As one of the founders, and the owner of Spelt Right Baking, I am sharing our family’s story on how we started Spelt Right Baking Co.

In 2007, my husband, Tim Kane, a vice president of a local college, and I founded Spelt Right® Baking, an all natural baking company, specializing in the ancient grain spelt, as a result of the profound impact diet change made on our son’s life.  At the time, I was practicing law as a child advocate attorney representing children in state custody, the juvenile courts, and in special education.

Our son, who is now 14, use to experience significant health and behavioral problems, and was misdiagnosed when he was younger (ages 4-7), with ADHD, Asperger’s, Pervasive Developmental Disorder and others.   He also had frequent ear infections and a compromised immune system.  Sometimes he would flap his hands, moan, and get red hot ears; he might rock, become extremely agitated or hyperactive.  At times, though, he was quite calm, introspective and manageable.

Tapping into my experience as an attorney working with many children in distress, I was not convinced of the accuracy of the diagnoses, and was skeptical about the recommendation to test psychotropic drugs on our son.   We wanted to find out what was triggering the physical and emotional reactions in him and resisted the proposed drug therapy.

By the time he was 8, we started exploring diet as a possible cause for his various behaviors.   By age 9, we completely changed his diet (removed all common wheat and replaced it with the ancient grain spelt, and removed all artificial colors, flavors and preservatives, high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, MSG and anything that reeks of an artificial process to stabilize food.

The results were profound.  Our son’s health and behavioral problems virtually evaporated.

In fact, now in high school, he is a well adjusted teenager in the gifted math program, who carries no diagnoses and is not on any medications.  This is nothing short of remarkable given that he could barely sit at a desk just a few years before.  Additionally, now at age 14, he is taking his first college course,  is a budding chef and baker, and can make just about any recipe from scratch.  Here is a link to the Spelt Right Blogspot’s Lunch Box Chronicles, which highlights one of our son’s baking coups.

This world of diet change – removing the junk, replacing it with real food – has opened our eyes to many of the malaises that haunt this country: diabetes, obesity, heart disease, chronic migraines, cancer, digestive problems – and…the list goes on.

We have heard from so many of our customers about their own health challenges, including diabetes, insulin resistance, Lyme Disease, arthritis, migraines, heart and artery disease, skin issues, obesity, behavior problems, and how they have been able to improve their health through diet change, and by making the switch from industrial grains to heirloom grains like spelt.

We have come to the conclusion that America does not face a health crisis, but rather a nutrition crisis.  As stated in 460 BC by Hippocrates, “Let Food Be Thy Medicine; Let Medicine Be Thy Food.”

The rest is an on-going journey.   Spelt Right is growing as it has expanded its production to the Metro NY region so that we can further our products reach and offerings.   If you cannot find Spelt Right products in your local store, you can always purchase breads, bagels, and pizza dough through our on-line store.

Thank you and be well!

Beth George, co-founder and owner, Spelt Right Baking