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Healthy Home Economist / Archives / Whole Grains and Cereals / Why Einkorn is the Best Type of Wheat

Why Einkorn is the Best Type of Wheat

by Sarah Pope / Updated: Sep 15, 2025 / Affiliate Links ✔

Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
  • Einkorn Benefits over Modern Wheat
  • Better Taste
  • Most Digestible
  • Visually Distinctive
  • The ONLY Unhybridized Wheat
  • Where to Source Quality Einkorn

There are four big reasons why einkorn is, by far, the best form of wheat to eat even when compared to other ancient grains like spelt, emmer, and kamut.

einkorn the healthiest wheat on wood table

Most people who love to bake bread, pastries, and other goodies do not realize that einkorn is the best type of wheat to use.

Twenty-five or so years ago, I used to purchase organic white wheat (hard and soft) and spelt in bulk from a local grain co-op for my baking endeavors.

Grinding grain into fresh flour is certainly the most nutritious and tastiest way to bake! I also did this to avoid the conventional toxic wheat desiccated with gut-destroying glyphosate.

Caveat: Baking with freshly ground flour is only better if the bread is traditionally prepared.

Otherwise, the antinutrients like phytic acid are not broken down and harm to gut health is likely over time.

There certainly is a huge difference between modern processed wheat (hybridized by irradiation) and the organic, ancient grains you grind yourself at home.

I remember when I was breastfeeding my youngest child, if I ate so much as a mouthful or two of processed wheat at a restaurant, she would spit up for one or sometimes even two days!

If I ate organic wheat that I ground myself and either sprouted, soaked, or sour-leavened (sourdough), however, she never had any spit-up issues.

To me, this was a huge testament to the radically improved digestibility of wheat that is prepared using the wise methods of ancestral cultures.

Beware of persuasive influencers who claim that all you need to do is grind freshly ground flour and bake bread with baker’s yeast with no proper preparation such as soaking, sprouting or sour-leaving the dough necessary.

This approach is not how traditional societies ever baked their bread, and it is a recipe for serious gut issues!

Most people do not know that baker’s yeast is actually a modern invention only used in the past few centuries!

It quickly gained traction because it made baking faster and easier (NOT healthier). This is the case even when using freshly ground flour!

These quick rise breads using baker’s yeast gradually displaced traditional sourdough to the detriment of those who embraced this early “modern” cooking convenience.

Einkorn Benefits over Modern Wheat

With traditional baking the way to go (using a sourdough starter and NOT baker’s yeast), let’s talk about einkorn as the best type of wheat to bake with.

There are four reasons why I prefer to bake with einkorn wheat and no other type of ancient grains.

This isn’t to say I never use anything else, but if given the choice, I prefer to use einkorn.

Note that einkorn is not to be confused with farro or heirloom wheat.

Better Taste

My first experience baking with einkorn occurred after I received a thoughtful gift of, among other things, einkorn flour and wheat berries. I was delighted when I ground the einkorn into flour and saw how light and white it was.

I am not a fan of bran and am not of the food philosophy that all that fiber is actually good for your gut.

Fiber is a band-aid that covers up the root causes of constipation, a very common symptom of gut imbalance.

I recommend the book Fiber Menance as a good read on the subject.

The truth is that the unhybridized form of wheat…einkorn is the only one…does not have that much bran!

I was thrilled to see that my family thoroughly enjoyed the soaked waffles made with freshly ground einkorn flour.

Later on, I learned to make sprouted einkorn waffles that were more convenient but still highly digestible.

From that point, I gradually incorporated using einkorn for all my baking needs including this very popular no knead sourdough bread recipe.

Most Digestible

Because einkorn is unhybridized and low in bran, it is the most digestible form of wheat you can eat.

While my properly prepared grain dishes made with white wheat or spelt digest fine for our family, you can tell that the same dishes make with einkorn feel even better in the stomach.

This is possibly because einkorn contains good gluten, different on a molecular level from modern gluten in all other forms of wheat including ancient grains like spelt.

Better digestion means better absorption of nutrients, so einkorn surpasses the competition in that category as well.

Visually Distinctive

einkorn kernels versus modern wheat berries

The first thing I noticed when I ground einkorn into flour for the first time was how much smaller a grain of einkorn is compared with a grain of modern wheat. They are about half the size!

In addition, I noticed that my grain grinder makes less noise when grinding einkorn berries into fresh flour because of softer, low bran kernels.

The distinctive crease on one side of a grain of modern wheat is also absent from kernels of einkorn.

The reason for the differences is that over the centuries, the genetics of wheat gradually changed due to human cultivation practices.

Year after year, farmers selected the seeds at harvest time that suited the goal of higher yields and MORE gluten.

This worked best for big farms and larger-scale agriculture, production, and distribution of wheat products.

