Grains

Amy Kumler

The organic whole grains we use in our Breakfast Grains hot cereals, Savory Grains blends, soups and beers— Long Root® Ale and Long Root® Wit—are tiny packets of intense nutrition, evolved to nourish a growing plant and good for us, too. We source these ingredients from a handful of farmers who practice regenerative organic agriculture, building health back into the soil through farming.

Pacific Northwest Buckwheat

Birgit Cameron

The seed of a green, leafy plant related to rhubarb, buckwheat has been cultivated for thousands of years.

Today, it’s an ideal crop for organic regenerative agriculture. Buckwheat suppresses weeds, helps control erosion, and can improve soil health when grown organically (like ours is). Grown between crop cycles, it doesn’t require much fertilizer, thrives without the use of herbicides or insecticides, and attracts beneficial insects and pollinators with its nectar-laden flowers.

For us humans, buckwheat is nothing short of a superfood. It is packed with fiber, protein and essential minerals and vitamins. It cooks up fast and the tiny, roasted kernels have a toasty flavor we crave. We source ours from the Skagit Valley in Washington State, from farmers guided by Washington State University Bread Lab’s Plant Breeding Program. Our Organic Breakfast Grains, Savory Seeds snacks, and Tsampa Soup all use buckwheat.

KAMUT® Khorasan Wheat

Courtesy of KAMUT

This golden-hued, large-kerneled ancient variety of wheat came to the United States from Egypt in the 1930s. (Legend has it that grains were found in King Tut’s tomb, but Mesopotamia—covering current-day Iraq and parts of Iran, Turkey and Syria—was more likely the point of origin.)

Montana farmer Bob Quinn brought khorasan to the wider U.S. market and added the trademark KAMUT® , which means “wheat” in ancient Egyptian. This guarantees that anything called KAMUT is the original strain—non-hybridized, non-GMO and organically grown.

Barley (Tsampa)

Kim Binczewski

The barley in our Tsampa Soup and Breakfast Grains comes from the plains of Saskatchewan, Canada.

The grains are sprouted and roasted for us in the traditional Himalayan way, for maximum nutrition and nutty flavor. Because they’re precooked, they’re fast to prepare, too.

A mainstay of Himalayan culture and cooking, tsampa is flour made from the roasted barley. Often it’s mixed with tea and rolled into balls for a nutritionally dense, portable snack that has sustained Sherpas on their climbs for generations. Tsampa inspired us to create our Organic Tsampa Soup and Breakfast Grains, which use whole cracked grains rather than flour, for a nubblier texture.

Kernza

Amy Kumler

Kernza, a perennial developed by The Land Institute, in Salina, Kansas, is a kind of poster child for regenerative agriculture.

Its massive, beardlike roots can reach 12 feet in length, at least twice the depth of conventional wheat. These mighty roots keep topsoil in place, host millions of beneficial microbes, and pull down carbon from the atmosphere, locking it up in the earth. And Kernza’s slender grains have a wonderful nutty, spicy flavor.

Intro screen for Patagonia Provisions Tsampa Soup movie showing blue hazy mountains

It Started in the Himalaya: Tsampa Soup

Watch

Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard first learned about tsampa, or roasted Himalayan barley, from Sherpa friends in Nepal in the 1970s.

“I felt like it was the best thing I could possibly eat. I’d come back from those trips healthier than before I went,” he says.

In the Himalaya, tsampa is used as flour, and shows up in a power snack that’s easy to take on climbs. For decades, trying to approximate this nutritious food, Chouinard would toast a blend of grains (including barley), add dried vegetable soup mix, and take that on his climbs around the world. After Patagonia Provisions was founded in 2012, his mix morphed into our Organic Tsampa Soup, a blend of sprouted, roasted whole barley grains and roasted buckwheat—plus diced onions, carrots, bell peppers, kale and mushrooms. It’s energizing on its own, and also makes a great base layer for our wild sockeye salmon and other toppings. (Chouinard’s favorites are extra-virgin olive oil, wild salmon, and grated parmesan cheese—handy when you can’t get yak butter.)