Community Grains guarantees 100 percent whole grains in its nutty-tasting pastas, which are still delicate enough to seduce you into the whole-wheat pasta camp. The California company gets its various types of wheat directly from small growers there, and identifies the exact type of grains used in its products.

"People who don't have the time or inclination to grind their own at home should have options for true whole grains," says Bob Klein, owner of Oakland's Oliveto restaurant and founder of Community Grains, a whole-grain company that grew out of a desire to know the origins of the flour used in his restaurant. Klein found that getting access to even basic information -- such as the wheat variety...

Currently, there are few regulations on the labeling of foods as "whole grains," Bob Klein, founder of Community Grains tells us. Products can have a mixture of whole grains, refined grains, and sugars, and proportions can't be found on the nutrition label. So consumers looking for true whole-grain products? "They've been lied to," Klein says.

If you think restaurants calling out farm names on their menus qualifies as ingredient transparency, prepare to have your mind blown. Tasting Table: San Francisco Traveling TableBay Area based Community Grains, whose whole-grain flours, polentas and more are grown and milled in California, has ushered in a new level of detail and sourcing with its new, limited-edition Identity Preserved Wheat line of pastas. The pastas are meant to...

Flour: so basic, so ubiquitous, so boring. Even if you’re a dedicated foodie, we bet it’s just one of those few ingredients you haven’t chosen to obsess over yet. After all, there’s so much else to fixate on: coffee, chocolate, cheese, meat, butter, etc.Or, if being a committed locavore is your thing, we bet that locally sourced grain isn’t on your top ten list of must-haves.But why not?

Here’s what Bob Klein, the owner of Oakland’s Oliveto Restaurant (5655 College Ave.), wants you to know: Most of what’s marketed as “whole wheat” isn’t really whole wheat at all. What’s more, he argues, once you’ve eaten, say, a pizza or pasta made from the real stuff, it’ll put to rest the notion that you need any other reason beyond sheer deliciousness...

In a low-slung research building in the heart of Washington’s Skagit Valley, professor Stephen Jones stands next to his random scribbles on a chalkboard. They read: “Grassy. Spice. Hay. Fresh-bright.” These notes from a recent tasting look a lot like a critic’s assessment of wine or possibly coffee. But Jones, a plant geneticist, is judging breads. The loaves were baked...

A couple of weeks ago, a farmer, a baker and a community grains maker gathered at Oliveto in Oakland, CA to give the Kitchen Table Talks audience the low down on local grains. Doug Mosel of The Mendocino Grain Project, Craig Pondsford of Pondsford’s Place Bakery & Innovation Center and Bob Klein of Community Grains taught us about the industrial grain economy, the local...

Five years ago, Oliveto restaurant in Oakland already had a menu full of local produce, meat and fish, but owner Bob Klein wanted the pasta to be local, too. He brought wheat seeds back from Italy and found nearby farmers to grow them. He discovered, however, that the cost of cleaning and milling the grain on such a small was prohibitive. Local flour would be much more difficult...

"There's a really good local flour, Community Grains, that I use. Conventional milling technology splits off the bran and germ right at the beginning. If they are selling the whole grain, they just add those parts back in later, which apparently is not as good as keeping them in the whole time. That's the Community Grains premise. Whole grain is one of the important things missing from the Western diet."