Foreign Seeds in Organic Wheat

Have you ever found some little black seeds mingled in your bag or pail of organic wheat? It may be surprising when you first discover them, but foreign seeds in the organic wheat are just a result of the natural way the wheat is grown.

Fallow Fields

Organic wheat fields are fallowed periodically to rest and renew the soil, allowing weeds and other plants from neighboring crops to spring up. Later, when wheat is grown in the same fields, those foreign plant seeds are harvested too. If the seeds are small enough, they’ll make it all the way through the sorting and sifting process and end up in your bag of wheat.

No Herbicides Used 

What’s more, the organic wheat cannot be sprayed with any herbicides that would otherwise kill weeds in the field.

The Seeds Are Harmless

So next time you find some unfamiliar seeds in your wheat, think of it as a healthy indicator that your wheat was grown organically. The seeds are natural, harmless, and will not affect the quality or taste of your wheat.

These are the names of some of the seeds we’ve discovered in our organic wheat lately. Most of them are the wild counterparts of seeds you may use frequently.

• wild flax seed
• wild oat (darker than the oats we’re familiar with, elongated)
• wild buckwheat (pointy, triangular, dark brown or black)
• wild mustard (tiny, spherical)
• lentil (pale green or brown)
• black beluga lentil (round, disk shaped, looks like a small lentil)

Milling Wheat With Foreign Seeds

It’s okay to run the wheat through your mill with the seeds right in it. There are so few seeds, it won’t affect the mill.