General fitness, health and nutrition · Public discussion

Re: Whole grain or not

Started by John Sankey · · Last activity · 1 post · 295 views

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General fitness, health and nutrition
Published
20 September 2005
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20 September 2005
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John Sankey
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  1. "In which food can we find the whole grain ?"

    Grains (seeds of grasses) include an mechanical covering (chaff),
    a chemical coating (bran), an energy store (endosperm), and the
    seed itself (germ). Human digestion can't use chaff at all. Bran
    provides soluble fiber to our digestion, but also phytates which
    impede our absorption of some minerals. Endosperm is stable and
    has most of the energy. The germ is highest in nutrients, but
    degrades rapidly when exposed to air.

    So, what do you want from "whole" grain? Even the strictest
    health food stores remove chaff. But, to soak the remainder to
    remove bran phytates then dry the grain rapidly enough to prevent
    any possibility of moulds (many of which are far more of a
    nutrition problem than phytates) is never done before grinding
    because it is too expensive, risky (the fungus ergot is widely
    believed to be the source of the insane behaviour for a year at
    Salem MA), and difficult. So, good health food stores grind
    bran+endosperm+germ as is then refrigerate it to prevent
    degradation of the germ. Another method (which I used to bring up
    my family) is to grind at low speed (little heating) then bake
    immediately.

    If you buy pot barley (pearled has the bran removed), wheat
    berries, or red or black rice from a Chinese grocery, you will
    get all of grain that we can use. Brown rice, and rolled oats or
    rye from the cooking aisle (as opposed to the Rice Krispies
    aisle) are usually close.

    The best route I know of to the best nutrition is to not fuss too
    much about any one food, but to eat as wide a variety of foods as
    possible. Humans didn't eat grains until very recently in our
    evolutionary history, but the concentration of population that
    characterises civilization was not possible without them.

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