I don't, I'm not, I'm not condoning chemical use. And I'm not saying it's the absolute worst of the worst, but I'm saying we can use it better. And there are ways that we can keep the chemical out of the food and out of the air and out of the water. And that is our end goal is to have absolutely clean chemical with our grain with zero chemical. Trace, there's no no residual in the grain. That's the goal. And we can do it that way. But it has to be done better.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 18:00

So I got a quick question. We have these grains that you say are the grains are 1000 years old are the seeds or 1000 years old yet we're now growing them in modern with modern technology. How does that cause the modern technology, the modern processing? How does that affect this agency? Or does it?

Deanna Lozensky: 18:23

Yeah. Okay, so now, I need to tell you that in our farming system, so we're a no tillage system. So that means I don't go through and just just like disrupt the soil at all, it's a minimal disturbance with a single slice, just to plant the seed. So there's no tilling no black dirt, right? When I see tilled black ground, I see heat and I see dirt, which is dead soil. So we try to keep that as covered as possible. So we're no till system. And we also don't use any fertilizer. So those fertilizers that are on the conventionally grown crops like nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, zinc, all of those amendments, we don't use any of those. We don't use any insecticide at all. So I don't, we can't go and kill the pests that are attacking the plants because there's no way to not kill the beneficials. They're, they're indeterminate. So they kill everything. So no insecticide, no fungicide either, and no pre harvest desiccant. So those are the things that we are doing on our farm in our 2200 acres that we manage. And it's a way of trying to restore soil health, because I believe that human health and animal health starts in the soil. And if we can heal the soil, we can have healthier people Well in healthier animals and a healthier planet, and that's that's our goal on the farm.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 20:07

Deanna, were you raised in an environment that you're very passionate about health and wellness and the absence of chemicals. And I mean that it's only becoming something now that people are much, much more aware of. But where's this knowledge and passion that

Deanna Lozensky: 20:29

come from? It comes from having years of experience on the farm of doing the opposite. So I came from the city, and from, well, Minneapolis, and I traded in my high heels for cowboy boots when I joined the farm in 2005. And at that time, we were a full on agronomy farm. So no tillage, right, that's been a part of our farming history since the 90s. But we were full on everything else. Every fertilizer, we could apply every insecticide, we had to apply every fungicide. We applied that if we needed it, and what we found we were doing, we were basically a doctor to sick plants, we were constantly treating sick plants with the industry standard prescription. And, and in that timeframe, up until 2013. So about 10 years ago, we were under the impression that to be a good farmer, it meant that you need to grow the most bushels, no matter what cost. So no matter how many hours it meant that we were in the field, no matter how many passes it took across the field, which could be seven or eight times being across the same piece of ground. And, and now we go across the field three times. So our our impact on the on the system is much less than it was 10 years ago. So when we came out of that fog, of what we had been told was being a good farmer, we started looking at things in a holistic way. And a little bit of guilt goes a long way. So we thought we were doing everything we needed to do to be good farmers. And then we started hearing about residual chemical and grains. And we started hearing about the disappearance of the pollinators and the disruption of the other fungal network in the soil. And all of our practices during those timeframes up until 2013 contributed to that in a major way, at least in our in the in the acres that were under our management. And there's a huge piece of guilt, that if we lean into that a little bit, we can change the way we operate the farm and change our mindset into looking at things on how we can keep life in the soil to contribute to a better life for people and animals and the planet. And that's really what it changed for us.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 23:26

