Mineral and vitamin source

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Mineral and vitamin source

Grains are a very good source of magnesium, calcium, and

potassium.

Grains are a good source of chromium- necessary for

maintaining

normal glucose tolerance (low chromium intakes are very

common in

the industrialized diet, and over the long term this

chromium

deficiency may contribute to onset of type 2 diabetes

mellitus, or

middle-age diabetes). Legumes are a useful source of

these

minerals. Seeds in general are excellent sources of

B-complex

vitamins and vitamin E.

 

Two of the most critical nutrients for humans are folic

acid,

essential for normal cell division, immune response and

correct

developement of the fetus in the womb; and thiamine,

vitamin B1,

essential for metabolising the carbohydrates in seeds,

nuts, and

tubers. Legumes, interestingly, are particularly rich

sources of

both these fundamentally important elements.

 

Legumes are high in iron and B vitamins, particularly B6.

The iron

in beans is reasonably bioavailable, ranging from 53% to

76%,

depending on the variety. The iron levels also vary

between

cultivated varieties - the range is from about 50 to 150

micrograms/gram (dry weight). USDA Agriculture Research

Station

experiments have also shown that once cooked, there is no

relationship between phytate or tannin concentrations and

the amount

of iron that is bioavailable. Researchers in Japan are

currently

working to genetically engineer legume iron carrying

protein

(ferritin) into rice, which, it is estimated, would

enable a typical

rice meal to supply from 30-50% of daily dietary iron

needs. Sesame

seeds are rich in calcium and in vitamin E, altho' when

hulled the

calcium analysis drops off.

 

Fibre source

Whole grains have a lot of 'woody' (for want of a better

description) fibre in their seed coat which help

regulates bowel

activity. What is less well known is that many also

contain soluble

fibre, which also has positive health benefits. The

soluble and

insoluble fiber in seeds is known to be helpful in

preventing

constipation and diseases of the digestive tract such as

diverticulitis. It is also suspected that fiber may have

a

protective effect against colon cancer. Oats contain

quite high

amounts of soluble fiber, as does barley, and to a lesser

extent,

wheat. Legumes high in soluble fiber are lentils, pinto

beans, and

black beans. Legumes are also an excellent source of

insoluble

fiber. The fiber content of legumes slows the digestion

of their

carbohydrates content, regulating blood sugar levels.

Place in a human-natural diet

Carbohyrate source

Whole grains are made of a rich starch store (the

endosperm)

comprising from 60- 80% of the seed (depending on the

species and

variety), the embryo plant (the germ) rich in protein and

fats and

vitamins and comprising only about 3% of the seed, and

the seed

coat, the bran, which is where most of the B vitamins

(and many of

the minerals) are. At 80% carbohydrate, seeds are, like

tubers, an

excellent fuel for daily activity. And whole seeds

contain the B1

vitamin necessary for carbohydrate metabolism. Grains are

relatively 'slow burners', so they don't push up your

blood sugar

levels and then suddenly drop them - they tend to keep

blood sugars

relatively stable.

 

Protein source

 

Wheat has about 8-15% protein, depending

on the variety (ancient wheats had a higher protein

content),

rice

has a low content, at 7%. So grains in general are

perhaps best

regarded primarily as an energy and vitamin and mineral

source.

 

Source of fats, including essential fatty acids

The oils in oily seeds are an excellent energy source,

and when

eaten as part of the whole seed are slowly parcelled out

into the

blood stream over a period of hours. While oily seeds are

a

concentrated source of calories, like any calory

containing (or

convertable) food, their calories are only stored as fat

when we eat

more calories than we need for energy. Otherwise, the

oils and

carbohydrate are burnt in the furnace of active life.

 

Legumes from which oil is extracted, such as organic

peanuts (40-59%

oil

content) and soya beans, obviously have a high oil

content (some non

leguminous seeds, such as sesame seeds also have a high

oil content -

sesame has between 45% and 60%) . When whole seeds are

eaten, it is

suspected that the oil portion is very slowly released

and

metabolised, preserving and enhancing both stable energy

levels and

favorable blood fat chemistry (the effect on blood fat

profile of

consuming the expressed oils can be quite different).

Whole peanuts

have been found to be particularly helpful in maintaining

energy

levels in times of sustained exertion, such as playing

soccer.

 

Two kinds of fats, 'omega-3' and 'omega-6' are essential

for various

body functions, and have to be obtained from the food we

eat, as the

human body can't synthesise them from other dietary fats.

While

omega-6 fatty acids are quite pervasive in the Western

diet, Omega-3

is not. Linolenic acid, an omega-3 fat, is found in flax

seeds,

soya beans, and pumpkin seeds. Flaxseeds (linseed) is a

very rich

source of omega-3 fatty acids, with about 18.1% omega-3

content.

