Posts Tagged ‘gluten free’

Is Sprouted Grain Bread Good?

June 28th, 2010

For many people, bread is simply bread. It is white and it comes from the grocery store. It is used for sandwiches and toast, and little else. It is brand name and cheaply prices, pre-sliced and the less time you take to actually read the ingredients, the better off you’ll be.

Of course, most people who eat a raw food diet, or even a somewhat healthy diet, would not touch that bleached white bread with a ten foot bread knife. It is full of chemicals and artificial everything, as is as close to a nutritional wasteland as you can find in the pastry section of a supermarket.

Some people will simply switch to a different kind of bread – be it rye, whole wheat, or some other variation. But instead of looking for something else in the grocery store to fill the place of that phony bread, why not go a completely different – and incredibly healthy – direction and try to make your own sprouted grain bread.

Of course, the first question people will ask, when told about sprouted grain bread, is not questions about the preparation, the cost or ever a description of what exactly such a bread would look like. No, the first question, inevitably, is the question of just how good would bread like this taste?

Is sprouted bread good? If you are talking taste, then the answer is yes. Instead of consuming a baked mass of processed and bleached wheat that offers very little in the way of flavor or texture, a slice of sprouted bread is like the difference between a light bulb and the sun. Sprouted breads can be made from a single source of sprouted grain if you want a particular flavor, or from a variety of germinated nuts and seeds if you want to experience a variety within every bite.

If you are asking if sprouted grain bread is good for you, the answer once again is yes. The average mass-produced loaf of bread offers little in the way of nutrients, unless the producer has added in a few vitamins after the fact to try to make their product “health conscious”. Raw sprouted breads, on the other hand, have all of the vitamins and nutrients found in the young plants used to produce the bread. None have been killed off in the cooking process, and nothing good has been bleached away. Sprouted breads contain living food enzymes to aide in digestion and absorption; fiber to keep the body regular; and for those who suffer from wheat or gluten allergies, there are many forms of sprouted breads that can be eaten without fear of causing a negative reaction.

And if you are asking if sprouted grain bread is good for everyday use, the answer is a very big yes. This sort of homemade bread can be used for anything you would normally use bread for. You can make your own sandwiches for lunches, serve it with pasta at dinner, or load it up with homemade nut butter for a tasty snack any time of the day.

Health Benefits of Quinoa

June 24th, 2010

For a large percentage of the population, the grains in their daily diet consist of nothing more than wheat and rice. Sure, there are some variations within those categories, but most people simply stick to what they know. But for those who have stepped outside the box, grains like quinoa can have huge benefits for your overall health within a raw food diet.


Of course, technically speaking, quinoa is not actually a grain, as has more in common with beets and spinach than any of the grass-based crops. But the quinoa plant does produce edible seeds that can be used as a cereal replacement.

And there are plenty of reasons to use it as a replacement for your regular grains. Quinoa is gluten free, meaning that anyone suffering from gluten-related allergies can safely use quinoa in the meals. Even for those without allergies, quinoa is very easy for the body to digest and use, which makes it a better choice than other traditional grains. Quinoa seeds also have an incredibly high amount of protein by weight, making it nearly as nutritionally dense as a potato.

But the good news doesn’t stop there – quinoa also offers a host of other benefits that other grains do not. Quinoa is one of the most complete proteins available in a planted food, and provides you with amino acids that are simply not a part of grains like rice or wheat. It has nearly ten grams of dietary fiber per serving, and has a high concentration of important minerals, such as iron, magnesium and zinc, making it a great part of a high energy diet.

Quinoa does need a bit of work to prepare it for your plate. The seed itself has a bitter outer coating that first needs to be rinsed away. This bitterness is a warning, as the outer coating is slightly toxic in large doses. Some people can get a slight numbness of the mouth if they consume cooked but unwashed quinoa, but it would not be poisonous except in massive quantities. And the process to remove the outer coating is quite simple and very effective.

While most people will cook their quinoa as an alternative to rice, it is the raw preparation that truly brings out the best in this seed. Quinoa is a very fast germinator, which means that after just a few hours of soaking, the quinoa seed will begin to sprout, as compared to the overnight soaking that other, more popular grains require. These quinoa sprouts can be added to salads or raw sandwiches to take advantage of the germinated increase in vitamins and living food enzymes.

Additionally, the soaked seeds become soft enough to be consumed raw, and can be added to salads, sauces or eaten as a form of raw granola for breakfast, when mixed with raw agave syrup, almonds and fresh blueberries.

Oh, and one last tip for your first shopping expedition to get some quinoa for yourself. It may look like is should be pronounced “kwi-no-ah”, but the preferred pronunciation is actually “keen-wha”, with an emphasis on the first syllable.