I wrote an article a while back that highlights some of the health benefits of wheat germ, the nutritious part of the wheat plant that can be sprinkled on yogurt, added to smoothies or your morning cereal. While researching that particular article I couldn’t find a brand of organic wheat germ to recommend to my readers.
So I reached out to one of the market leaders in producing wheat germ – Bob’s Red Mill – to see if they could answer the question: why isn’t there organic wheat germ on the market?
Challenges of bringing organic wheat germ to market (as outlined by the team at Bob’s Red Mill):
Cost:
Wheat germ itself is a labor-intensive process and is harvested by separating the wheat germ from the rest of the wheat kernel. Then producers must sift the product to remove the bran. Most white flour producers sell their wheat germ as animal feed. Producers that decide to sell wheat germ for human consumption do so at a higher cost due to its labor intensive processing. The high costs of labor means the product – without being organic – is already at a premium cost.
Availability and Accessibility:
- There are very few organic flour mills in the United States, making it hard to source organic wheat germ.
- Most wheat germ companies purchase the germ from wheat producers rather than owning the whole supply chain themselves.
- Organic wheat producers are often smaller than conventional wheat producers and may not have the ability to separate out wheat germ.
- Wheat germ is highly susceptible to going rancid and pests, which adds an additional challenge to bringing organic wheat germ to market.
Choosing organic foods when possible helps prevent the use of pesticides, keeps our soil healthy, protects farm worker’s health, reduces pesticide residue being ingested and ensures that the crops are not genetically modified.
And as always, I’m a pragmatist about the issues: Not every product I consume will be organic (I mean who doesn’t eat out every once and a while?). I won’t know the source for all of my food. And that’s ok.
I will continue to ask manufacturers to sell organic wheat germ (for which I would happily pay extra) and in the meantime I will continue to sprinkle Bob’s Red Mill in my morning smoothie and my body will rejoice in its tasty and nutritional benefits.
Banana – Peanut Butter Smoothie (with wheat germ)
- One ripe banana
- Organic soy milk or rice milk
- 2 Tbsp. peanut butter
- 1 Tbsp. Bob’s Red Mill wheat germ
- Blend and enjoy!
Read on for the Health Benefits of Wheat Germ.
Never miss a post and join my mailing list.
So glad you asked that question! I’ve veered toward hemp and chia lately so I haven’t purchased wheat germ for a while. I’m inspired to get some again so I can try your recipe!
Hemp and Chia would work in the smoothie too. It’s a simple and easy to adapt recipe!
I didn’t realize that organic wheat germ was so challenging to find. It sounds as though the amount of labor required to produce wheat germ doesn’t make sense financially for the smaller organic wheat producers. That smoothie sounds delicious. Anything with peanut butter works for me!
I ran into this issue with gluten-free products. So hard to find gluten-free AND organic. And then the price!! For my family that still eats wheat, we mostly use freshly ground (we have a grinder) whole grain organic berries. Then you get the wheat germ as part of the package deal!
P.S. I liked your old blog header and I love your new one too!
Thanks Betsy, I’m changing it once again!
Interesting! I had no idea this was an issue.
I had no idea about this! I like your stance – and I agree. Raising kids with very limited diets and not having enough time to cook more than twice a day makes it challenging to eat 100% organic or even non-GMO. We do the best we can though, and I think bottom line, is that you need to look at overall nutrition and reduce toxins where you can. Then don’t sweat the rest. We CANNOT live in a food bubble.
Agreed!
I am seriously trying to think of the last time I had wheat germ. I never thought to look for it in the Bob’s Red Mill section of the store!
Thanks so much for this info. I have been trying to find an organic wheat germ and it just doesn’t seem to exist. I too will eat non organic at times but when it is something I use daily (smoothies) I only use organic. I guess I will have to find something else.
Thanks
https://www.kauffmansfruitfarm.com/Wheat-Germ-Toasted/item/156056
This is one organic wheat germ available on amazon now.
it isn’t organic
Great web site Lindsay.
We really need toasted wheat germ that is organic. Raw wheat germ is not healthy at all. As soon as wheat germ is separated from the wheat it starts to go rancid. Toasting is the only way to stop this oxidation. And it should be toasted immediately after it’s produced.
Kretchmers is the only company with toasted wheat germ vacuum packed right after productiion but it’s not organic. I’ve asked them to offer organic many times and they keep repeating the mantra that it would be too hard to do. I’ll keep trying.
I found this one that is organic… https://centralmilling.com/product/organic-raw-wheat-germ/
I found this one, too. Unfortunately, the shipping costs are prohibitive since they only use FedEx.
$9 for the product.
$19 for shipping.
They will only use FedEx.
And, it’s not toasted.
This is a real challenge!
If you order a bit more it will make the postage more reasonable, 10# of organic non gmo wheat germ is $35.72 and the shipping is $26.34. If I have to drive to a big town it takes me 4 hours round trip and costs me $35 plus in gasoline…so this is not really so bad..,
I found this while searching for an organic wheat germ. so weird that is’s such an elusive thing when you can buy organic flour and breads so easily.
https://centralmilling.com/product/organic-raw-wheat-germ/
Silly economics from Bob’s side. People who want (demand) organic wheat germ, will pay a high(er) premium for it.
Low far wheat germs! The new crooky thing I run across! So basically, it means removing much of the E vitamin and interesting oil and add the unavoidable by products of that supplementary step (God now what it is, because if it’s not organic they could use very potent oil extracting methods) and all that to sell the wheat germs-oil much more expensive than the cost within the natural germs!
So may be one more challenge : wheat germs with all its oil untouched!
By the way the wheat oil could be concentrated within the germs, therefore if a producer really wants the oil they may have to pass through the germ extraction first, and the germs without oil may no be very biological at all, so it could be a complementary explanation for the difficulty to find real biological wheat germs.
At the end it’s mainly business greed facing the lack of information on the consumers side.
Best Greeting, Karol
I’ve stored wheat germ in the freezer. I avoid toasted because i want to limit acrylamide in my diet.
Jeanne, acrylamide is not a problem with toasted wheat germ as it is toasted at a low temperature.
Toasting helps prevent wheat germ from going rancid.
I found a safer toasted wheat germ than Kretchmers.
It’s by Shiloh Farms and the wheat from which it’s produced is NOT sprayed with Monsanto’s Roundup,
That’s a plus, since most US wheat is sprayed with Foundup.
Good luck.
Greetings Lindsay,
I finally found a better toasted wheat germ than Kretchmers.
It’s by Shiloh Farms and the wheat from which it’s produced is NOT sprayed with Monsanto’s Roundup,
That’s a plus, since most US wheat is sprayed with Foundup.
Still hoping someone comes out with organic tthough.