The ONLY Unhybridized Wheat

einkorn grass size and modern durum

Einkorn is like most plants in that it is diploid.

This means that einkorn contains only 2 sets of chromosomes.

About 2,000 years after einkorn wheat, nature created emmer via the natural hybridization of 2 wild grasses.

Consequently, emmer has 4 sets of chromosomes. Kamut and durum (bulgur) wheat are both descendants of emmer.

Spelt, an heirloom wheat, is the result of hybridization between cultivated emmer and another wild grass. Thus, spelt contains six sets of chromosomes.

Modern wheat is a descendant of spelt.

As you can see, einkorn is the purest and most ancient form of wheat available. With only 2 sets of chromosomes, a very different composition of gluten, and low bran, it is the most digestible form of wheat for baking at home.

Where to Source Quality Einkorn

The only downside of einkorn is that it is not widely available and tends to be more expensive than other types of wheat. It is still quite new to the North American market.

If you are sourcing organic einkorn berries, I recommend this quality brand.

If you need organic sprouted einkorn berries for more convenient baking, this farm based in the United States is my preferred source.

Have you tried einkorn wheat yet?  If so, what observations have you made about this ancient, unhybridized wheat?

einkorn versus durum wheat
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Category: Whole Grains and Cereals
Sarah Pope

Sarah Pope MGA has been a Health and Nutrition Educator since 2002. She is a summa cum laude graduate in Economics from Furman University and holds a Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

She is the author of three books: Amazon #1 bestseller Get Your Fats Straight, Traditional Remedies for Modern Families, and Living Green in an Artificial World.

Her four eBooks Good Diet…Bad Diet, Real Food Fermentation, Ketonomics, and Ancestrally Inspired Dairy-Free Recipes are available for complimentary download via Healthy Home Plus.

Her mission is dedicated to helping families effectively incorporate the principles of ancestral diets within the modern household. She is a sought after lecturer around the world for conferences, summits, and podcasts.

Sarah was awarded Activist of the Year in 2010 at the International Wise Traditions Conference, subsequently serving on the Board of Directors of the nutrition nonprofit the Weston A. Price Foundation for seven years.

Her work has been covered by numerous independent and major media including USA Today, ABC, and NBC among many others.

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Reader Interactions

Comments (368)

  1. Andreas

    Dec 13, 2024 at 1:10 pm

    Is Italian pasta made from semolina healthy?

    Reply
  2. Dianne Cutter

    Feb 14, 2021 at 9:16 am

    Einkorn wheat berries are awesome cooked like rice or quinoa. Put on salads, eat alone, etc.

    Reply
  3. Tom Luhrs

    Nov 24, 2019 at 10:19 am

    You can buy certified organic Einkorn berries online from Breadtopia. They have the best quality Einkorn I have ever bought and are reasonably priced compared to other sources. And, their certified organic Einkorn berries are raised in Nebraska.

    Reply
  4. eric

    Mar 21, 2019 at 9:25 am

    Reason #1 it tastes better because it doesn’t have bran? Fiber is an important part of a healthy diet. That’s relatively new (in the big picture of history) information. I don’t like bran either, but to say that it’s not important is really bad advice. Twinkies taste even better, low bran/low fiber.

    Reason #3: Einkorn is different than modern wheat. It’s smaller and doesn’t have the “telltale” crease on the side? What does that even mean? That’s not a reason to switch. Again, there are a lot of things that are different, but that’s not an explanation for why it is better.

    Reply
    • Sarah Pope MGA

      Mar 21, 2019 at 10:26 am

      Too much insoluble fiber is actually not such a great thing for the gut. Also, the crease indicates that it is not hybridized like all other forms of wheat, meaning it is wheat as nature intended and is the most nutritious kind.

  5. Susan Furnish

    Feb 3, 2019 at 2:09 am

    Your article has soooo much great information here! I’m moving & will be able to start working with baking my own breads.(seeing as how I’ve been living in a motel for 5 years, with only a crock pot & microwave, Yuk! Hahahaha! I will finally get to use a real kitchen with real ventilation!*) I AM SO EXCITED!* Will Einkorn work with making pita bread, homemade flour tortillas, & more?? I have so many questions for you , but I’m not going into them right now. THANK YOU so much, for your links, & everything!……… Sincerely, Susan Furnish

    Reply
  6. Linda Darlene Gadd

    Oct 28, 2018 at 7:28 pm

    I want to know if this wheat has been modified like the wheat of America? Any time I eat bread I have almost instant reflux and feel real bad after eating.

    Thank you, Linda

    Reply
    • Sarah Pope MGA

      Oct 29, 2018 at 8:08 am

      Einkorn is completely unhybridized. That said, not everyone can eat it but many who are sensitive to modern wheat hybrids enjoy it without symptoms.

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