You said oh word agronomy,

Deanna Lozensky: 23:29

that's agriculture. agronomy is a term used for deciding what is the best prescription for your crop. So your crop ish looks yellow, it needs nitrogen, your crop is full of leaf damage. It's got grasshoppers, you should spray that and use an insecticide. It's about prescribing sick plants medicine, right. And right now our goal is to plant the seed and observe that's really what it's been down to. So having said that, we are not 100% herbicide free on the farm. So the herbicide that we use on the farm is pre plant prior to planting our grain crop and and to control weeds, right because I said so we have two options for controlling weeds. We could control weeds with a tillage Pass, which completely destroys the microbial community in the largest living ecosystem, right. Or we can use a herbicide pass at a reduced rate and our goal is to minimize the disturbance of the soil life and for us to minimize disturbance settled and and control weeds. That's a herbicide pass. And so Those are the only things that we are doing on the farm is planting the seed spraying the weeds if we absolutely have to. And if we don't, we don't, there are some years, we don't spray it all. And there's some fields, we never spray it. It just really depends. And but the end goal, and what we focus on is the outcome. Can we use a herbicide for weed control prior to planting the crop? And at the three to four leaf when the wheat is this big prior to and just in a vegetative state? Without having reproduction happening? Can we use a herbicide safely and have it stay out of the food? So we work with a lab in Massachusetts that's been testing our grain for the last three years for residual herbicide. So it's a test that they're it's a study they're running. And we have we have not had a positive residual herbicide test yet on any of the grain that we grow. And that is because it's a told you it's a complete rabbit hole. But that is because our microbial community in the soil is what actually metabolizes the herbicide we do use and there are I know right I thought okay, this is gonna this is gonna get wild, but

Dr. Spencer Baron: 26:22

I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna actually refer to you as Dr. Deanna chiropractor to plants. So

Deanna Lozensky: 26:29

not only did they I promise,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 26:36

well, right. What are we?

Deanna Lozensky: 26:39

I honestly, I honestly, we're building a system that is starting to heal itself. And if our NFR plants can be connected enough with the soil microbiome, to heal itself, heal themselves, then the grain that we're producing from those plants should have those same endophytes to help the human body heal itself and help animals heal themselves. That's, that's the that's the idea.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 27:07

So impressed. Now. Listen, I have a burning age old question that nobody seems to answer. Not even remember Dr. Seamon. I asked one of our nutrition guys. And that is, Dan, I have this faith that you're going to be a Lancer. This oh,

Deanna Lozensky: 27:26

gosh, there's no magic in the hot why? Okay.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 27:29

Yes, you are. Oh, there's plenty other questions after this? Why is it that we i Who is gluten free and sensitive not I don't have a gluten I don't have an intolerance is I can eat, I can go to Argentina, and I can eat all sorts of things that I wouldn't typically eat here that obviously bread wheat related and all that. Why? What's up with that?

