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Transcript

Kevin: Hey, Michelle, how's it going?

Michelle: I'm great, Kevin. I'm just coming off of an incredible high.

Kevin: Oh, that sounds good.

Michelle: Not that kind of high. So you know, and some of the listeners may know that I'm a project management professional in another aspect of my life, and for the last 14 months or so, I've been supporting primary care in Middlesex, London. And so I had the privilege of running an educational conference for primary care, which includes family physicians, nurse practitioners, and other health disciplines that support primary care. And we were focusing on chronic disease prevention and management. So we got to give them some education on the prevention side on lifestyle medicine, which includes diet and lifestyle intervention. So I was in my element and so happy. We brought in expert keynote speakers and we also had some other activities for the day. It was just a great day. Just a really great day. And it's something that I've always wanted to do is to try to, you know, have my worlds collide. Of course.

Kevin: And that's a big collision right there.

Michelle: Yeah. Oh, my gosh. It was just like if everybody just really had a great time and great content. So because, you know, nutrition and lifestyle isn't really taught in medical school. So you as a family practitioner in particular, like there's so much that they have to learn, so much they have to know, so much they have to do that unless they take a special interest or get exposed in it for some reason to, you know, going more deep into nutrition evidence and how it can benefit. They don't they aren't taught that it's not in the board exam.

Kevin: It's not their fault. It's just how the system works. Yeah.

Michelle: Right. And that's what the whole sort of movement around lifestyle medicine and getting a board certification on lifestyle medicine is all about. It's about addressing that and it's it's kind of become a subspecialty for those that do it. So, yeah, I mean, I have mad, mad respect for family doctors. Yes, they you know, they have the hardest job in the world and you know, a little bit about everything. Oh, yeah.

Kevin: And they have to be the toughest because they can't specialize. They have to know. But they're expected to know everything, right? Everything basically.

Michelle: Yeah. And they and on top of all that medical knowledge, they have to be expert relationship managers. They have to be counselors. They have to be sensitive to so many different, you know, aspects of the population and and, you know, marginalized populations and how that impacts them. And yeah, that's so much. And they're just like wonderful human beings that care so deeply. I just I'm so happy.

Kevin: Amazing. So what do you have for us this week?

Michelle: Well, I get a lot of questions about grains, you know, which which, you know, should grains be in my diet, not in my diet, because, you know, there's that wheat belly book out there. OK.

Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Michelle: And then there's, you know, which grains are the best. So I thought I would do just, you know, a little bit of a dive into grains today and just demystify this and we'll do it at a at an awesome new level.

Kevin: I love it because I love grains. So I'm curious to see if some of my favorites make it onto the the top 10 grain list. Yeah.

Michelle: Well, I love starting there because we're not going to you know, we're going to rank them in terms of a hierarchy. So it's not like it's not like we're saying there's anything that you can't eat, I guess, unless it's heavily processed. But it's about the order of, you know, kind of like we said, you know, fresh, frozen, canned, like when it comes to vegetables.

Kevin: So we're going to do the same sort of approach with exactly because I think we've learned if if nothing else, we've learned through this process that nutrition is not an exact science to the point that X food is better than Y food, because you have to look at the entire ecosystem and your body and what else you're eating with it. And variety is the spice of life and all that. So it's not like there's this one superfood that you can eat nonstop and you'll be incredibly healthy forever.

Michelle: There's no magic food, just like there's no magic pill. Right. And we're about progress, not perfection. We, Kevin and Michelle, live in the real world.

Kevin: We do. I certainly do. Yes.

Michelle: OK. OK, so let's dive in. So, you know, my sort of frame of reference or what I like, something I really, really like and makes a lot of sense to me is a concept of the whole grain hierarchy that was developed by Brenda Davis, registered dietitian. She's a famous Canadian. I've mentioned her before. So her ranking is that the more than a grain is processed, the lower its nutritional value and the higher its glycemic index. So because, you know, and this is an important topic because whole grains provide half of the world's protein and fiber for most people. Right. So they, you know, good quality grains are a rich source of numerous vitamins and minerals. So B vitamins, vitamin E, like most of the minerals, lots of phytochemicals, which, you know, are really powerful compounds. And many of those phytochemicals are antioxidant compounds. And we do want to get away from that good food versus bad food. But there are certainly some that are better than others.

Kevin: Right. And just a reminder for our listeners, just you went back a little bit and you said the more processed a grain is, the higher the glycemic index. So just a reminder, the glycemic index, that's where...

Michelle: It's the rate at which we process the sugar. Right. So a high glycemic food, we absorb the sugar and we utilize it more quickly. And a lower glycemic index food will be more over a period of time. And it will... We won't spike. Anyway. We digress.

Kevin: Yes. As we always do.

