Two foods I like to eat are millet and Essene bread. Millet is my primary grain. I no longer consume rice nor any products containing rice. If perhaps on occasion I encountered some rice dish or product with rice in it I would not refrain from having it, but I never elect on my own to consume rice nor products which contain it.
However I really love millet. It is a very gentle grain and the body can easily digest it. It is high in nutrients. It is fun to cook with and makes many excellent combinations with other ingredients. There are a lot of ways it can be seasoned.
I was also reading about zinc again today. I feel strongly that the importance of zinc is vastly underreported. I find Wikipedia’s page on “Zinc and the common cold” to be one of its crappier pages and basically very much lacking in truth. There is absolutely no doubt that zinc is one of the most significant developments in human health treatments of the past couple centuries. In fact, the other day I was thinking about if I were to transport back in time or to some remote place with no technology, what would be the number one thing that I would try to re-create, and that for me would unquestionably be zinc.
What zinc does for the human immune system is absolutely amazing. Its benefits are extraordinary. Suffice to say that I no longer get colds. Ever. Instead, when my body senses that it is under threat, I take zinc prophylactically and basically immediately knock out whatever infection is threatening my body. There is no question that, in our modern world, there are what seem to be increasingly nastier bugs that are circulating. Humans are so many in number and things are getting transmitted and evolving to high degrees of virulence like never before. Zinc is more important than ever to maintain the body’s health against these serious and continual threats.
But Wikipedia’s crappy page does not state the truth. It fails to state the full effects of zinc and its extraordinary benefits. I did find another page however which does describe more: mercola.com: Zinc—One of the Best Supplements to Help Fight Cold and Flu. In that article they also say that one issue with people who eat a lot of grains is the increased intake of phytic acid:
Grains are high in phytic acids (as are legumes, seeds, and soy) and phytic acids are known to impair your absorption of minerals such as calcium, iron, magnesium and zinc. People in Western populations most at risk are those with diets high in unrefined grains, legumes, soy protein, and calcium, and low in animal protein.
I would never recommend not eating a diet high in grains as they do, but rather one with the right grains and with beans that are of course soaked properly before cooking (the longer the better. 8 hours is good but 12 is even better). But nonetheless they state that for people eating diets high in grains there can be an increased importance of taking zinc, whose nutritional absorption and uptake into the body can be diminished by phytates.
Another site, suegregg.com, states this:
Just because you’ve switched from white flour to whole grains does not mean that you are getting all the nutritional value. In fact you may experience new problems with digestion. That is because whole grains contain phytic acid in the bran of the grain. Phytic acid combines with key minerals, especially calcium, magnesium, copper, iron, and zinc and prevents their absorption in the intestinal tract.
Soaking, fermenting, or sprouting the grain before cooking or baking will neutralize the phytic acid, releasing nutrients for absorption. This process allows enzymes, lactobacilli and other helpful organisms to not only neutralize the phytic acid, but also to break down complex starches, irritating tannins and difficult-to-digest proteins including gluten. For many, this may lessen their sensitivity or allergic reactions to particular grains. Everyone will benefit, nevertheless, from the release of nutrients and greater ease of digestion.
— suegregg.com The Two Stage Process A Preparation Method Maximizing the Nutritional Value of Whole Grains
It turns out that millet is one of the grains lowest in phytic acid. I also didn’t know that oats are one of the highest, which inclines me to want to switch to buckwheat, which is also one of the lowest.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.