Deanna Lozensky: 27:58

There are a few different things. One, number one, I'll tell you the couple of the contributing factors. Right. And I'm, and these are Dr. Deanna toe. Okay, so I'll lay it out for you. There are a couple of contributing factors. Number one, farming practices play a role. Okay. Our people are sick because the soils are sick. Okay, so number one, everything comes back to us soil health issue, all of it. We can't have soil health if we're going through doing a massive amounts of tillage, whether that's in the garden, or on a large scale. Number one, right, number one, destroying the largest ecosystem on the planet is not the not the solution. So that's the number one farming farming practices play play a role. Now, which parts of the farming practices are playing a negative role in the grains that you're reacting to? Could it be the fertilizer? Could it be the insecticide? Sure. Could it be the fungicide? Yep. Could it be? Could it be it could be any of those things. But I think the way food is presented to us on the store shelves is not food anymore. It's overly processed. Right so there's a farming factor. But there's a huge processing factor where the wheat that you are offered on the grocery store shelves, even in Whole Foods Market and is not what I grow. It is a bad representation of the grain that we grow it is and the flour. What happens the grain goes to these massive massive millers and it's the Take the three parts of the kernel, the wheat, or the wheat wheat kernel has the inside of it is endosperm. And that's the starchy part. And there's germ around that. And then there's brand. So they separate it all out. Okay, they separate the three pieces, and then the germ is heat treated, to kill the enzymes, that also kills the good enzymes that are going to help your gut microbiome. But on a bonus, it does extend the shelf life. Right? Okay, so in preservation, they kill the enzymes in in the germ, and then the brand, the brand, now I'm talking about all purpose flour, okay, all purpose, the real white stuff. The brand from that is extracted and kept away. And it's sold back to us in a supplement. Vitamin E, Bran is a huge source of vitamin E. So flour is cheap, on the grocery store shelves, because it's the byproduct of what they're really selling us, which is the brand with which is all the nutrition, which is what we're buying in the supplement and in the vitamin D. So I'm sorry, I really have to that's, that's that's the really, that's the truth of it. So on the on the grocery store shelves, when you see all purpose flour, you're getting Franken flour. It's a bad science experiment that they've been allowing to go on for an entire century. And it dates back to the world wars when the when the soldiers were getting sick, and they were malnourished. And it turned out that they had refined because of the refined flour. When they moved from stone milling to refining the flour. There was not enough nutrition it for the soldiers in the bread they were getting. And they started to enrich it. Which meant they started to add back the brand that they were taking away. And they've known that it's been making people sick for 100 years, and they continue to do it. So that's why when we started Guardian grains, and I started to offer a stone mill, I wanted to offer flour, because I wanted people to have something recognizable in their pantry. If they didn't know what to do with a wheat Berry, they could use flour. That's why we went to stone milling, we went to an ancient way of milling grain that Mills all of the parts together and offers it in a full nutrition flour without heat treating it or extracting it in any way. So yes, our flour does not have the shelf life that all purpose flour does. It should be kept in the fridge and should be kept in the freezer to preserve to make sure that the oils in the brand and the germ don't go rancid, right? Because I'm not heat treating in any way. Because I want people to get the the most nutritional benefit for their gut health. And that happens in the enzymes of the germ that I'm not heat treating. So there those are my answers. The answer is yes, farming plays a is a contributing factor. But a bigger contributing factor is the highly processed, what the highly processed the processing that is happening to the grain I grow before it gets to the consumer. Now, that's why you can't tolerate let me ask

Dr. Spencer Baron: 33:44

you. Yeah, that blows me away. And that makes all the sense in the world, just even from the earlier conversation about you know, what goes into conventional farming and all the chemicals and the ground and what the tilling and that just keep trying because I would never suspect that Do you Do you have any stories about people that that have had you know, gluten intolerances or, or other chemical intolerance is that you know, switched over to your, you know,

