Marcia C McCormack, RN, BSN, PHN, FCN

In our exploration of the healthy Mediterranean Diet, we’ve seen the recommendation that our meals should be centered on grains, seeds, nuts, legumes, fruits and vegetables. We’ve explored wheat, the most ancient of grains and one that is mentioned about thirty times in the Old and New Testament and we’ve seen its religious importance in Scripture.

Today I’d like to introduce another ancient grain found in the Bible: millet. You’re probably familiar with millet, especially if you’ve owned and loved pet birds. Millet is a favorite bird treat and our cockatiel Sunny looks forward to her afternoon ration every day.

However, you may not know that this ancient grain has fed people for millennia and is part of a special bread recipe delivered to us by God Himself!

Millet is a cereal grass (we eat its tiny seeds) and one of the oldest domesticated crops. It was first cultivated in China and Africa 7,000 to 10,000 years ago. What was especially attractive about millet is that it’s a hardy, drought-resistant grain. It served as a subsistence crop for the poor and as a “famine food” and was used to prepare porridge and flatbreads.

The grain is highly nutritious, gluten-free and loaded with protein, fiber, minerals such as magnesium, phosphorous and iron and the all-important anti-oxidants which protect our body’s cells from damage.

So as you can see, birds may enjoy feasting on millet, but this grain is definitely not for the birds!

Apparently, God has a lot of respect for millet. We see in the Old Testament, in Ezekiel 4:9, God gives Ezekiel a recipe for this life-sustaining bread and told him to eat it for 390 days so that he could survive catastrophic upcoming events. Along with millet, the ingredients contain wheat, barley, spelt, legumes and beans.

Ezekiel 4:9 – Then take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them into a single pot and make them into bread. Eat it for as many days as you lie upon your side, three hundred and ninety days.

When millet is mixed with the other ingredients, it forms a dense bread that boasts a complete protein content. In other words, when you consume this bread, all the building blocks of protein (amino acids) are contained in the loaf! Plus, it contains all the other components so necessary for maintaining life!

We call this bread Ezekiel bread (or Ezekiel 4:9 bread) and it’s readily available in our markets in the form of loaves, hamburger and hot dog buns and English muffins. Look for it in specialty grocers, usually found in the refrigerator or freezer section. It tastes a lot like whole wheat bread and is very tasty!

If you’re interested in baking your own Ezekiel bread, you can find a variety of easy recipes on the Internet. Unfortunately, the bread does contain gluten and I’m gluten sensitive and must maintain a gluten-free diet.

I came up with Marcia’s Gluten Free version of Ezekiel bread. Here’s my recipe. It’s not strictly Ezekiel bread as given to us by God, but for those of us requiring a GF diet, it’s the best I could do. Here it is:

Ingredients

2 cups warm water

2 Tbsp honey

¼ cup olive oil

1 package dry yeast

2 cups gluten free all-purpose flour

1 cup buckwheat flour or amaranth flour

¼ cup millet flour

¼ cup dry green lentils

6 Tbsp cooked kidney or other beans like pinto, black, garbanzo

¼ cup gluten-free oats

¼ tsp salt

1. Measure the water, honey, olive oil and yeast in a large bowl. Let it sit about 5 minutes, or until frothy.
2. Stir all the grains and beans together until well-mixed, then grind in a flour mill, word processor or blender, together with the grains that are already ground.
3. Add this flour mixture to the yeast mixture and stir until well-combined. The dough is more like a pancake batter than bread dough.
4. Pour the batter into a prepared loaf pan and let it rise in a warm place for about 45 minutes or until it reaches the top of the pan.
5. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 45-50 minutes, or until golden brown.
6. Let it cool at least 15 minutes in the pan, then turn it on a cooling rack to continue cooling.

Enjoy!

Next time, we’ll explore the other grains God includes in Ezekiel bread: barley and spelt.