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.
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
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 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?
I would like to plant it here in Brazil, because we don’t have it here. If somebody could send some seeds to me I would appreciate very much. 🙂
Thank you so much for this post!! I made einkorn sourdough bread (via your related recipe post) and I cannot believe that I can eat bread without GI problems for the first time since I was a pre-teen (I’m 40 now)! I’m not celiac but develop severe IBS following consumption of modern wheat. I’m the canary in the mine for my family (like your husband) and now I can introduce bread back into our house again. You are awesome, and your blog is a Godsend! Also, the Jovial Einkorn Baking cookbook from which you derived the sourdough bread recipe is fantastic! Thank you thank you thank you!!!
As a follow-up to my first comment, I tried eating einkorn flour without sour leavening (since there are several of these recipes in the einkorn cookbook) and had a terrible IBS reaction! Beware wheat-sensitive people, don’t eat this flour without sour leavening. I used coconut flour for the final steps of preparing the sourdough (like dusting the work surface) to prevent ingesting the raw einkorn flour.
Einkorn is originally from Turkey but has its modern name from German. i live in Germany and my local bakery offers Einkorn bread once a week. As a crop it has a terrible yield making it expensive to grow. maybe if it catches on like quinoa there might be more farms who’ll take the risk.
The bread is delicious! i eat it with 100% almond butter Yummy alternative to peanut butter sandwich!
Is this product OK for diabetics? What is the carb content, etc?
I got the advice/idea to purchase Jovial Einkorn Wheat Berries from your Blog here. I was excited and looking forward to getting started! I was so sad, disappointed, and disgusted to open my box today to find the new sealed unopened bag had several INSECTS (alive and crawling) in it!! 🙁 I wanted to mainly let you know so any Jovial customers here will check their bags (past and recent orders).
Wow! I’ve never had that problem in all the years I’ve purchased from them. I just got a 10lb bag of einkorn berries just a few weeks ago and it was fine. Contact Jovial, I’m sure they will send you another.
My family and I have moved over to Einkorn wheat over the past few years, not because any of us are Celiacs or gluten insensitive, just trying to get a bit more control over the food we eat, and we have been very pleased! Yes, it’s more expensive than other flours, but as with most things in life, sometimes you get what you pay for, and it’s been well worth it to us.
I don’t have celiac disease but have recently discovered that I am gluten sensitive. Some people I know are very skeptical about this, but I’ve noticed an improvement when I am gluten-free. I ordered Jovial Wheat Berries with some trepidation. But I found that I was able to enjoy boiled wheat the way I did as a child, and there was no adverse reaction at all. I’ll be ordering more of the wheat berries.
If the Einkorn wheat berries are not with the hull, then you cannot sprout. It’s then basically like white bread, no nutritional value, even if it’s easy on the stomach. That’s how this whole problem started with companies removing the bran, etc. from the grains. What good is it? Since we started eating whole grains, the problem of gluten came about and so now we ditch the grains like wheat, that may I remind readers….GOD MADE. Yes, we need non hybridized wheat, but for the life of me, I can’t understand selling wheat berries that remove all the good stuff and cannot be sprouted. I sprout organic hard winter wheat berries in 1 1/2 days and make flat bread with just spring water and the ground berries and they are delicious – sweet without any sugar or yeast added to the flour. I need to get the berries so I can sprout them. I used the Einkorn by Jovial Foods and just ground them and made my flat bread with just water and the bread was hard as a tire rubber. Horrible! I don’t want to have to add sugar and yeast. In the bible, the priests of Israel made their bread with just water and olive oil.
My Einkorn sprouts? LOL I soak it, sprout it, dehydrate and grind it without any problem!
Could I have the recipe for your bread with sprouted berries? I have never tried that before.
I found a great wealth of information on pinterest. I encourage everyone who is interested in this flour to check it out.
I’ve made biscotti’s, savory biscuits, bread, and pies. DELICIOUS.
I have had great success making breads and cookies with Einkorn flour. You can get information about this flour and recipes on Jovial Foods website. When using Einkorn in traditional recipes, it is recommended that you reduce the liquid in your recipe by 20%. Einkorn does not absorb water the way regular flour does. Your dough or batter will fill wetter or stickier with this flour. You can buy Einkorn directly from Jovial Foods. The more that you buy the more the discount. Also, free shipping. It only took me about 3-4 days to receive mine.
What about rye? Supposedly it only has 2 set of chromosomes too. I saw conflicting info about it on WAPF, so I would love your input.
I second this! I want to know which is better for the cost; I know Rye is probably a lot cheaper and easier to find in NZ.