Deanna Lozensky: 34:25

yeah, absolutely. So, as I said, we started growing ancient grains in heritage grain because I had customers that said they were less sensitive and didn't react to those types of grains because they hadn't been hybridized. So absolutely, we want to offer people what they what they can thrive on it on. So I have a chiropractor friend, and it's a very, very fun story. So we when we started gardening grains, as I said I was just done Delivering whole grains through UPS, to direct to consumer to their homes. And then we started offering stone milled flour and heritage artisan pasta made with our French heritage wheat. So, but to do that, I needed to buy a stone mill, which I did, I found a new America. It's called a new American stone mill. It's made out on the east coast by a baker that has designed his own mill. And now he's building them for Millers like me, and on farm use and off farm use and for bakeries, so they can have fresh flour for to offer the best nutrition for their customers. There's a huge part of that restaurant industry that has an obligation to start feeding the popular population better. And there are some that are really, you know, all in to do that. So I found this stone mill, we bought it now I needed a place to put it. Right I needed a place to that was a USDA inspected facility because now we're processing it. And I'm taking the grain from flowers, a processing aspect, so I needed it to be a USDA inspected facility. And I wanted to offer pasta, we have four pasta companies in my state. So I thought well, great, we'll partner with them, I'll bring my flour, and they'll process this into exactly what I'm wanting, which is a whole nutrition pasta, with water. So that's what I wanted. And none of the four companies in my state could do that. And, and or, or if they could, they couldn't tell me that the flour I brought was the product I got. So the traceability went away. And I'm using a heritage wheat variety so I specifically need to get my product back. And so there was a lot of hurdles to bring these two pantry staples of pasta and flour to People's Pantry. There was a lot of hurdles. And I just wasn't willing to give up. And I was talking with a the director of Northern crop Institute, which is in Fargo, North Dakota in our area, and he said there you're wanting to make pasta. And I was like right, I want to make pasta but nobody, nobody will do it. I can't and I'm not willing to offer people more of what they can already get. Do you know whole wheat pasta on the shelf to be labeled whole wheat only has to be 51% Holy Did you know that like that's Yeah, right. Well, I knew it was it is. Okay, so and blonde pasta, you know the yellow stuff that you see on the shelf that's made with semolina flour. Semolina flour is from durum semolina actually comes from the endosperm of the inside of the kernel, which is all starch and sugar. So when we eat pasta, this blonde pasta, and we feel like sluggish and tired like you're in a coma afterwards, it's because you've got to do just nothing but starch and sugar when we ate that, and guess what our bodies can't process starch and sugar. And so it our body's like, I don't even know what to do with this. So I'll just set this on your hip for 20 years. And that's exactly what happens. And so when we deliver pasta, a whole nutrition pasta with all of the germ and all of the brand wood together, then it becomes digestible, then our bodies can absorb the nutrition that's actually in it. Right? They don't it's, it's it's a crime against humanity as what's happening on the store shelves, right. And so, so this is what I wanted, I wanted French heritage wheat because of the flavor profile is really amazing. And I wanted to stone mill it with all of the nutrition of the brand, the germ and the endosperm all together, and I wanted to add water. And so we went to Northern crop Institute where they did a pasta pilot for me. And they had a stone mill there. So and they were like, well, we don't usually use stone milled flour and pasta and we don't usually use hard red wheat. We use Durham. I was like, that's exactly why we're doing this. We're doing this to try something different. Let's get out of the box. Let's offer people something they can't get. And he said, Well, we're not we're gonna have to sift off the brand Dianna and then Hammermill it and then reintroduce it in smaller pieces into this flower. I said, No, we're not. We're not doing that. And he was like, well, this isn't going to work. I said, Well, when it doesn't work, and he said and when it doesn't work, I said, Well, when it doesn't work, we can quit. Because I'm not going to offer people more of what they could already get. And he's like, Well, you're gonna have to add egg powder to make sure this sticks to you Other I said, I don't want to add egg because then it's not a vegan option. Like I want Stoneville flour and water. And that's it. And he kind of rolled his eyes at me and was just like, where did this woman come from? And my husband's just like, Just tell her Yes. My husband's just like my husband Kelly is, you know, he's learned a lot in the last 17 years. And he was just like, just just just say, yes, just just do it. And guess what, we were able to produce the pasta that I wanted by just adding water. And so, so great. I had a way to do it. But now I had no pasta company that would do it the way I wanted to. And so I talked to Northern crap Institute, and they said, there is a place in Tuttle, North Dakota, that has that is looking for a pasta project. And I was like, what, whereas Tuttle turns out, it's 110 miles to the south and east of me, which is not that far in North Dakota. I mean, it's, it's all relative. And so I was like, Okay, and so I get the phone number, I call this the this little director of the Tuttle rural Innovation Center, which is as awesome as it sounds. It's an all 100 year old schoolhouse. And they've really imagined it into being this rural Innovation Center. So I'm calling and I'm talking to this, the director of this facility, and I'm like, how many days a week? Do you produce pasta? What kind of packaging Do you like? How do you ship