Michelle: Okay. So, Kevin, before I... I mean, I always do this to you, I'm sorry. But before I dive right into the hierarchy, there is one fun fact that I'm willing to bet a majority of noobs don't know. And that when we say grains, we are often lumping in to that category, a bunch of things that aren't grains. But they're called pseudo grains. So some of those foods that we lump into the grain category or the whole grain category that technically aren't grains are things like quinoa, amaranth, and buckwheat. And I think of it the same way that I think about tea. Because we lump in chamomile and mint and stinging nettle and things like that as tea. But those actually technically aren't tea because they're part of a different botanical family. And that's the same thing with some of these other plants that we consume them like we consume grains, but they're technically part of another botanical family.

Kevin: They're just grain wannabes.

Michelle: They're grain-like.

Kevin: They're grain imitators. They're not real grains.

Michelle: Well, they're part of their own cool group, right?

Kevin: Okay. Okay. But the grains are cool for them. So they had to form these pseudo grains. They're pseudo grains.

Michelle: Yeah. So quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat. Some people lump wild rice into that pseudo grain category, but I think of wild rice as a type of rice.

Kevin: That likes to party. Yeah.

Michelle: Wild. Wild and crazy rice. But when we're talking about grains, we usually mean cereal grains. And they come from a grass family. And these other ones, these quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat, don't come from that same botanical family. So this grass family, or what we actually are really known as true grains, are from the family of grasses known as pocai, pocai family.

Kevin: Yeah. Pocai. Pocai. Okay.

Michelle: So the cereal grains, or the pocai grains, are wheat, rice, corn, or some people call it maize, barley, oats, and millet. Okay. Right. And now that family also includes the bamboos, and it also includes pasture grasses and turf. So you really think of it as a grass.

Kevin: Gotcha.

Michelle: And you think about, if you kind of go back, back, back, back, like these really do grow like grasses if you walk by a wheat field or a rice field, right, et cetera. So anyway, but that's kind of when, if some people go, well, actually quinoa is not a grain. Well, okay. Fine. Whatever.

Kevin: I'm going to... Have a cocktail party chatter.

Michelle: I'm going to cook it like a grain. I'm going to put it in my Instapot the same way I put rice in the Instapot, and I'm going to follow the exact same recipe.

Kevin: Tomato, tomato, potato, potato.

Michelle: Exactly. So there's absolutely no doubt that when we move our diet from a more heavily refined grain diet to more whole grains, less refined or completely unrefined, that we're going to get health benefits. I think most people understand that. In theory. I'm just not sure everybody knows which ones of these things on the grocery store shelf are actually the least processed.

Kevin: Right. Right.

Michelle: I mean, I think it's obvious if we pick up instant oatmeal, I think we kind of logically know instant oatmeal. Instant sounds like it probably we removed something to make it instant.

Kevin: Exactly. Or some of the grain mix. Sometimes you find grain mixes that are instant and also they've got a lot of flavors already added in.

Michelle: Right.

Kevin: And those seem very heavily processed as well.

Michelle: Usually you're increasing your risk of other things that really aren't food and really aren't supported.

Kevin: So it's better to season it at home exactly as you want it because you know exactly what's going into it.

Michelle: Right. So the type of grain is really, really important. And like all foods, there's like so many variations in the nutritional value of different grains, but they all bring something different to the table, which is why we also want to emphasize in this conversation. I don't want you to hear one thing and then latch onto that and say, I'm only going to eat brown rice from now on. We really want you to include that variety into your diet. Enjoy, like get used to or if you haven't really strayed too far from the same old, same old, I want you to experiment and bring different types of grains into your diet because you're going to get a lot of different benefits from different types of whole grains. So for example, whole grain rice is higher in vitamin E than most grains. Kamut is higher in selenium than other grains. Oats are higher than manganese and copper. Spelt is higher in zinc. Rye is higher in potassium. Wheat is higher in magnesium. And both wheat and oats are higher in iron. So they're all bringing something more to the table.

Kevin: Right. And different grains also, I mean, apart from nutrition, different grains will add different flavor profile to your food, different texture to your food. So texture especially, right? You wouldn't add oats to a salad, but quinoa or, you know, buckwheat, no problem.

Michelle: Yeah. Or wild rice or whatever, right?

Kevin: Or whatever. So yeah, it also depends on how you're using it.

Michelle: So the pseudo grains such as amaranth, buckwheat, quinoa, and they have, you know, they merely really mimic the culinary uses. So they can be used, right. They have tons and tons of benefits of their own and they're great substitutes. And also the pseudo grains are, I mean, some of the of the proceeds are gluten free, but the pseudo grains are inherently gluten free. So I mean, that's another reason why some people often start to explore more of those alternatives, because maybe they develop a sensitivity to gluten. So what is the differences between these? So there's different colors and different grains, right? And that like some people, if you're aiming for something to, you know, a certain appearance on your plate, that might be one reason, I suppose. Right. But just like with our other plants, the more colorful the grain, it usually contains more antioxidants and more phytochemicals, right? Because we are, that's how we are built. So for example, when you're looking at rice or quinoa or barley, red or black quinoa or red or black rice or black barley will contain more phytochemicals than beige quinoa or brown rice or regular barley. And they will also contain more than white, right?

