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In the last subject we covered Flours & Grains; which ones are best to eat and which ones to avoid. If you haven’t read through that lesson’s content, please go back and read it before continuing on.
Grains Can be Part of a Healthy Diet…IF Treated Properly.
All grains, seeds, and legumes are armed with an internal defense mechanism called ‘anti-nutrients’. But before we explain this further, we must first understand how a seed grows. So let’s take a look.
How a Seed Grows
Inside every seed, grain, or legume is a tiny plant with leaves, stems, and root parts waiting for the right things to happen to make it grow.
If you place a seed on your counter it will not grow. If you put it in the ground, it will not grow……until you water it. Watering the seed allows the seed to sprout and grow, releasing the enzymes and necessary nutrients, giving the tiny plant energy.
So what is it that keeps the seed from growing until it is wet?
Two things called Phytic Acid and Enzyme Inhibitors.
What do they both mean for you?
If you consume a raw seed, the Phytic Acid within the seed will block the absorption of most of the vitamins and minerals.
The Enzyme Inhibitors do just as the name sounds, they inhibit and “hold hostage” the many enzymes within the seed which help to digest it.
So what can we do?
There are a number of things that can be done to help make our grains & seeds more digestible, and make the nutrients more readily available to our bodies. The main thing being “Soaking”. Soaking our grains helps to neutralize the Phytic Acid / Enzyme Inhibitors. This processes is relatively easy and just takes a little of our time and some pre-planning.
Method to Neutralize Phytic Acid / Enzymes Inhibitors
Soaking Grains: The “How To”
Soaking our grains is one of the easiest processes to make them more nutritious and easier to digest. When making just about any recipe (with a few exceptions), you can soak the flour in an acidic medium (such as buttermilk, yogurt, whey, or water with some lemon juice or vinegar added).
Example – if you are making muffins and the recipe called for milk as the liquid, simply replace it with buttermilk or another acidic medium. Mix it with the flour called for in the recipe, cover and let set at room-temperature for 12 to 24 hours. After that time you may proceed with the rest of the recipe. Doing this will neutralize the phytic acid and break down the enzyme inhibitors, allowing your body to assimilate the nutrients and digest the grain much more easily.
Whole Grains, such as brown rice or oatmeal, as well as ground grains (flour) will need to be “soaked” before cooking to get the best nutrition and digestion out of them.
If this whole “soaking” thing has you a little bewildered, no worries. Cooking God’s Way has numerous recipes that include and explain this “soaking” method so that you do not have to figure it out.
A Few Recipes to Get Started with “Soaking”:
– Easy Blender “Overnight” Pancakes or Waffles
– Baked Oatmeal Squares
– Ultimate Whole-Grain Blueberry Muffins
– Easy Maple-Blueberry Steel Cut OatmealMany people who have certain intolerance’s to grains will be able to tolerate them well when they are prepared according to these procedures – soaking, sprouting, and/or sourdough. (NOTE: If you have sensitivities, intolerance’s, and/or allergies to grains – please seek the advice of your Physician/Naturopath, etc. before attempting to consume grains using these methods.)
If you want to study Phytic Acid and its role in grains further, I highly recommend Buying the “Phytic Acid Paper” at Rebuild Market.
Other Tips for Preparing Grains:
Raw Nuts should also be soaked to remove Phytic Acid – for more info please see this article on “Raw Nuts: How to Soak & Why?”
Another fun way to reduce ‘anti-nutrients’ is “Sprouting”. For more information on this process and how to do it, see this article – “Sprouts: Super Nutritious & Easy to Make at Home”
There are other ways to reduce Phytic Acid as well. Such as “Sourdough”, which is in fact one of the best ways, but is definitely a more involved and advanced subject than this course can cover.
Lesson Assignment: Try one of the many recipes on Cooking God’s Way that incorporates “soaking”, such as some Easy Blender “Overnight” Pancakes or Waffles, or one of the many other recipes available on this site.
Share some of your changes with the group in a comment below. We, or others, could have suggestions.
i am an avid cookie baker, and since im trying to bake more healthy i have been trying to incorporate more healthy ingredients in my cookies. my recipes dont include milk, however, so im wondering how i could “soak” the spelt flour?
Any acidic medium would work for “soaking” the flour. Ones commonly used are yogurt or buttermilk, but you could even just use a touch of raw apple cider vinegar, like in this recipe for Oatmeal Cookies.
Hi…Joanna here! I have been reading about soaking grains for a while. I think it is the way to go but hopefully, I will remember to do ahead of time and make it a habit. It is the habit that is hard, not the soaking.
Joanna, once you get into the habit of soaking your grains it will become second nature 🙂
I’m looking forward to trying the recipes listed once I add grains back into my diet:) In the meantime, I think my husband will probably try soaking some things. He particularly likes the steal cut oatmeal. I’ll be interested in his comparison with cooking it the regular way.
