Modern wheat is not part of the Spartan Diet, nor are unsoaked or unfermented grains. That makes finding bread in stores or bakeries that meet this criteria can be difficult.

Desserts are part of the Spartan Diet as long as they are made with real, whole-food organic ingredients that are made with Spartan Diet-quality ingredients.

In this case, my bread pudding atypical. It’s made with naturally leavened bread, pastured eggs and raw pastured milk, homemade vanilla, ceylon cinnamon and raw honey. I also used raw panela for the caramel sauce, which is a true raw sugar with all its minerals.

Mike is the expert on bread baking. I use his leftover homemade bread in my bread pudding (so nothing goes to waste).

You don’t have to make everything from scratch. But everything you consume should be equivalent to homemade (without emulsifiers, fillers or preservatives) as if you would have made it yourself from scratch.

Small farms and local artisans increasingly produce high quality foods and ingredients, available especially at Farmer’s Markets. Even Whole Foods Markets often carry food made locally and in small batches with organic ingredients and without additives.

Mike and I just love making everything from scratch. We find it gratifying. From making our own cured olives, sauerkraut, cheeses, yogurt, vanilla, spices, broths and bread to making even our own kombucha, pickled veggies, kefir, hot sauce and vinegars, we enjoy making it all.

Mike uses ancient grains for his bread, and grinds it himself. We like emmer and Einkorn but also spelt. Flour from ancient grains is nothing like modern wheat, which gives all grains a bad rap. Modern wheat was hybridized to be high in gluten, which makes it easy for processing and manufacturing wheat products. It’s designed to be a good product for manufacturing purposes and profitability not as something healthful to eat.

But even modern wheat can be made far healthier when fermented. Unfortunately, store-bought bread is rarely fermented, even when it's marketed as "sourdough."

Mike makes our bread with highly fermented dough. Fermentation not only transforms the dough for incredibly good flavor and texture for both crust and crumb, but removes gluten and phytic acid, improves the bioavailability of the protein and broadly improves its overall health profile.

The bottom line is that yeast-leavened bread is bad for you; Naturally leavened bread good for you, especially if it does not contain modern wheat.

Grains have to be fermented (or soaked or both) to make them nutritiously viable, which is why naturally fermented bread with wild yeast from the air is not only better for you but heavenly to eat and enjoy with a piece of real cheese or grass fed cultured homemade butter!