Kevin: Right.

Michelle: So usually when we are unprocessing our diet, the first thing we get rid of is the whites. So white, white breads, white grains, white flours. Right. The next consideration is pesticides and heavy metal content. So when we associate pesticide exposure with conventionally grown fruits and vegetables, we can apply the same thing to grain because grains can also be a significant source of pesticide exposure and heavy metal exposure through their farming.

Kevin: Right.

Michelle: So although Canada, you know, our health agency and the USDA in the United States may test for grains, they do not include testing for glyphosate. Now, I've mentioned glyphosate before, but probably in passing. So glyphosate is one of the main constituents of the chemical we commonly may known as Roundup. And it's also there's also like a commercial agriculture version of that, aside from the version which we can still, to my shock and horror, still buy and put on our lawns and our sidewalks and things. And it's absolutely got a horrible impact on our gut health. Glyphosate is slowly boring holes in the digestive tracts of everyone because once it's sprayed on a field, it is a water soluble toxin. So it's soaked in and it gets into the groundwater and it goes down tributaries. And it so even though we can do the best that we can to avoid our exposures to those chemicals that are used on agricultural crops, we do get exposed to it. It's it's undeniable. So it is important for us to try to avoid exposures that are inside of our control because there are those that are outside of our control. Right. So none of that, none of those testing done by our health agencies includes glyphosate testing because it's not on their radar. So glyphosate is often used in the drying of grains. And so there can be significant residues in conventional oats and conventional wheat, including kemit and spelt in conventional buckwheat and barley. So in order for us to minimize those exposures to other pesticides, including glyphosate, then that would be a case for us choosing organic grains. Organic is, you know, they have that that standard, that farming standard. It's our best indication that we have. And heavy metals kind of similarly is something that we want to try to avoid. It's our exposure to that from a dietary perspective is most often going to be through consumption of fish and seafood. But we also can get exposures through certain grains. So, for example, through grains, we can have exposures to inorganic arsenic. Because we've talked about rice before, lead and arsenic, you know, but that's particularly the more processed white rices because they are the cheapest commodity rices that are used for those products. And unfortunately, organic rice doesn't reduce arsenic exposure because often it's just part of soil. It's not so much about what you're putting on it. But I mean, the origin of the rice matters and the amount of your exposure matters. So I would just say don't stop eating rice. But I would say this is a case for it's not about what you're taking away. Think about what you're adding. Add in, I'm going to have some quinoa. I'm going to try some bulgur. I'm going to try other things. And like you mentioned, Kevin, like there's different flavors. There's different textures. And, you know, quinoa, I find quinoa can add a little nice little nutty.

Kevin: Oh, I love quinoa. I love it. Love it. Love it. Love it.

Michelle: Yeah. Now, some people do have an allergy to quinoa and it's unfortunate. But yeah, it can be a thing. But I mean, there's so many out there. There's a cornucopia of grains.

Kevin: Grains, yeah, exactly, huge choice. Now, before we move on, I just wanted to point out a little fun fact. One of the largest sources of heavy metal for grains is playing Black Sabbath in the field. Sorry, that was just bubbling under throughout the entire conversation.

Michelle: It's funny that didn't come up in my lit search, Kevin, but you're so right.

Kevin: I've heard that before, you know, not just Black Sabbath, there are other sources.

Michelle: But ACDC?

Kevin: Yes. Yes.

Michelle: Okay. So, degree of processing is another consideration that goes into the hierarchy and because processing is the kingpin when it comes to determining the healthfulness of a whole grain, the degree of processing comes into play with things like bread, pasta, cereals, even things like your crackers and cookies and snack foods. Right. And especially the more processed, like if they become those ultra processed food, they come packaged along with them, the higher levels of fat, especially saturated fats and salt and dyes and colors and flavors and artificial sweeteners and preservatives and other food additives. So degree of processing is is a big deal and generally stands to reason the more processed it is, the less nutritional value that it has. And it becomes less and less desirable in terms of our hierarchy. So generally, along with that, the more you go down the whole grain hierarchy, then the glycemic impact of those foods increase, as we said at the beginning. The reason for that is because of the the exposures to heat and light and oxygen and pressure during the processing. And those are the those are the factors that tend to decrease the value. OK. They degrade them. Exactly. So just on that point, people that are attempting to fight a chronic disease such as type two diabetes or their goal is to lose weight, it's important for them to focus higher on the whole green hierarchy because that is evidentially tremendously important to their therapeutic outcomes.

