Buckwheat
|
It is
believed that buckwheat was first domesticated in China. As it spread across Asia and
Europe during the centuries, it took a particularly strong hold in Russia where kasha is
popular. A relatively new grain, it hasn't been in cultivation for much more than a
thousand years. Saying it's a grain is a misstatement as it's not really a grain at all.
It's actually, technically, a fruit. It's a hardy plant that thrives in poor soil
conditions and continues to live through freezing temperatures, droughts and excess rain.
The unprocessed, three-sided buckwheat seed has a thick, hard
outer hull that must be mechanically removed before it's ready to eat which is the way
it's sold. After the seed has been de-hulled, the inner seed or groat has a light brown or
light green coloring and is so soft that it can be easily chewed. Having a distinctive,
pleasant, rich flavor all it's own, 100% buckwheat flour makes delicious pancakes. Mixed
with wheat flour, buckwheat makes great tasting biscuits, muffins and breads and can be
mixed up to 50% with wheat flour for making yeast breads. In Eastern Europe, the groats
are toasted and are known as kasha. Commercial food processors mix buckwheat flour with
other flours to make pancake mixes, breakfast cereals, breads and turkey stuffing. In
Europe, buckwheat groats are used whole in hot cereals and soups. They can also be boiled
until they become soft and fluffy and then eaten like rice. The Orient is the largest user
of North American grown buckwheat where it's used to make sorba noodles.
Whole grain buckwheat is an amazingly nutritious food. Even
though it's protein is relatively low at approximately 11%, the protein buckwheat does
have contains the eight essential amino acids and is one of the few "grains"
(remember that buckwheat isn't a grain at all) high in lysine. If you use half buckwheat
flour with your wheat flour, the buckwheat's amino acids will round out the limiting amino
acids in your wheat nicely, giving you a nearly perfect balance of the 8 essential amino
acids. This particular balance between half wheat and half buckwheat flour is much more
closely aligned to your dietary needs even than lean beef!!! It's also rich in many of the
B vitamins as well as the minerals; phosphorus, magnesium, iron, zinc, copper and
manganese. In addition to this, it's a good oil source of Linoleic acid, one of the two
essential fatty acids we must have to be healthy. Nutritionally speaking, buckwheat is a
truly impressive food.
Buckwheat contains rather volatile essential fats inside the
seed that aren't protected very well after the air-tight hull has been removed. It isn't a
good storing grain unless precautions are taken to remove the oxygen. Like brown rice,
oxygen makes the essential oils in the seed go rancid, giving it a bad taste and making it
unfit to eat. So, when storing buckwheat for long term storage, be sure you place it in
airtight containers and use oxygen absorber technology which should give it a long storage life.
The buckwheat plant is also very useful as honey bees love
it's flowers for making dark, rich flavored honey. And farmers also use it as a green
fertilizer. Just a couple of years ago, buckwheat hull pillows were the rage. You can
still find buckwheat hull pillows advertised in different catalogs. These pillows are
famous for providing a soft yet cool pillow that permits the skin next to the pillow to
breath.
Buckwheat is certainly a versatile plant and is definitely a
seed worth storing to round out the nutrition in your food supply - especially if you'd
prefer not to eat beans to get that lysine to augment your wheat.
Buckwheat Recipes:
- Over 100 Recipes at Soar
- http://inikwww.gfrecipes.com/buckwheat.txt
- http://cgi.fatfree.com/cgi-bin/fatfree/recipes.cgi?buckwheat+or+kasha
References: