Why I Mill My Own Flour: Wheat Berries & NutriMill

Good food starts long before a loaf of bread comes out of the oven. For me, it starts with the ingredients, the choices we make for our families, and the things we learn along the way.

Milling wheat berries into fresh flour has been part of my life since the 1990s. It did not begin with an affiliate partnership or a social media trend. It began with motherhood, faith, and a growing desire to understand how to nourish my family.

Today, I use a NutriMill Classic grain mill to make flour for homemade bread, cinnamon rolls, pizza dough, and pie crust. But to understand why that matters so much to me, you need a little of the story that brought me here.

Affiliate disclosure: I am a NutriMill affiliate and may earn a commission when you shop through my link. My children gave me my NutriMill Classic for Christmas in 2024; it was a family gift, not a gift from NutriMill.

My journey toward whole foods began with motherhood

In 1990, during the birth of my third child, my family faced a frightening moment. A doctor pulled my husband into the hallway and told him I might have only 20 minutes to live. They were preparing to take me for a C-section. Within about 10 minutes, I delivered our son, Zachary.

My earlier pregnancies included preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome. Looking back, I also remember how little I understood about nutrition. During my first pregnancy, I ate plenty of chips, gummy bears, and other fun foods. During my second, pneumonia took away my appetite, and I struggled to eat. During my third, I followed the food pyramid and limited salt, protein, and fats while eating plenty of carbohydrates.

Those memories made me want to learn more. I cannot tell you that my food choices alone caused those complications, but I can tell you that learning to nourish myself became deeply important to me.

In 1991, John and I got saved hand in hand. As we found a church home, I met families who ate whole foods and paid close attention to nutrition. I began asking questions, reading, and learning. I was also praying for another child. I was not ready to be finished growing our family.

After much prayer, in 1996 we felt God gave us peace about pursuing a tubal reversal. By then, milling wheat and preparing whole foods had become part of the way I cared for myself and my family.

What Dr. Brewer's book taught me about nourishment

During my fourth pregnancy, I read Dr. Brewer's book, What Every Pregnant Woman Should Know: The Truth About Drugs and Diet in Pregnancy. His emphasis on adequate food and protein changed how I thought about eating during pregnancy.

I began thinking more intentionally about what my body needed rather than simply what I should restrict. I went on to have six more pregnancies without preeclampsia. That experience is an important part of my personal story and why I continued learning about whole foods.

Brewer advocated nutrition as a way to prevent and address pregnancy complications, and his approach still has advocates. I am sharing how his teaching influenced me and what happened in my pregnancies. That is different from promising that his diet will prevent or reverse preeclampsia or HELLP for someone else. Those conditions require medical evaluation and treatment.

The lesson I carried into our kitchen was simple: feeding my family deserved thought and care.

Feeding our family through hard times: my couponing years

Choosing good ingredients has also meant figuring out how to afford them when money was tight.

After the housing market crash, we took a major financial loss and nearly lost our home in 2010. In 2011, I watched TLC's Extreme Couponing and decided to learn how to do it myself.

Coupons were not usually available for the foods I most wanted to feed my family. But they became a tool that helped us get through a very difficult financial season. I planned my shopping so the savings—and, when available, coupon overages—could help pay for good food and basic ingredients.

I still remember a Walmart trip where I arranged my coupons so that the overages covered bread, milk, eggs, flour, and sugar. Those were the staples we needed, even when I did not have coupons for them.

I became “The Couponing Coach.” I had a blog, gave talks about saving money, and taught others how to use coupons. I was even featured on TLC's Extreme Couponing as the Ohio Couponing Coach, in Season 3, Episode 3, Part 2.

Eventually, that chapter came to an end. I remember misuse of coupons making that world more difficult, and the opportunities I had relied on changing. But throughout my couponing years, I still had a garden and animals, and we continued raising much of our own food.

Couponing helped for a season. Growing food, raising animals, and cooking from ingredients remained part of our life through it all. My food choices have always had to work within the realities of feeding a large family—not just an ideal shopping list.

That is part of why I enjoy teaching practical skills today. Sometimes the next step is milling wheat. Sometimes it is growing a vegetable, baking a loaf, or finding a way to stretch the grocery budget. I understand what it is like to want good food for your family while needing every dollar to count.

