US turns back clock for cleaner food
AgenciesIn a country better known for industrial farming, highly processed food and suspiciously long-lasting bread, Chuck Childers rises before dawn and trudges off to operate one...
Chuck Childers, a 68-year-old miller in East Tennessee, operates one of America's oldest functioning gristmills, the water-powered Old Mill, which has been grinding cornmeal since 1830. Childers and other optimists believe that traditional methods of food production will lead to a healthier, smaller-scale, and more sustainable food industry in the United States.
The mill, located in the Appalachian region along the Little Pigeon River, continues to operate using technology that would have been familiar to farmers millennia ago.
Childers emphasizes that the corn ground at the Old Mill is grown in Tennessee, is never genetically modified, and no harsh chemicals or additives are added to the cornmeal and grits. The millstones, each weighing 2,000 pounds, grind the cornmeal, and the father of country music legend Dolly Parton once took his corn to this very mill. Childers believes that people are seeking out whole foods, prepared in the manner of previous generations, which aligns more closely with the food their ancestors prepared.
Traditional millers claim that stone-ground products are healthier than those produced by industrial roller mills.
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