 

The very oily seeds of the Perilla plant ('Korean

sesame'), Perilla

frutescens are also a rich source of linolenic acid.

 

Hormone regulatory effect in women

Naturally occurring plant substances, particularly in

legumes, have

been shown to have a weak hormonal effect. Given our long

evolutionary association with legumes, one must wonder if

this

effect hasn't become integrated into our genetic

biochemical

background.

 

Flax oil, in particular, is said to be 'estrogenic', that

is it can

attach itself to cellular estrogen receptors. This plant

derived

source of 'plant estrogen' may be helpful for

postmenopausal women

showing signs of hormone deficiency, such as atrophy and

thinning of

the vaginal walls. The natural lignans in as little as 10

grams of

ground whole flaxseed (daily intake) have been shown to

reduce two

forms of estrogen associated with breast cancer risk -

estrone

sulfate and estradiol - in the blood of postmenopausal

women.

Soybeans also have a weak estrogenic effect, and are also

believed

to be protective against breast cancer risk.

 

Whole grains in general are suspected to help regulate

estrogen

levels in the body, through their natural plant estrogens

(phytoestrogens) content, and through an effect of their

fiber

content. The fibre 'lignan' in grains has been found to

be weakly

estrogenic.

 

Hormonally potent forms of estrogen (estradiol and

estrone) are

naturally metabolised in the liver to a less active form

(estriol).

This metabolite is eliminated into the bile, which

empties into the

digestive tract. The fibre in seeds binds to this estrogen,

and it

is removed from the body. There is some suggestion that

without

sufficient fibre, this estriol is altered by gut bacteria

to the

more potent forms and re-absorbed, altering the ratios of

the forms

of estrogen in the blood. There is some suggestion that

such

inbalances of the 'estrogen profile' may tend to

predipose such a

woman to pre-menstrual syndrome, fibroids, heavier

menstrual

bleeding, and maybe even breast cancer.

 

Soybeans are filled with natural plant estrogens (or

phytoestrogens)

called bioflavonoids. Certain bioflavonoids are weak

estrogens,

having 1/50,000 the potency of a dose of synthetic

estrogen. As weak

estrogens, these compounds bind to estrogen receptors and

act as a

substitute form of estrogen in the body. They compete

with the more

potent estrogens made by a woman's body for these cell

receptor

sites. As a result, bioflavonoids can help to regulate

estrogen

levels.

 

After menopause, estrogen levels drop, and dietary

sources of

estrogen may have an important role in the female body.

In Japan,

where phytoestrogen rich soybeans are a common part of

the diet

(altho' only around 4-5 grams of soyabeans per day are

eaten, on the

average), only 10-15% of women experience menopause

symptoms, where

80- 85% of European and North American women (and who eat

a

standard western diet) do experience symptoms at

menopause. A recent

study found postmenopausal US women had only around 5% of

the

phytoestrogen intake of their Asian counterparts - and

almost all

that small intake was from lignans in fruit.

 

Some people assert that the early onset of puberty in

girls in the

West is 'caused by' the soya component of food. However,

Asian

girls, who eat similar or higher amounts of soy do not

have early

puberty. The much simpler and more obvious explaination

is that the

calorie rich Western diet both brings the body mass up to

the

critical 45kg that allows the onset of menstruation much

earlier,

and that the intricate glucose metabolism/sex hormone

synthesis

mechanism has been made potentially partly dysfunctional

by

evolutionary inappropriate dieatary composition and it's

concommitant unusual metabolic pathways (unusual compared

to the

biochemical compostion of the food that was presented to

our

metabolic pathways over the last million years or so) .

 

In a recent study menopausal women were asked to

supplement their

diet with a phytoestrogen containing food - soy flour,

flax seed

oil, or red clover sprouts. The soy flour and flax oil

(only)

significantly prevented the vaginal mucosa from thinning

and drying;

but the effect of eliminating these foods caused the

mucosa to

return to the previous menopausal thinning and drying.

 

In yet another study, post-menopausal women with bad

blood fat

profiles were split into two groups, with one group given

bread and

muffins made with flax seeds, the other group foods made

with

sunflower seeds. After six weeks, they switched seeds for

another 6

weeks. The flaxseed lowered the 'bad' LDL cholesterol by

25 mg/dL (a

14.7% reduction) and levels of a protein called

'lipoprotein (a)',

by 0.07 mm/L. Artificial estrogen supplements lower

levels of this

particular protein, 'lipoprotein (a)', but this is the

first study

to demonstrate that diet can also reduce the levels,

possibly due to

the weakly estrogenic lignans (according to the

researchers).

