Secret 3: Choose Buckwheat, Brown Rice and Other Whole Grains

As much as I love reading, writing and eating fruit and vegetables, I prefer to avoid grains. While fruit and vegetables consist mainly of water, and tend to be easy to digest, grains have little water content, are extremely dense and seem to take an awful lot of work to digest. So not my favorite nutritional subject. But they are consumed in the five blue zones, so let's take a closer look.

Sally Beare favors whole grains. In contrast to simple carbs, whole grains are "high in fiber, lower than simple carbs in glycemic index, and rich in nutrients". While simple carbs will deplete the body of nutrients, whole grains will replenish the body. Nutrients in whole grains include B vitamins (a lack thereof may exacerbate multiple sclerosis, dementia and depression; in other words if your main source of carbs are simple carbs, watch out) and vitamin E (protects blood vessels from the negative effects of cholesterol). Whole grains contain a wide spectrum of minerals such as zinc (boosts the immune system), potassium (aids water balance), chromium (regulates insulin levels) and magnesium (improves bone density). Still, my intuition tells me to go light on any type of grain, and concentrate on fruit and vegetables. Beare also mentions that not everyone can easily digest wheat, and "it's best eaten in moderate amounts only." I agree.  In fact, I was raised on rice and if I have wheat for breakfast, I prefer to avoid it the rest of the day.  I can have bread for breakfast, but refuse to have more of it for lunch.  Peanut butter tastes wonderful on a banana sliced length-wise, no need for any slices of bread.  If I do eat a hamburger, at most I manage the bottom half of the bun.  The top half of the bun returns to the kitchen.  Better yet, I just eat the "in-betweens". Also, Beare mentions that grains contain phytic acid, which binds to minerals and proteins and hinders complete absorption thereof by the human body.

In secret 3, Beare recommends eating 10 different whole grains. In our home we regularly consume four of these: whole wheat, brown rice, corn and oats ($1.39/lb of steel-cut).  I mentioned that our main staple is rice, and just like many people who grew up in China, we, too, have a rice cooker.  If I'm in a hurry I'll just throw in some white rice. It's ready in less than 15 minutes. If I plan ahead I'll cook brown rice.  More and more Asian restaurants are offering a choice of white rice or brown rice and, given the option, we choose brown. Local supermarkets are starting to sell fresh-made sushi and also offer a choice of white or brown rice. Wild rice seems healthier than brown rice, but then wild rice is not a grain.  I have tried millet

and greatly enjoyed the nutty taste, but the reaction from the rest of the family was highly unfavorable.  So that leaves five final suggestions:

1. Buckwheat ($1.39/lb): although buckwheat has the word wheat in it, it has nothing to do with wheat.  And, according to Wikipedia, some people are highly allergic to the point of anaphylaxis. This is very alarming to me, as our son has several food allergies and, to the best of my knowledge has never been tested for buckwheat. Were he living in Japan, he would have encountered buckwheat as the popular  soba noodles (these are mentioned in Wiki to be a potent anti-hangover breakfast remedy for Japanese business men). By the time I read about the possible fatal effect of buckwheat, my son has already cleaned out the dough from the buckwheat apple cake I was baking.  Luckily he was not short of breath, nor did he start complaining about stomach pains or worse.  Either way the Epipen was at the ready.

So how did the buckwheat apple cake turn out?  It was not a hit.  It was dry (despite adding 2 cups of milk to the dough) and had a rather unhealthy, grayish teint (see picture above).  I did enjoy the fact that it tasted like poppy seeds but this might have been due to the allspice, nutmeg and cardamon, rather than the buckwheat.  Instead of using a buckwheat cake recipe in my first foray into the world of buckwheat, I had simply replaced the wheat in the recipe with the same quantity of buckwheat.  Maybe I was not doing the buckwheat justice. I still have some buckwheat left, so I'll try it one more time using a real buckwheat recipe...
The next time I baked with buckwheat, I made pancakes.  This time I used a ratio of 2.5 cups of spelt to 0.5 cups of buckwheat and the pancakes were delicious.  I recommend adding a bit of buckwheat to any wheat dish you are baking to increase the range of nutrients.  

2. Barley: despite the huge selection in the bulk bins at Whole Foods, I only found 

'pearl barley'.  Beare recommends 'beige' rather than 'white pearl' so i. I'll keep looking and ii. I will cook this strictly according to recipe (no buckwheat experiments).

3. Amaranth: This was readily available in the bulk bins at Whole Foods and more affordable than quinoa:

4. Hemp: since hemp is the sole topic of secret 5, I'll explore this whole grain in a fortnight

5. Quinoa: at $3.39/lb this is not going to become a staple whole grain in our household.  Millet, which is more commonly known as 'bird seed',  is much more affordable at less than $1.00/lb.  I just have to find a way to make it delectably acceptable for the rest of the family.  Still, I did purchase 1/2 lb of quinoa so once I find a simple recipe, we will try out this gluten-free whole grain.

According to "The Joy of Cooking", quinoa is high in oil content and thus can easily turn rancid.  Once purchased, store it in your fridge.

Although Beare does not mention these options, I also picked up some spelt wheat and sprouted rice at Whole Foods. Spelt wheat is an ancient form of wheat and supposed to be more nutritious than regular wheat. And anything that is sprouted is supposed to be healthy.  Sprouted food will be covered in a later secret. Although I closely examined the expensive 'sprouted' rice ($3.39/lb), I was unable to see any sprouts.  

Finally, one of my favorite breads at Whole Foods is "Fourteener Sprouted Wheat". It contains five of the ten whole grains mentioned by Beare: hemp seed, barley, millet and organic millet, corn and oat and is delicious.

Take-home lessons:  

i. Replace simple carbs such as wheat and white rice with whole grains as much as possible.  

ii. Consume a wide variety of whole grains but keep quantities moderate.  

iii. Try to reduce the amount of wheat in your diet. You might just feel better in the long run. Why not give it a try? If reducing wheat in your diet makes you feel better, it was worth the experiment.  If you do not feel any different, keep enjoying your pasta, bread, polenta and couscous!
iv. Increase the range of your grains: try quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat, millet and others.  'The Joy of Cooking' has great advice on how to prepare these grains.