it? And she's like, wait, wait, wait. I don't have anybody to run the machine. I was like, wait, what? And she's like, No, we have a $25,000 I Italian pasta machine sitting in here under a under a cloth that we don't what I'm wanting to do is rent the kitchen out. And have you be able to use the pasta machine with the rented space. I was like, I don't know how to make pasta. Like that wasn't I wasn't becoming I wasn't trying to be the farmers and Miller and the producer all at once right though I like I just want to grow the grain and have you deliver it in a better way. Right. So I was like, oh, gosh, so I Okay, so like I had said a while back. This stone milling at home is a huge thing. And I have in the last three years been made stone milling my own flour on my countertop, right. So I brought stone milled flour from home to the Tuttle real innovation center in November to meet Jasmine and, and see this pasta machine. And we drive there and my husband's with me. And it's November in North Dakota, and it's starting to snow. And we get there to this 100 year old schoolhouse. And it's a two, three story brick building. It's awesome looking. And you get down. I mean, you turn on to Main Street in this town of 60 people. And it's at the end of the of Main Street like a beacon of hope right to me. That's how I see it. And that we drive there and we get in there and it's really cold in there. And my husband's is like, I'm gonna go get my jacket. He goes get his jacket. And she's like, Oh, the cool furnace went out. And we're like, oh, heating on coal. And she said yes. She's like, but we've got parts on ordered, and we're fixing it. So I let I joke and say we walked in and my husband checked out. Because there was no, there was no hot water. There was no way to I mean, it was very difficult. But she was very resourceful. And like no problem will heat it with a percolator. No, you know. So long story short, I know. It's a long, roundabout way. We made pasta that day. And we left there, and my husband and husband put his hand on my knee. And he said, I'm really sorry, this is not going to work out for you. And I looked at him and I was like, What are you talking about? We are doing this? And he was like, wait, what? He's like, there are no people. And I was like, I just need to. And he was like, there is no heat. I'm like they're fixing it. And he was like, oh gosh. And so that's how it started. And so long story short, this is how I met my chiropractor friend. He was a coffee roaster in the tunnel rural Innovation Center. And he was like, Oh, you're milling wheat. I have a I have an intolerance. Right. I was like maybe you won't have an intolerance to the wheat. I grow and he was like, really? And so we started talking. And the day we moved the stone mill into the Tuttle rural Innovation Center which is downstairs 19 steps and to get this 2000 pound behemoth down the steps took practically the entire community and my chiropractor friend and and so after we got it all set up, I had a meal of minestrone soup made with our pasta, fresh bread made With spelt flour and Rouge de Bardot and then cookies made with fresh flour. And so my chiropractor friend had been gluten free for 15 years strictly like he is not touching it, he doesn't feel good. He and I said, How does it affect you? And he said, I get an instant headache. Within an hour. I'm sick. And I was like, Well, no wonder you don't, you know, like, I get it. And so I was like you. Yeah, you know, I know, this is a lot for you. And he was like, I'm trying everything. I was like, oh gosh, I'm starting to sweat because he hasn't had gluten in 15 years. And he's going to try the minestrone soup. And I call ours I call our facility a gluten free, gluten full facility. He's going to try the Minnesota stony soup with the noodles. He's trying a piece of bread. And he's having a cookie. And I'm sitting there next to him watching, like, waiting for him to just keel over, right. Because I'm like, Oh, my gosh, this is a lot of pressure. Yeah. And then he got up. I was like, How will I know if it affects you? He was like, you'll know right away. I'll know right away. And they'll let you know, I was like, Okay, so I'm watching and waiting and just, oh, just the pressure. And then he gets up and I'm like, Oh, he's sick. And he goes back for seconds. And I was like, whoa. And so he was like, Deanna I can't believe it. I was like, I grow wheat you can eat and he was like, you grow wheat I can eat. And I was like, Oh my god. So that's that's I know, it's a long about. But it's great. You can understand that like it's a it's a complete alignment of the stars, right to get that to work out. Like how on earth is there a$25,000 Pasta Machine in the basement of this total rural Innovation Center? Who also houses a coffee roaster? Who is a 15 year gluten free? Paleo guy like, right, like that's not? Right. Right. And, and this is another part of this awesome story is that I needed two people to run my facility, right. And there had been two people that had relocated to a farm just outside of Tuttle from Louisiana, after the last hurricane, and one came from the hotel, hotel management, and the other came from the food industry. So together, they work together. And they work together in total, and producing flour and pasta for me every day of the week. And it's really awesome. So the initially, the idea was that we would be working out of the title role Innovation Center, just till we could set something up on farm. So it'd be closer for me to manage. That is no longer in the cards, we will continue to work out of title for as long as we can make it work and thrive there. Because I love the idea of using the existing infrastructure. I love the idea of the small community that has embraced us. I love our teammates that work there. And it's awesome, right? It's awesome. So yeah, so that's so that's one story of a customer who was I mean, but that is just full on. It was like could you just not eat all of it. Maybe just try it like a little bit at a time. But no, he just whole hogged it. And I was like, Oh my gosh. Well, so it was wild.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 48:32

