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Teff, fermented in injera is delicious. Too bad only a few people know how to prepare it. Not always able to be found. I might look into making it, probably quite time consuming.
Why they don’t offer alternative grains, the majority of the public doesn’t know how to eat them. Usually people with food sensitivities try out millet or sorghum or buckwheat, but it’s probably more found in places like LA with more gluten free options. I like millet and sorghum, though in general grains are considered too carby for a lot of people.
Though, if I wanted to bake, I might use alternative flours because they usually are rich in minerals and other nutrients. Millet makes a good cornbread substitute though you have to know it’s very drying and requires hot water and a few other things to moisten the batter. Quinoa flour is not bad for baking or batter, or sorghum flour might be better, etc.
Great post, Sheena!!!
Kasha is a general name for all grains. Buckwheat and barley are available in all our grocery stores here, and other grains started to appear too. Some already cooked, in a microwavable pouch - more expensive that the dry kinds, though.
It's not complicated to cook grains, but maybe they would be more popular if they were portioned in a cooking bags, like rice??
While I bake my homemade bread with whole grains and sourdough, once in a blue moon i will make rice bread. Delicious using whole rice, not rice flour. It's gluten free!
Great post, Sheena!!!
Kasha is a general name for all grains. Buckwheat and barley are available in all our grocery stores here, and other grains started to appear too. Some already cooked, in a microwavable pouch - more expensive that the dry kinds, though.
It's not complicated to cook grains, but maybe they would be more popular if they were portioned in a cooking bags, like rice??
While I bake my homemade bread with whole grains and sourdough, once in a blue moon i will make rice bread. Delicious using whole rice, not rice flour. It's gluten free!
No it isn't complicated at all! And it's relatively quick to cook - nothing like beans. The bread you make must be delicious!
They have portioned bags of quinoa which I've used. They are microwavable. I haven't seen other grains.
I'll bet they didn't have it in Poland but there was this awful stuff called "Minute Rice" when I was growing up. We didn't use it. It was a rice like pre-cooked product that's greatest virtue was that it took a minute to cook. For all I know, they could still sell it. I don't recommend it at all.
We have in Poland a wide variety of grain mixes in bags, ready to cook, and it's cheap. I really miss it here.
A box with 4 bags (similar to Ben's rice) cost less than a $1
This thread seems to be about small grains as whole grains.
Drink beer? That’s barley but not whole grains. Eat pasta (noodles)? That’s durum wheat.
As for whole “cereal” grains that often refers to wheat, rice, barley, oats, and rye. So some of our comments depend on how you classify these guys. Corn of course is not a small grain.
Personally? I love brown rice. Despite the starch, it’s still pretty nutritious. And tasty if you add some oils/butter.
And thanks for mentioning all the others. I had forgotten about cooking with buckwheat. Gotta try that.
You beat me to it, Luv...Our consumption of barley is quite high if we consider our hydraulic intake, and corn is so high on the consumption list mainly because it's run thru cattle, hogs & chickens before we get it.
The concept of "our daily bread" goes back millenia to when grains were first domesticated and the beginning of agriculture. As population centers developed (mainly for religious rights at first) meat was eaten only on the special occasions of religious sacrifices for the most part...Caesar commented on how big the German tribesmen were, who ate only dairy and meat, compared to his legionaires, who lived almost exclusely on bread.
We became a meat & potatoes society once the RRs allowed the shipment of beef from west of the Miss.R to the east. Potatoes are a much more nutrition dense source than grains, store easily, are easy to grow and easy to cook, accounting for their popularty.
Corn, wheat and rice are our largest grain crops. Even with high demand, the market is such that a farmer considers breaking even a good year...The less well known, less used grains have even lower demand, so prices are even lower, resulting in a viscious cycle of lower incentive to produce.
We can't argue taste, and I'm not a sophisticated cook, but how hard is it to cook the less used grains compared to boiling potatoes and adding a little butter? (an honest, not rhetorical question)
ps/ Re-- breakfast cereals--Aren't they just salt, sugar and a few chemicals with names too long to pronounce correctly?
We have in Poland a wide variety of grain mixes in bags, ready to cook, and it's cheap. I really miss it here.