Why whole foods still matter to me after serious illness

The last few years have brought another difficult chapter. In January 2024, I underwent major right-shoulder reconstruction. Six days later, I was hospitalized with multiple pulmonary emboli throughout my lungs.

Later that year came a melanoma diagnosis, surgery on my left leg, and the wonderful news that no further cancer had been found. Then came sepsis, a lengthy hospital stay, and another hospitalization for cellulitis.

In 2025, I developed extensive blood clots in my right leg and additional clots in my lungs. I needed a thrombectomy. Heavy bleeding, further procedures, and an IVC filter followed. In March 2026, I had a hysterectomy, and in April, surgery to repair my left shoulder.

Through those seasons, I continued choosing the best food options I could, even in the hospital. At home, I kept returning to the habits I had learned years earlier: whole ingredients, homemade meals, and freshly milled breads.

Recently, I have noticed significantly less swelling and pain in my right leg. I am grateful for that improvement. I have not had a follow-up ultrasound confirming a change in scar tissue, and I cannot attribute the improvement to flour alone. But preparing nourishing food remains a meaningful part of caring for myself through recovery.

Faith, medical care, time, and the everyday work of feeding my family all belong in my story.

What are wheat berries?

Wheat berries are the kernels of the wheat plant. They are grain, not the kind of berries you pick from a bush. When you grind them, you make flour.

An intact wheat kernel includes the bran, germ, and endosperm. Milling the whole berry and keeping all of those parts produces whole-wheat flour. The bran contributes fiber, and the germ contains natural oils and nutrients. Refined white flour has most of the bran and germ removed.

This is one reason I value milling my own flour: I can choose the grain and keep the whole berry in what I bake. Store-bought whole-wheat flour also retains the whole grain; home milling adds control over when it is milled and how it fits into my kitchen routine.

Freshly milled flour and vitamin E: what I learned

Years ago, I learned that wheat germ contains vitamin E. That was one of the things that first interested me in milling wheat. I was also taught that vitamin E disappeared very quickly after milling.

As I revisited that explanation, I learned an important clarification. Vitamin E is a fat-soluble antioxidant. It does not simply evaporate when the grain is milled. It can decline during storage through oxidation, and the amount lost depends on conditions and time.

A published study following whole-wheat flour over 297 days found approximately a 32% loss of vitamin E under its study conditions. That is very different from saying it all disappears immediately. Baking does not lock every nutrient in, either.

I still like milling close to the time I bake. It gives me fresh flour and avoids keeping a large supply of ground flour around for long periods. But there is no need to panic if your flour sits while you prepare the rest of a recipe.

Choosing wheat berries for bread, pie crust, and other baking

One of the most useful things to learn is that different wheat berries suit different recipes. Fresh flour is only part of the picture; choosing wheat appropriate for the bake matters, too.

WheatA useful starting pointHard white wheatYeast bread, rolls, and pizza dough; generally a milder wheat flavorHard red wheatYeast bread and other bakes where you enjoy a more pronounced whole-wheat flavorSoft white wheatPie crust, cookies, cakes, muffins, and other tender baked goods

Hard wheat generally provides more gluten-forming protein, useful for yeast breads. Soft wheat is lower in protein and suits tender pastries. White whole-wheat flour is still whole wheat; the word “white” describes the wheat variety, not the removal of its bran and germ.

Recently, I used freshly milled soft white wheat for a maple pecan pie crust. The pie went to a cookout and was eaten up—after John had already enjoyed a couple of pieces at home! I have also been working with freshly milled flour in salted caramel pumpkin cinnamon rolls and our homemade pizza routine.

These are the kinds of practical projects I want to share: ordinary family foods, made from ingredients we have chosen ourselves.

Where I buy my wheat berries

I get my wheat berries from Azure Standard. Buying the grain gives me a starting point for the bread, pastries, and other foods I make here at Yellowknife Homestead.

When you shop for wheat berries, check the variety against what you plan to bake. Hard wheat and soft wheat serve different purposes, so choosing the right grain is part of choosing the right ingredients.

