Farside on Nostr: Most people take for granted where their food comes from, and do not appreciate just ...
Most people take for granted where their food comes from, and do not appreciate just how cheap calories are in the West.
For example, I can purchase a 50lb bag of wheat for $20 in a country where the minimum wage is approx. $17.
It takes a little over an hour of human labor to acquire enough calories to sustain an adult for almost a month. That is insane!
To put that into perspective, I just spent a little over an hour turning heads of rye that I picked in the fall into a product I can actually use. In the end I had 2.5lb of rye seed.
The beginning of this process involves beating the shit out of the heads so that the seeds are dislodged. It's called threshing.
In my case, I built a small threshing machine from a drill, a bucket, and some chain on the end of a rod.
The next step involved separating the seeds from the rest of the stuff (called chaff). For this I started with a series of mesh screens that sieve out most of the bits and chunks.
Next, I have to remove all the fine pieces of vegetative material. The easiest way to do this is by pouring the grain out of the container and letting it fall through a stream of moving air (in my case a gentle breeze) so that the light particles are separated from the heavy seeds.
This stage is called winnowing, and this is what the grain looks like before I start.
After a number of iterations winnowing the grain, I am finally left with a clean, finished product that is ready to be milled.
For example, I can purchase a 50lb bag of wheat for $20 in a country where the minimum wage is approx. $17.
It takes a little over an hour of human labor to acquire enough calories to sustain an adult for almost a month. That is insane!
To put that into perspective, I just spent a little over an hour turning heads of rye that I picked in the fall into a product I can actually use. In the end I had 2.5lb of rye seed.
The beginning of this process involves beating the shit out of the heads so that the seeds are dislodged. It's called threshing.
In my case, I built a small threshing machine from a drill, a bucket, and some chain on the end of a rod.
The next step involved separating the seeds from the rest of the stuff (called chaff). For this I started with a series of mesh screens that sieve out most of the bits and chunks.
Next, I have to remove all the fine pieces of vegetative material. The easiest way to do this is by pouring the grain out of the container and letting it fall through a stream of moving air (in my case a gentle breeze) so that the light particles are separated from the heavy seeds.
This stage is called winnowing, and this is what the grain looks like before I start.
After a number of iterations winnowing the grain, I am finally left with a clean, finished product that is ready to be milled.