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Ron Donatelli on how sprouting breaks down enzyme inhibitors and releases nutrients to make whole grains more digestible.

Silver Hills’ longest full-time employee, Ron Donatelli believes in championing the health benefits of sprouted nutrition. “Today a lot of people are concerned about eating bread. Bread isn’t the issue. The big issue is the grain used to make that bread.”

“97% of all the grain sold in North America is refined. All this milling removes a lot of the healthy bran and germ, leaving the less nutritious white parts which then becomes the flour they sell back to you and use to bake bread. That’s where the problem lies and why so many people are putting on weight.

The whole food is always better than the sum of its parts. What we do at Silver Hills Bakery is radically different from any other bakery. We have this cool process where we don’t grind the life out of our grain to make flour. We don’t dismember or pull it apart.

Every nut grain and seed has an enzyme inhibitor on it, an outside shell. That’s what nature has put on it to lock in the important vitamins and nutrients. So when you go to your pantry in the morning, open your drawer, all your nuts, grains and seeds haven’t sprouted.

What we do at Silver Hills is we take the whole grain, put it under water, germinate it for 36 hours, which breaks down the enzyme inhibitors, and then we mash up the living sprout. This forms the base of every product we make. We keep all the bran, all the germ, everything, and that’s why our breads have up to three times the fibre.

When you sprout your nuts, grains and seeds, you break down those enzyme inhibitors, releasing and enhancing the nutrients as well as making them more digestible in your body. We have thousands, literally thousands of testimonies from people who can’t eat regular bread. They eat our bread because it’s sprouted, that’s very cool.”

Explore the science and art of sprouting to learn why sprouted whole grain bread is a better-for-you choice for your family. Get recipes, tips—and a sprouting STEM activity for kids, too! Get your FREE Why Sprouted Handbook today.