Russian Missiles Collapse Kyiv Apartment Towers, Killing 12 — Ukraine Says It's Out of Interceptors

I baked bread last weekend using flour I ground that morning from hard red winter wheat berries. The wheat berries cost $0.50 per pound in bulk. They've been sitting in a sealed bucket in my basement for two years and they're still perfect. The flour tasted noticeably better than store-bought, because fresh-ground flour retains oils and nutrients that commercial flour has had stripped or oxidized away. This is food storage that actually improves your meals.

Here's what I've got today.

Grinding Your Own Grain: Why Wheat Berries Are the Ultimate Stored Food

We covered food storage (Issues 25, 35, 51) and cooking from stored food (Issues 87, 106). This week introduces grain milling: turning whole wheat berries into fresh flour, giving you bread, tortillas, pancakes, and pasta from a single stored ingredient.

Wheat berries (whole, unprocessed wheat kernels) are arguably the single best long-term food storage item. Properly stored in sealed containers with oxygen absorbers, they last 25 to 30+ years. They're calorie-dense (about 1,500 calories per pound), nutritionally complete (protein, carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins), and cheap relative to their shelf life — roughly $1.00 to $2.00 per pound in bulk this year, with prices up on the drought-driven shortfall covered in ON THE RADAR below.

The problem with storing flour instead of wheat berries: flour begins degrading immediately after milling. The oils in the wheat germ oxidize, nutrients break down, and the flavor deteriorates. Store-bought flour has a shelf life of 6 to 12 months. Wheat berries have a shelf life of decades. The solution is simple: store the berries, mill them when you need flour.

Hand grain mills are the preparedness choice because they require no electricity. The Wondermill Junior Deluxe is the standard recommendation: it handles wheat, corn, rice, and other grains, produces fine flour suitable for bread, and is built to last generations. It's slow (about 1 cup of flour per minute) but reliable and human-powered.

Electric grain mills (like the Wondermill Electric or Mockmill) produce flour much faster and with less effort. They're the better choice for daily use but require power. The ideal setup for preparedness is both: electric for convenience, hand mill for grid-down capability.

Start with hard red winter wheat or hard white wheat. Hard red has a stronger, nuttier flavor (good for hearty breads). Hard white is milder (better for pastries and lighter breads). Both mill the same way and store identically.

Where to buy in bulk: LDS Home Storage Centers (open to everyone, not just members) sell wheat berries in #10 cans (roughly 5.5 pounds each) at prices below most retail bulk options, even with this year's elevated wheat prices. This is still among the cheapest sealed, long-term grain storage available anywhere.

Buy 5 pounds of hard red winter wheat berries from a bulk food store or online.

Try it. Grind some in a blender (not ideal, but it works for a test batch) and make a simple flatbread. Experience the difference between fresh-milled flour and the bag in your pantry. Expect to pay roughly $5 to $10 for 5 pounds at current bulk wheat prices.

US Winter Wheat Crop Set for Steepest Drop in 61 Years

USDA's June 2026 Wheat Outlook now forecasts US winter wheat production down 27 percent year-over-year to 1,030 million bushels — the smallest crop since 1965/66. Hard red winter wheat, the variety milled into flour in this issue, is pegged at just 497 million bushels, the lowest since 1957/58, after severe Great Plains drought put 63 percent of the crop's growing area under drought this June versus 15 percent a year ago. Only 25 percent of the crop is rated good-to-excellent, the worst rating on record since 1986.

It's a live example of why storing the raw grain beats storing flour: USDA's own farm price forecast for wheat jumped from $5.05 to $6.00 a bushel this year on the shortfall alone.

Source: USDA Economic Research Service

Creek Stewart's Willow Haven Outdoor survival school teaches self-reliant food systems as a core preparedness skill, alongside the 72-hour bug-out planning he's best known for. In Build the Perfect Bug Out Bag, he applies the same principle to food storage that he applies to a bug-out kit: redundancy and shelf-stability matter more than convenience. Applied to grain, that means a 50-pound bucket of wheat berries and a hand grain mill represent more reliable, more nutritious, and cheaper long-term calories than any other single food storage investment.

Stewart's advice: learn to make three things from fresh flour: bread, tortillas, and pancakes. With those three skills and a bucket of wheat, you can feed a family indefinitely.

Russia Kills at Least 12 in Second Kyiv Mass Missile Attack in Under a Week

Russia fired 351 drones and 68 missiles at Kyiv overnight Monday, and every one of the 29 ballistic missiles it launched struck its target — a residential building in the Podilskyi district partially collapsed and multistory buildings in the Darnytskyi district trapped people under rubble. At least 12 died and 60 were wounded. It's the second mass strike on the capital in under a week; Thursday's attack killed 31, the deadliest hit on Kyiv this year. Ukrainian officials say the near-total ballistic missile penetration traces to a global shortage of Patriot interceptors, strained further by the war in the Middle East.

The lesson for any household isn't about missiles specifically — it's that defenses can fail all at once, and the people who fare best in a sudden structural emergency are the ones who already know their building's exits, have a family meeting-point plan, and keep basic rescue tools within reach of the bed.

Source: NPR/AP, US News

Wondermill Junior Deluxe Hand Grain Mill

This is the hand grain mill I use when the power is out (or when I want a workout). It clamps to a countertop, has both stone and steel burr heads (stone for fine flour, steel for oily grains and legumes), and produces about 1 cup of flour per minute with moderate effort.

The flour quality is excellent. Finer than I expected from a hand mill. The effort is real but manageable: grinding enough flour for a loaf of bread takes about 5 minutes of steady cranking. My kids treat it as a game, which helps.

Build quality is heavy-duty. This thing will outlast me. About $260.

Budget alternative: A corona-style hand grain mill ($40 to $60). Less refined flour, more effort, but functional for basic milling. Or use a high-powered blender for small batches (not ideal, but works in a pinch).

Overrated: Pre-packaged "emergency flour" in Mylar bags. It's already milled, so the shelf life is dramatically shorter than whole berries, and you're paying a premium for packaging. Buy wheat berries instead and mill as needed.

Underrated: LDS Home Storage Centers as a bulk food source. They're open to everyone, their prices are below wholesale, and their packaging (sealed #10 cans with oxygen absorbers) is designed for multi-decade storage. The cheapest way to build deep food storage, period.

LDS Cannery Locations — Find your nearest Home Storage Center. Open to everyone.

Extension.org: Grain Storage — University guidance on storing whole grains at home.

King Arthur Baking: Wheat Guide — Wheat types, flour properties, and baking guidance.

Grokipedia: Wheat — Background on wheat varieties, history, and nutritional properties.

YouTube: Hand Grain Mill Comparison — Side-by-side reviews of popular hand grain mills.

Chimney and fireplace safety. How to inspect, maintain, and safely operate the heating system that works without electricity.

PS: That loaf of bread from fresh-milled flour? My wife said it was the best bread I've made. The secret wasn't technique. It was freshness. Flour that's hours old instead of months old tastes different. Better. It's the rare preparedness investment that improves your daily life right now while also securing your food supply for decades. Win-win.