I think we know who you're talking about. So she's one of our good friends. And yes, I think you just made him whole hog all the all the way. Tim, if you're listening, you should have four helpings and just seeing how you handled it. And

Deanna Lozensky: 48:49

well, and it was really great for me, because while he was roasting there, then we traded, we traded flour for his coffee. So it was an awesome deal for me. And so and so that's just one of the instances but I have lots of customers. Not that are that are able to enjoy wheat, the way we

Dr. Terry Weyman: 49:09

grow. This is also a good time for us to plug our sponsor because we have a cracking best coffee. And it's actually made by our friend Tim. So. So the best coffee. It's the best coffee ever. Yeah, that's kind of this has been awesome. You know, we got close pretty quick. Yeah. But I do want to I do want to say something that you kind of just briefly mentioned at the very end that the word paleo because I know Tim is paleo. And a lot of people that talk about Paleo diets is against grains yet paleo is about ancient diets and you're dealing with ancient grains. So I think these are grains that you can't eat with a paleo diet. Is that Is that correct?

Deanna Lozensky: 49:52

That's what my paleo customers tell me. That's how they reconcile it, right? It's not green. It doesn't have to be green. In free if they're eating ancient grains which are spelt is and so, and the spell and the heritage, French heritage, rouge de Bardo and the Egyptian holiest barley, so we flake that and that's what we offer our customers as a breakfast food instead of oats. So that's pretty awesome. The flake barley is an ancient variety and it has 18% protein versus milling oats only have 11. And we don't heat treat them. Like most milling oats are heat treated like oatmeal. And so you cook it just like oatmeal, except it has a greater flavor profile at a deeper nutritional profile. So it's pretty awesome.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 50:40

That's awesome.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 50:42

I'm absolutely fascinated about the semolina pasta, because I never knew why I got so sluggish and tired. I am definitely I gotta order this pasta. I want to find out what I don't care what you order at all because I'm dying to try it. I want to be a Tim doctor.

Deanna Lozensky: 51:02

It was just like a little bit of pressure. But it was awesome and easy. He's got an awesome story about it. And it's he's gracious enough to let me tell it and it's in the artisan pasta is brass die pressed. Okay, so this is another thing you didn't know. And I'm gonna blow your mind one more time. Brass die pressed. So it gives the pasta rough texture, which helps it hold more sauce. So whatever sauce you're using, you want to like add a little extra. But did you know in most pasta production, they're all all of the pasta is pressed through Teflon. Did you know that they're all pressed through. So yeah. And it's the Teflon dye that it's pressed through an extruded through. So all of the pasta comes in contact with Teflon, every bit of it, and it's to reduce the dust in these huge, huge pasta facilities. So there's a little tidbit that I'm

Dr. Spencer Baron: 52:07

talking about Dr. Bang the whole world No, no, yeah,

Deanna Lozensky: 52:12

well, it's not easy to change the food system, but some of these conversations have to be had. Absolutely.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 52:18

You know, on that note, we're gonna we're gonna leave people hanging on that note and and call it but that man that this was awesome. And we are going to put a tag or a link to your to your site at the far under description for the for those listening because I think they need to, they need to, to look into what they're putting in their mouths a lot more. And we so appreciate your time and your energy. And this was awesome. So thank you so much for your your time. Want to get that.

Deanna Lozensky: 52:50

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me guys.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 52:54

Thank you for listening to today's episode of The cracking backs podcast. We hope you enjoyed it. Make sure you follow us on Instagram at cracking backs podcast. catch new episodes every Monday. See you next time.