Page 36 - Spring2010

When legumes comprise a large portion of consuming with plenty of butter and vitamin C-rich foods should suffice.
the diet, one needs to go to extra steps to make
beans healthy to eat. Beans should usually have BREAD
hull and bran removed. Adding a phytase-rich Bread can only be called the staff of life if it has undergone careful
medium to beans would help eliminate the preparation; otherwise bread can be the road to an early grave.
phytic acid in beans. Adding yeast, or effective For starters, the flour used in bread should be stone ground. Wheat
micororganisms, or kombu seaweed may greatly and rye contain high levels of phytase, but this is destroyed by the heat of
enhance the predigestive process of the beans. industrial grinding, and also lessens over time. Fresh grinding of wheat
One website suggests using a starter containing or rye berries before use will ensure that the original amount of phytase
effective microorganisms and cultured molasses remains in the flour.
for soaking beans. 55 Rye has the highest level of phytase in relation to phytates of any
At a minimum, beans should be soaked for grain, so rye is the perfect grain to use as a sourdough starter. Phytates
twelve hours, drained and rinsed several times in wheat are greatly reduced during sourdough preparation, as wheat is
before cooking, for a maximum of thirty-six also high in phytase. Yeast rising bread may not fully reduce phytic acid
hours. Cooking with a handful of green weed levels. Phytate breakdown is significantly higher in sourdough bread than
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leaves, such as dandelion or chickweed, can in yeasted bread.
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improve mineral assimilation. Yet even with the highly fermentable rye, a traditional ancient recipe
from the French calls for removal of 25 percent of the bran and coarse
TUBERS substances. As an example of this practice, one small bakery in Canada
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Sweet potatoes and potatoes contain little sifts the coarse bran out of the flour before making it into bread.
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phytic acid but yams and other starchy staples
contain levels of phytate that we cannot ignore. OATS
The phytic acid content of arrowroot is unknown, Oats contain very little phytase, especially after commercial heat
but it may contain a significant amount. These treatment, and require a very long preparation period to completely reduce
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foods should be fermented—as they usually are phytic acid levels. Soaking oats at 77 degrees F for 16 hours resulted in no
in traditional cultures—if they are a staple in reduction of phytic acid, nor did germination for up to three days at this
the diet. For occasional eating, cooking well and temperature. However, malting (sprouting) oats for five days at 52 degrees
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PHYTATES IN BRAN

A survey of indigenous dishes shows that the bran is consistently removed from a variety of grains. The only excep-
tion seems to be beer. Traditional beer production—involving soaking, germination, cooking and fermentation—removes
phytic acid and releases the vitamins from the bran and germ of grains.
The traditional method for preparing brown rice is to pound it in a mortar and pestle in order to remove the bran.
The pounding process results in milled rice, which contains a reduced amount of the bran and germ. Experiments have
verified the fact that milled rice, rather than whole brown rice, results in the highest mineral absorption from rice.
The idea we should eat bran is based on the idea of “not enough.” We somehow believe that grains without the
bran do not provide enough nutrients. But solving the problem of a lack of bioavailable minerals in the diet may be more
a question of soil fertility than of consuming every single part of the grain. A study of the famous Deaf Smith County
Texas, the “town without a toothache”—because of their mineral-rich soil producing fabulous butter fat—found that its
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wheat contained six times the amount of phosphorus as normal wheat. In this case, wheat minus the bran grown in
rich soils will have significant amounts or even more phosphorus compared to wheat with the bran grown in poor soil.
Low nutrient content in food seems to be better solved by focusing on soil fertility, rather than trying to force something
not digestible into a digestible form.
There are many studies in which researchers have tried to find out how to make the bran of different grains digestible
and to provide additional nutrition. But small additions of phosphorus- and calcium-rich dairy products, such as milk and
cheese, or phosphorous-rich meat will make up for the moderate reductions in mineral intakes from grains without the
bran. In one study, the calcium, magnesium, phosphorous and potassium in diets made up with 92 percent flour (almost
whole wheat) were less completely absorbed than the same minerals in diets made up with 69 percent flour (with a
significant amount of bran and germ removed). This study involved yeasted bread. With sourdough bread, the phytate
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content of bran will be largely reduced if a phytase-rich starter is used and the flour is fermented at least twenty-four
hours.
36 Wise Traditions SPRING 2010