How to Cook Whole Grains

Yeast Free Diet |Protein Rich Foods

With wheat being one of the most consumed foods in the country, it can be difficult to find a dietary substitute without the adverse effects that grains can have on you. Still, it’s not impossible. There are plenty of options out there that take away the bad elements of wheat but still deliver the vitamins and proteins one gets from consuming grain; plus, they’re tasty too!

 Wheat is one of the most highly acid-forming grains and can cause allergic reactions in people who consume it often. Whole grains are ‘whole foods’ because they contain fats, vitamins, proteins, minerals, fiber and carbohydrates.  Because whole grains contain both protein and carbohydrates, they can be eaten without causing trouble in your stomach whereas eating a protein from nuts and carbohydrates from bread together can upset your stomach. Our bodies can easily adjust to the whole grains but when two foods (ex: nuts and bread are eaten with different or opposite digestive needs) this adjustment isn’t as easy for our bodies. Grains are easier to digest and more nutritionally complete when consumed in whole form rather than refined. Most grains are warming foods and are best eaten with cooling, alkaline forming vegetables to best insure digestive and metabolic balance.

When boiling grains on the stove top in whole form, they should be washed well, drained, then soaked in purified water for 2-3 hours, or overnight, before cooking. You can also toast the grain until golden brown in an oven or a dry pan over a medium flame before boiling. This toasting process converts much of the starch content into simple sugars, making the cooked grain easier to digest and less acid-forming in the stomach. The chart below gives you the cooking times for a few popular gluten-free grains.

GRAIN

COOKING TIME

DRY AMOUNT

WATER

COOKED AMOUNT

Brown Rice

40 min.

1 cup

2 cups

2 1/2 cups

Wild Rice

60 min.

1 cup

4 cups

3 1/2 cups

Buckwheat

20 min.

1 cup

5 cups

3 cups

Millet

30 min.

1 cup

2 cups

3 1/2 cups

 

You can also use whole grains by grinding them into flour and baking bread. Today, the bread sold in the food stores is made with baker’s yeast, which ruins the bread’s nutritional value and causes allergic reactions and Candida in people who are sensitive to yeast. Yeast also renders the magnesium and calcium in the flour insoluble and therefore unavailable to the body. Magnesium and calcium are two of the most important minerals required for our health and they play a huge role in alkalizing our bodies and in our detox process as well. Whole grains are one of the best sources of these essential nutrients. Even if you purchase bread from quality organic grains, if the dough is leavened with yeast, it robs the body of an important source of magnesium and calcium and makes the bread even more acid forming in our digestive tract.

When eating grains, be sure to chew well before you swallow. Chewing grains saturates the starch with enzymes from your salivary glands in the mouth-without which the grains cannot be properly digested in the stomach. When grains are eaten too quickly without being chewed well, they ferment in your gut and produce acid indigestion and gas rather than being digested in your stomach.

Amie's
#1 Best-Selling Cookbook

Over 200 vegetarian recipes free of gluten, dairy, soy, sugar, eggs, peanuts, corn and other inflammatory foods.

Order Your Copy
Previous Post Ribbon Butternut Squash & Kale Salad {Pl...
Next Post How to Compost at Home...
  • Share