Using Whole Grains
(Page 2 of 4)
March/April 1984
By Mother Earth News editors
REFINING GOES AGAINST THE GRAIN
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As you Riobably know, refined grain—subiquitous in commercially prepared food—sconsist of little more than the starch that's left after the whole grain is processed, with artificial vitamins added to "enrich" the otherwise all-but-impotent product. In refining, you see, the outer hull, or bran, and the endosperm—the two most nutritious, fibrous, and generally beneficial parts of grain-are stripped away in order to produce an even-textured, spoilage-resistant shelf product. Then, to render it attractively white, the flour is bleached.
And, you may ask, just how long has this nutrition-robbing refining been used against the public health? Well, for most folks, refined flour has only been accessible since the industrial revolution, when machinery was developed with which to perform the refining chores economically. Before that—because the grain had to be handprocessed at considerable expense—only the rich and privileged were "blessed" with the pretty white flour that rises so nicely and keeps so well.
On the other hand, for thousands of years the staple foods of humankind have been derived from natural, whole grains. Consequently, a number of healthful dietary combinations of whole grains and their nutritional complements have been developed. For example, Europeans have long enjoyed eating rye bread with cheeses, while Africans mix sorghum or millet with peanuts or beans. In Mexico and the American Southwest, a favorite meal is based on corn tortillas and beans, and the Algonquian natives of the eastern North American woods used the same ingredients—corn and beans—to "invent" succotash. In fact, the staple crops of almost all agrarian Indians of the Americas have always been the "three sisters"—corn, beans, and squash—sometimes with the addition of sunflowers, which were raised for their seeds. And, of course, folks in the Orient are partial to rice, soybeans, and millet.
GETTING THE GRIST OF IT
Finding whole grains shouldn't be difficult, no matter where you live . . . though chances are slim that you'll see them on the shelves of your neighborhood supermarket. Food co-ops, health food stores, and feed-and-grain outlets can all be counted on to carry a variety of them. And if you're really interested in saving money, you might even buy your grains in bulk quantities and grind them yourself. (For most grain-cooking applications that don't require flour, a regular blender is all the "mill" that you'll need.) Whole grains stored in a cool, dry place usually keep for about a year. But as soon as they're refined—ground to make flour, for example—the oils and endosperm are exposed to oxygen, and the processes of decay begin . . . so it's best to grind whole grains only as they're needed.