 

The importance of this is that when estrogen levels drop

off after

menopause, the increase in lipoprotein (a) (in woman

eating a

western, industrial diet) oxidizes LDL cholesterol,

making it more

dangerous, and increases both clotting and cholesterol

deposition on

artery walls.

 

Other studies have found a relationship between the

levels of

phytoestrogen in the blood and both 'cardiac favorable'

blood fat

biochemistry and artery 'reboundability'; an indicator of

arterial

health. (This relationship of better cardiac health

indicators and

phytoestrogen levels in the blood was found to be

independant of

both the bodies own naturally produced estrogen levels

and

additional estrogen from hormone replacement therapy)

 

Perhaps older women were good legume gatherers in our

evolutionary

past. Perhaps menopausal and older woman are biologically

dependant

on external sources of estrogen - from legumes - in the

same way as

males and females are dependant on vitamin C from

external

sources...?

 

General Protective effects

Eating substantial amounts of soybeans and soybean

products has been

linked to a lower incidence of breast cancer in Japanese

women, and

in Japanese men, lower mortality from prostate cancer.

A recent study in USA of diet and heart disease in older

women

showed that one daily serving of whole grains - as cereal

or

wholegrain bread - cut the risk of death from ischemic

heart disease

death by nearly a third. Eating refined grains (for

example white

bread) didn't have a protective effect. When the

protective effect

of fiber, phytic acid and vitamin E were factored out,

there was

still a protective effect. The researchers speculate that

it may be

due to an as yet undiscovered phytochemical in grains,

perhaps

working together synergistically with the other

protective plant

compounds and forms of vitamin E in the seed.

 

The most important anti-oxidant we normally think of is

vitamin E.

Yet there may be other anti-oxidants in some grains that

are just as

powerful. Oat flour, for example, has long been known for

it's anti-

oxidant properties - to the extent it used to be used as

a component

of such things as 'ready-mix' cakes, in order to slow

oxidative

deterioration of the mix.

 

In a study where men and women ate a controlled diet,

with one group

getting 1,000 calories of their daily maintainence

requirements from

oats, and the other getting 1,000 calories from wheat,

the people

who used oats for energy dropped their blood levels of

low-density

lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL or " bad "

cholesterol) by 23 mg/per

deciliter, and the wheat eaters dropped LDL by 13 mg/dL.

In

addition, at the end of the six week study period, the

oat eaters

lowered their systolic blood pressure by 7 millimeters of

mercury,

and the wheat eaters showed a lowering of 2 mm/Hg. The

reseachers

speculate that the bood chemistry improvement and lower

blood

pressure are due to the soluble fibre. Oats contain more

soluble

fibre than wheat. They speculate that the soluble fiber

slows down

the rate of both digestion and absorbtion, slowing the

release of

insulin, high rates of release of which is implicated in

blood

pressure rise in some people. There may also be 'unidentified

factors' in oats which have a beneficial effect on blood

vessels.

 

Women eating a diet that included 1.3 'servings' of

'whole grains'

had about a 30 to 40% lower risk rate of ischemic stroke,

relative

to the women whose 'normal' intake was a half a serving

of whole

grains per day. So boosting intake of natural grains to

even one

serving per day has a powerful stroke protective effect.

What

particular attribute of grains in gneral, or their effect

on

metabolism, that is so helpful isn't known. But some

useful chemical

constituents have been identified.

 

Plants contain a class of common natural chemicals

called 'Isoprenoids'. They help regulate such things as

seed

germination, and plant growth. Grain seeds contain an

isoprenoid

called 'gamma-tocotrienol', chemically somewhat similar

to vitamin

E. Laboratory experiments on the growth of human leukemia

and breast

cancer cell lines showed that the cancer lines growth was

three

times slower compared to a normal human cell culture

which received

the same dose of isoprenoid. The important point is that

the

experiment used a dose of isoprenoids that anyone might

be able to

be obtain from eating a standard natural diet.

 

Recent (1998) research has shown that nitric oxide in the

body has a

protective effect on the integrity of the blood vessels.

An amino

acid, arginine, is the main source of nitric oxide in the

body.

Peanuts, sesame seeds and sunflower seeds are the richest

sources of

arginine, along with meat and nuts. The arginine content of

wild

legumes and nuts in the African and Asian ancestral

environment has

not been reported (except for the Southern African

manketti nut,

which has the highest concentration of all, with 3.5

mg/100 mg -

peanuts are the next highest with 2.8mg/100 grams).

Arginine is said

to also be useful in treating some cases of 'penile

hypotumescence'.

Ahem.