Yummy! Made the blender waffles, and really enjoyed them! I tried sprouting and drying (in the oven) some almonds. Do you have to use salt with the almonds, or could you just soak them in water? I didn’t really care for the taste with the added salt. I’m sure I could get used to it, though.
Great to hear about the waffles. You don’t need to use the salt or add less, the soaking and drying is the key. We don’t even taste the salt. – Jeff
I have been soaking my oats for a couple of years now. I really enjoy how easy and fast they cook up in the morning. They are much softer also. I do not always soak my other grains though, and I have tried to use the soaking method when making bread and I just cannot get it to come out right.
Yes the oats do cook up much faster when soaked overnight. Soaking your grains is an important step to ensure optimum nutrition. It’s not too difficult to do. You may try one or two of the recipes here to start out with. Like Overnight Blender Pancakes or some delicious muffins.
Bread in general is a more difficult food to make. We don’t eat much bread around here, but when you do it’s usually homemade sourdough.
I know you said wheat is not the best to use, but I have some wheat berries. If I sprout them, dry them and grind into flour, would I use this flour in any type of recipe calling for flour? Do any other adjustments have to be made when subbing sprouted flour for regular flour?
Thanks for this class.
Lori
Spelt is the best, and it is a form of wheat. just a non-hybrid type. It is best to avoid any hybrid or altered form of food. But you can, if it is all you have or have available to you, use regular wheat berries. And yes you can sprout/dry/grind it and then use it just like regular whole wheat flour.
The links above for ” Buying the Phytic Acid Paper at Rebuild Market” and the “Raw Nuts: How to Soak & Why?” don’t open, it says error 404. So I am sorry if my question was covered….the other links worked.
I am wondering how the flour can sprout when it is already ground? Wouldn’t you have to sprout the grain before grinding? or could it not sprout because of the outer layer?
The links should now be fixed.
To neutralize Phytic Acid you can “soak” your flour or you can “sprout” whole grains.
You are right that flour, already ground, cannot sprout. It would need to be soaked in an acidic medium like mentioned above to take care of the Phytic Acid.
You can make “sprouted flour” by sprouting the wheat/spelt berry (the whole grain) first, drying at low temp in dehydrator (105 degrees F) and then grinding into flour. This sprouted flour does not need to be soaked like regular flour as the Phytic Acid has been neutralized.
OK, got it! Thanks!
Hi,
I have found out a lot I didn’t know, in all the lessons so far. Fancy Nativa having not being pure Stevia! It has no ill effect on us (so far) so is it then OK to use?
I was given a plastic container with layers, for growing your own sprouts. It will be just the thing,stop and use or dry when they just peep out the seed cases! I was given a dehydrator last Christmas, so far so good. I bought some spelt flour, how much do you use in a recipe that gives quantities for cake flour? Same or lightly less?
Thanks 🙂
I did a search and could not find the Stevia product your were speaking of. So I cannot really comment on that — I would just look at the ingredinets and if it has anything in it other than Stevia Rebaudiana (such as dextrose, xylitol, erythritol, isomaltulose, etc.) I would avoid it.
Spelt flour works well in most recipes, but since it is considered a “whole grain/wheat” flour it may take some getting used to. We enjoy it in all things from cakes to breads. As far as cake flour is concerned it is totally different. Cake flour is a special hybridized type of wheat along with corn starch added to make it light and fluffy in texture. So using spelt flour in those recipes would need some adjusting.
I’ve heard that unless you mill your own grains to make flour, what you buy in the store has very little nutritional value (even whole wheat). Is soaking still beneficial if using store bought flour? Or if I mill my own, do I still have to soak it?
It is true that grinding your own grains is best for optimum nutrition. Though not everyone has the time nor money (to invest in a grain-mill) to incorporate it into their lives.
Buying flour from a good source is important and storing it in the freezer will help keep it fresh longer.
Regardless of using freshly ground flour or store-bought it is also important to soak the flour for optimum nutrition.
Should I also soak coconut flour since coconut is considered a nut? I’m grain free now indefinitely. Just trying to heal my system and prevent problems for the rest of the family.
So for coconut flour, almond flour pancakes should I also soak in buttermilk/acidic medium?
As far as I know, there is really no need to “soak” coconut flour before baking. Besides I don’t think the texture would stay the same. This also goes for almond flour. Yes raw almonds do need “soaking” before you consume them to remove Phytic Acid. This is why it is best to soak your almonds using this process and then make your own almond flour out of the “soaked & dried” nuts.
Thanks. I’m working on getting my dehydrator. I would like to use almond and hazelnut flour. I can tolerate some rice and corn, but I would prefer to avoid it for several weeks at a time (at least).
I am not new to “soaking”. I love to soak lentils. I start a large batch and the beginning of the week. By the end of the week I have lentils that are slightly spouted and they make a wonderful soup or just steam up and make as a salad.
Awesome Waggie! Soaking is a great way to take care of that Phytic Acid!
Very informative. Thank you.