A box with 4 bags (similar to Ben's rice) cost less than a $1
These look very good. Is it possible to purchase them in the US?
Do you have any interesting recipes, aside from the ones I mentioned? I know that you can stuff cabbage with any of them. Same with squash, peppers, summer squash. I'm sure they are good on their own, also. I'd add a scant tsp of whipped butter to any of them. I'd probable ass green onions, mushrooms, dried cranberries, and nuts, for a grain bowl. DH would love dried moistened apricots and pecans. Adding them - cooked, to a pancake mix could be interesting, too.
They all also would lend some chewy texture to turkey stuffing.
So what do YOU do, Elnina? Enquiring minds want to know!
Got a PM that grains are gluten free. Not correct. A lot of grains contain gluten, most especially wheat, barley, rye, and spelt.
However, that had nothing to do with my comment that grains spike my glucose (blood sugar). Therefore, most grains are not safe for diabetics to consume. Rice, in particular, is bad. No, it has no gluten, but yes, it sends blood sugar soaring.
Gluten has nothing to do with why diabetics need to avoid most grains.
Regarding carbohydrates and health concerns - so called complex carbohydrates/starches are basically polymers - chain like structures - of sugar molecules, referred to as polysaccharides. A long time ago, scientists though that starches were a lot safer than simple sugars; it was reasoned that the time needed for the enzymatic cleavage of the links between sugar molecules would spread out the period of time over which sugars were being introduced into the bloodstream and also lower the peak concentrations of e.g. glucose.
This was a perfectly reasonable hypothesis, but it turned out not be true. It turns out that the carbohydrate backbone is being cleaved so rapidly that there can be little practical difference between eating simple sugars like fructose or glucose, versus complex carbohydrates found in white bread, white rice, and potatoes.
Now, this doesn't mean that all carbs are satan. In fact, numerous large scale studies have found that consumption of healthy carbs actually reduces all-cause mortality and morbidity.
So what are healthy carbs? They come packaged with lots of healthy phytochemicals, like vitamins and minerals. Many of them also have a useful amount of protein. They come packaged with lots of insoluble fiber, which supports the growth and dominance of beneficial bacteria in the intestines (as opposed to the dominance of pathological bacteria, which compete with them). And finally, they come packaged with lots of soluble fiber - which creates a kind of viscous slurry in the small intestine - which slows the diffusion rate of carbohydrates to the inner intestinal wall (lumen), thereby slowing their absorption into the bloodstream.
Some poster children for healthy carbs, that do have lots of soluble fiber include oatmeal - in fact, right in your oatmeal bowl, you can see this kind of thick sticky soup that I will unflatteringly liken to mucous - that's exactly what I am talking about. Another great example is beans - like black beans, kidney beans and garbanzo beans. Both beans and oatmeal have a good amount of protein in them too - this is why beans are often used as a meat substitute in developing nations, and why someone may say that an energetic horse is "feeling his oats". And another great example is apples - anyone who has made home-made jelly/jam should know that pectin is commonly used as the thickener - again, the soluble fiber is giving that thick, gloppy texture. Pectin is a soluble fiber found in large amounts in apples, but it's also found in other fruits. Fruits generally are also safe, because (a) most contain a good amount of soluble fiber and (b) the dose of sugar - fructose and/or glucose, is quite low in a piece of fruit - that's why a big piece of fruit has only about 100 calories.
P.S. For extra credit, soluble fiber and insoluble fiber are both actually polysaccharides too, but their structures and function are quite different than what we normally refer to as starches. Starches bad, fiber good.
If you're eating grains, you want to always stick with whole grains
Last edited by OutdoorLover; 03-27-2023 at 04:57 PM..
^^^^Good comments above OL. I eat two tablespoons of cooked (not canned) lentils or pinto beans twice daily with a couple tablespoons brown rice or quinoa and a several types of cooked veggies. I always include some sauteed onions, garlic and bell pepper to go along with the veggie, beans and rice mix too.
I also eat a piece of whole fruit daily, like an apple, orange or small grapefruit. I don't drink any fruit juice or milk, but I consume some plain whole milk yogurt to get calcium.
All of the above help keep my digestive system in good order, and keep my energy level charged. With all the soluble high fiber foods I eat, I have no need to consume any of those nasty fiber supplements.
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