 

The natural 'phytochemicals' known as 'phenols' and

'polyphenols'

are hypothesized to be responsible for reducing the risk

of cancers

in people who eat sufficient fruit and vegetables. The

various kinds

of polyphenols have a variety of protective modes of

action -

carcinogen compound blocking, antioxidant and free

radical

scavenging, and tumour proliferation repression. While

the phenols

in fruit, black tea, red wine, and vegetables are well

known, few

know that in fact barley, at 1,200 to 1,500mg/100gms, and

some forms

of sorghum, (at up to 10,260mg/100 grams) have by far the

highest

amounts of any foods -other than dried figs (around

1,000mg per

100grams of product).

 

Domestication of Seeds

People are quick to seize new technologies - that is a

major reason

we are so successful. So the initial wild grasses and

legumes that

had already been domesticated acted as a sort of

'pre-emptive

strike' against the domestication of other perfectly

edible wild

species. Once the advantages of growing these 'new

technology' seeds

was apparent, wild harvesting (and thus the possibility

of

domestication) of other equally promising species

effectively ended.

That is why we eat dried peas, Pisum sativum, and not the

equally

good, closely related species Pisum fulvum. The same

effect

prevented any of the other numerous edible relatives of

flax,

barley, lentils, or chickpeas being domesticated. It's

not that they

weren't good enough. They just weren't first.

Domestication of seeds meant that on average, vastly more

people

could live per square kilometre than if the same space

was used for

gathering and hunting. Increased births resulted in

pressure for

more land, more forest was cleared for seeds, and

continues to be

cleared today.

 

'Millets'

This is a slightly dismissive term used by European

colonialists to

describe predominantly African and Asian grains that

Europeans

themselves didn't ordinarily eat. It includes 'common' or

'broom-

corn' millet Panicum miliaceum, the shiny seed usually

fed to

budgies in the west; 'foxtail millet' Setaria viridis

var. italica,

an Asian species domesticated in China for at least 2,500

years and

used in the west primarily as 'millet sprays' for your

budgie cage

(a native middle Americas species, S. parviflora, was

almost

domesticated by 3,500 years ago, but was abandoned as

maize

emerged) ; 'Japanese millet' Echinochloa frumentacea a

very fast

maturing grass seed widespread in many climatic zones of

South East

Asia; but not much now used; 'pearl' or 'bulrush millet'

Pennisetum

typhoides a white seeded millet on a bulrush-like head,

which,

unlike bulrushes, is adapted to semi arid areas and

probably

originated in the Sudan or immediate sub Saharan Africa ;

'finger

millet' Eleusine coracana, a species native to tropical

east Africa,

is a short stemmed, dry land adapted, millet with

excellent storage

characteristics and an outstanding mineral content, and

is still a

staple in parts of central and eastern Africa; and

'sorghum' Sorghum

bicolor, from Ethiopia a relatively large seeded drought

resistant

millet that doesn't keep well. It was probably

domesticated in

Ethiopia or Central Africa, initially maybe around 5,000

years ago,

and carried to West Africa, perhaps 3,000 years ago,

where it was

further developed by the Mande people, especially the

high quality

white seeded forms (red grained types are bitter).

 

Various species of Panicum, or 'panic' grasses, are

indiginous to

Africa. In South East Africa, possibly the cradle of the

human

species, there are at least seven species- Panicum

aequinerve, P.

deustum, P. ecklonii, P. hymeniochilum, P. maximum,

P. natalense, and P. subalbidum. Westerners who chose to

eat a

primarily grain and seed based diet consider Panicum the

most

digestible of all seeds, and the best suited to human

nutrition.

Given our long evolutionary association with this grass

seed, it is

not suprising.

 

'Millet' farming has been dated to 7,500 years ago in

Northern

China, so it seems likely that consumption of wild

millets has been

going on for many millenia prior to that date in Asia.

 

These grains are primarily dry-land adapted, are

generally low

yielding, but very tough. They don't have the high

productivity of

temperate grains such as wheat, and are much smaller

seeded (except

for sorghum). But they make life possible in drought

prone,

difficult areas.

 

Presumably Europeans don't eat millet because it has no

gluten and

can't be made into a bread.

 

Finger Millet, Eleusine coracana - A very good page

covering the

origin, distribution, nutrient analysis, ecology and

more.

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/duke_energy/Eleusine_coracana.html

 

 

Finger Millet, Eleusine coracana - an online

re-presentation of the

section on finger millet in 'Lost Crops of Africa: Volume

I:

Grains' (1996), including an outline drawing of the

seeding plant.

http://books.nap.edu/books/0309049903/html/38.html

 

Foxtail millets, Setaria sp. - an Iowa State University

page on

their weed potential also has put up good photographs of

the seed

heads-foxtail millet S. viridis var. Italica;

yellow foxtail S.

glauca; knotweed, S. parviflora; giant foxtail S. faberi

; and

Bristly foxtail

S. verticillata

http://www.agron.iastate.edu/~weeds/Ag317-99/id/WeedID/Ffox.html