Why Whole Wheat is Way Better

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Of course, if fiber were the only reason to eat whole grains, you might not need a home grain mill. You could simply buy ground-up trees, add flavoring and sprinkle the result on your sundaes and pizzas. So, let’s look briefly at other health benefits available to home millers:

Minerals. Discarding wheat bran (the outer seed coat) results in significant losses of calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorous, potassium, zinc, copper, manganese, selenium, and all of the trace minerals located only in the bran. The government’s “enrichment” program adds back only one of these: iron.

Vitamins. Those supplied in significant quantities by cereal grains are thiamin (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3), pyridoxine (B6), folate, pantothenic acid and vitamin E. These vitamins are concentrated in either the germ or bran of grain, so commercial milling routinely reduces their presence. The progressive decline in our consumption of leafy green vegetables and legumes has exacerbated B-vitamin losses caused by white flour refining.

Enzymes. A kernel of grain contains hundreds or thousands of enzymes, making it difficult to know what they all do, let alone how they interact with other enzymes or micronutrients in the complex chemical laboratory of the human body. If certain enzymes prove to be more heavily concentrated in the germ and bran of grain (as vitamins and minerals are), the discarding of these important grain parts by commercial millers must certainly result in similar losses of enzymes.

Phytochemicals. Scientists have recently focused their microscopes on several categories of compounds that occur naturally in plant foods, and evidence is accumulating that many of them have positive effects on human health. In addition to fiber, phytochemicals include, for example, allyl sulfides in onions, garlic, leeks and chives, isoflavones in soybeans and phenolic acids in tomatoes, citrus fruits, carrots, whole grains and nuts. Again, to get these compounds, you must eat foods whole.

Good Carbs, Bad Carbs

Unfortunately, the current low-carbohydrate diet rage has resulted in the mistaken idea that all carbohydrates are “bad.” Let’s clear up this mistaken-iden-tity problem.

Metabolically, all carbohydrates are chains of sugar that are broken down at different rates during digestion and delivered to the blood as glucose (also called blood sugar). Glucose stimulates the pancreas to release enough insulin to transport the glucose throughout the body for use or storage. When its delivery job is done, insulin recedes and a hunger signal goes out for more food.

The key difference between what are called complex and simple carbohydrates is the rate at which they are digested. Unrefined complex carbohydrates such as whole grains, beans, peas and legumes are considered good carbs because their fiber slows down digestion, thus delivering a slow, steady supply of glucose to the blood. The glycemic index, a system developed to measure this rate, as well as a more complex measurement called glycemic load, can be found at www.glycemicindex.com.

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