Teff Flour

Teff Flour?  Yup – teff flour!

Teff is one of the smallest seeds in the world – the seed of a grass that’s most commonly grown in North Africa, along with millet and other drought-resistant grains.  I’ve been intrigued to see teff included in forage crops in Manitoba over the past few years – it’s drought resistance means that it will grow when few other crops will, making it a useful backup plan for hayfields and forage crops.  Fred Martins, near Carmen Manitoba, was similarly captivated, and got a small handful of the seeds to try planting.  That was 5 years ago, and one handful leads to 10 handfuls, and 10lbs leads to 100lbs, and finally, he has a substantial quantity to try milling!

That’s where our mill comes in.  As a gluten-free grain, teff has been on my radar, although i’ve only ever used teff once when I made a batch of injera bread for a Christmas dinner some years ago.  I know that it is more common among those who follow a gluten free diet, because it is also highly nutritious (high in iron and fibre), where other gluten-free stand-ins are often lacking in fibre.

As this crop comes from a front-yard experiment and not really a commercial scale, the teff flour is not certified organic.  The farmer has assured me that there were no pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers or chemicals used on this crop, but this is not third party verified.