I am not an Azure Standard affiliate. I am sharing where I buy my wheat berries because it is one of the practical questions people ask when they want to start milling their own flour.

My NutriMill Classic: a Christmas gift from my children

For Christmas in 2024, my children gave me a NutriMill Classic grain mill. After everything that year had held, a gift that supported something I valued so much meant a great deal to me.

Milling was already part of my life. This mill became the tool I could bring into the next chapter of our homestead kitchen.

I use it to grind wheat berries for the foods I am actually making. That may be honey whole-wheat sandwich bread for John, cinnamon rolls, pizza dough, or a pie crust. My interest in the NutriMill grew from using it in my own kitchen, and I later became an affiliate.

The Classic can mill hard and soft wheat. Its manufacturer recommends clean, dry grain and warns against milling oily ingredients such as nuts or seeds, or running already-ground flour through it again. Follow the mill's instructions rather than assuming every pantry ingredient can go into the hopper.

How to start milling your own flour

Start with one food your family already enjoys. You do not have to change every recipe in your kitchen at once.

1. Choose your first recipe. Bread, muffins, or pie crust give you a specific goal.

2. Choose wheat suited to that recipe. Start with hard wheat for yeast bread or soft wheat for a tender pastry.

3. Read your mill's instructions. Use approved, clean, dry grain and follow its setup directions.

4. Mill what you need. Measure the finished flour as your recipe directs; a cup of berries is not automatically a cup of flour.

5. Notice the results. Keep notes on the grain, flour amount, texture, and what your family liked.

Give yourself room to learn. If possible, begin with a recipe developed for whole-wheat or freshly milled flour. That makes your first project easier to assess than changing several ingredients in an unfamiliar recipe.

How to store freshly milled flour

If you mill more than you need, keep the extra flour in an airtight container and label it with the wheat type and milling date.

Whole-grain flour contains the germ's oils, which makes storage conditions important. Cool, dark storage helps protect quality. For flour you will not use promptly, an airtight container in the refrigerator or freezer is a practical option. Protect it from moisture and surrounding food odors.

Fresh milling does not mean every leftover spoonful must be thrown away. It means being intentional about the amount you mill and how you keep the rest.

Good food starts with the choices we make

For me, milling wheat is connected to far more than a loaf of bread. It is connected to the women who helped me learn, the children I wanted to nourish, the faith John and I share, and the difficult seasons that reminded me how much I value caring for our family.

I am still learning. I still try new recipes. Sometimes the texture needs adjusting, and sometimes a pie disappears before I have much time to think about what I might change!

What keeps me going is the ability to start with a whole ingredient and turn it into food for the people I love. That is why I mill my own flour, and why I enjoy teaching others how to begin.

The grain mill I use at Yellowknife Homestead

If you would like to explore the mill I use, you can see the NutriMill Classic through my affiliate link.

Shop through my link and use code YELLOWKNIFE at checkout to receive $20 off qualifying items. The discount applies to eligible products, so check that it appears in your order total before completing your purchase.

You can also follow @nutrimill for the brand's milling resources.

I may earn a commission from qualifying purchases through my link. My own Classic was a Christmas gift from my children in 2024.

Grown with Love, Made from Scratch.
Kelly — Yellowknife Homestead

Sources and further reading

• NIH Office of Dietary Supplements: Vitamin E — vitamin E's established nutritional role.

• Nielsen and Hansen, 2008: Stability of Vitamin E in Wheat Flour and Whole Wheat Flour During Storage — the 297-day flour-storage study.

• Leenhardt and colleagues, 2006: Wheat lipoxygenase activity and antioxidant loss during breadmaking — vitamin E retention during breadmaking.

• Brewer, 1974: Preliminary report on a county prenatal nutrition education project — historical publication record; not independent confirmation of every claim associated with the Brewer diet.

• ACOG: Preeclampsia and High Blood Pressure During Pregnancy — medical context for the pregnancy conditions discussed.

• King Arthur Baking: Whole Grains — grain anatomy and differences between wheat types.

• King Arthur Baking: The Best Way to Store Whole Grains — flour-storage guidance.

• NutriMill: Best Practices for Milling Different Grains in the Classic — approved milling practices.

Why I Mill My Own Flour: Whole Foods, Faith, and Family

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