One of things I’m most interested in this coming autumn is cooking my own food with carbohydrates. When I started down my path to eating healthy, I quit virtually all bread and rolls, wraps and biscuits mostly because it was hard to get them without added sugar, excessive salt and fats, and whole grains. My carbohydrate of choice became brown rice, if only because it was easy to make and control my intake of unhealthy food.

I used to think it was hard and very time consuming to make one’s own bread, requiring hours of hard labor, complicated ingredient lists and equipment I don’t own and don’t want to purchase lest I clutter my life up more. But fundamentally at a reductionist perspective, most bread and bread products are quite simple – water, flour and yeast or baking powder or baking soda depending on what exactly you want the finished product to be. Everything else is for taste and texture, you can choose to add it to your baked product or not.

I don’t have diabetes and I don’t want to get this nasty lifelong disease that is far more deadly then HIV / AIDs these days. I also don’t want to get overweight or obese again or have to hold back my hunger cravings or sugar crashes. So I go for low glcycmetic value foods that don’t spike your blood sugar – especially foods rich in protein and fiber to avoid those hunger pains and crashes. The bloating caused by beans and lentils also helps. But in general, whole grains are what is called for in such an application.

Brown rice is easy, just let it cook on the stove for a few hours. Oat flour produced by grinding traditional oatmeal in a food processor is another option, bound by bananas, low fat yogurt and potentially risen by baking powder. But whole wheat flour offers many other options, whether it be kneaded, traditional whole wheat bread, biscuits, wraps, pizza crusts, home made pasta and so forth. I was always told you need a fancy pasta press to make pasta but that’s really a lie. Just need flour and eggs, knead, allow to sit, and roll out flat and cut. Maybe not traditional fancy pasta but you can control what your putting in your body.

It’s not to say you can’t use salt or sugar or other sources of flavor like honey, fruit, garlic and spices in any bread recipe. But I’m in the driver seat, I can figure out how much taste I want while weighting the health benefits. A corporation or distant bakery isn’t making the choice for me – commercial products and widely posted recipes are generally biased towards taste over health as they have product to sell. I want to be able to choose what fuels my body.

Plus DIY Carbs is a way to limit carbs. If something is difficult, time consuming and expensive you will do it less. Not going to have pasta every night or fresh bread every day if I have to make it myself. People used to eat a lot less bread, meat and milk back before you could buy it wrapped in plastic from the supermarket. When fruits and vegetables are the more convenient option, they’re going to be a bigger part of each meal.

Since getting into cooking dried beans, chickpeas and lentils, I’ve learned that soaking food overnight isn’t a big deal. It takes a little bit of planning but honestly not a lot. Slow cooking beans on the stove isn’t rocket science either, and once you set them up they do their thing with little attention paid yourself. Just set an alarm on your phone, don’t need to be actively monitored while cooking – it’s not like frying something in oil where you have to constantly watch. The same is generally true with baking and rising bread. And if you’re making biscuits or pancakes, or even pasta its even less effort.

Maybe I’m becoming a cook but I’m very dissatisfied with 10 or 20 item recipes larded down with sugar, salt, fat and butter. But I am quite aware now of the basics, I’m in control not the unhealthy tyranny of a distant commercial kitchen or a recipe book trying to sell you junk food.