Kevin: OK, so let's go through the hierarchy, shall we? Yes. I've been waiting for this.

Michelle: All right. So let's dive into the intact whole grains, the top of the hierarchy. These are the grains that have absolutely nothing healthful removed and nothing harmful added. That's why they're at the top.

Kevin: Because they're basically as if you've gone into a field and grabbed a handful from the grass and brought it in and started cooking with it.

Michelle: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, you know, you can even increase the value of of these wonderful grains by sprouting them. So sprouting intact whole grains even further improves their nutritional content. And it also reduces like all plants kind of innately have a certain amount of anti nutrient. You know, some people call them toxins that are, you know, sort of in there to protect the plant from its predators and its natural environment. It's not a harm to us, especially when we cook them, because I mean, I don't I don't know anyone to harvest wheat and then like eat it without cooking it. But but sprouting even like releases those stored forms of anti nutrients. And then and then it also enhances then in that process of sprouting the concentration of the other nutrients and phytochemicals. Oh, cool. Oh, yeah, it is very, very cool. That's why I like even with like grains aside, even with broccoli, broccoli sprouts like a thousand times more nutrition than broccoli. OK, yeah, it's amazing. You know, that'll be the next topic.

Kevin: OK, OK. I sent another episode coming really soon.

Michelle: OK, I tell you, this is why it's all connected. One rabbit hole.

Kevin: Exactly. Exactly. We are just the podcast of rabbit holes.

Michelle: Yeah. So the most nutritious in this intact whole grain category, barley, camut, spelt berries, wheat berries, quinoa, wild rice, brown, red, black rice and buckwheat groats. These are kernels or seeds with the brand. They still have the endosperm. They still have the inner germ intact. So those whole intact grains, as we just mentioned, do contain some of those anti nutrients like phytic acid and lectins and tannins, which can reduce mineral absorption and potentially interfere with digestion. But that's not realistic. People are going to cook their grains. And and that that can be minimized more, not just by sprouting, but by soaking and, you know, making sure that you're, you know, really boiling and cooking the grains fully before you eat them. And then that completely downgrains them. And it's of no concern whatsoever. Put your wheat belly book away. Don't worry about it.

Kevin: Yeah, because I can't actually I'm mentally going through the list of all of these grains in the top tier. And I can't think of one single case where I would eat them raw without cooking them.

Michelle: No, you could. I'm sure you could undercook your grains. I don't know.

Kevin: Generally not very appetizing.

Michelle: No, this is this is the whole problem with, you know, single nutrient science. When you focus on a single nutrient like lectins, then it can send you in a direction where you start to think, oh, you know, this food is dangerous. Right.

Kevin: You have to look at the entire context and there might be one negative thing about it, but there's 20 positive things about it.

Michelle: Right. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, and like I always say, like, look at the survivors. Look at the longest living people on the planet. These foods are a staple in the diet of the longest living population.

Kevin: For a reason. Yeah.

Michelle: Right. Grains and legumes and beans like those are staples in the diet. So don't allow these types of books and propaganda, media hype about foods to to to steer you away from the truth of being whole and eating real food.

Kevin: Right. Just cook your rice before you eat it. It's as simple as that. Don't stop eating. Stop munching on raw, uncooked rice kernels. It's not the best for you, but if you cook the rice, everything's hunky dory. There we go. You heard it first here on this podcast. World exclusive. Stop eating raw rice. There we go. OK.

Michelle: Fair enough. Okay, cool. All right, so next is cut whole grains. That's the number two on the hierarchy. So that's like steel cut oats and bulgur. It took me a while to get used to steel cut oats when I learned this, but now I love steel cut oats.

Kevin: I love them too.

Michelle: They're nice and chewy. There's a lot of texture. You actually really feel like you're consuming fiber when you have your steel cut oats. And this is where the hierarchy is key. Keep the main thing the main thing. Focus on observing the hierarchy, but don't go absolute into any tier of it. Because I don't prefer to make my overnight oats with steel cut oats, because they're too stiff. They're too chewy. So do I still use other oats? Yes, I do. But if I'm cooking my oatmeal, I prefer to cook steel cut.

Kevin: It's about trying to remain as high in the pyramid as possible. But that doesn't mean being at the top at the very peak 24-7.

Michelle: Exactly.

Kevin: You want to stay as high up. And if there's a choice between the fifth tier and the third tier without a major difference in the texture, the flavor, whatever, then go for the third tier.

Michelle: You know what? I think convenience and cooking time is a big part of that. I know it is for me. If you know that you're always going to have to spend that extra amount of time to cook a steel cut oat, but you could have used rolled oats and done it faster to fit your lifestyle or whatever, that's a completely reasonable reason to make that choice.

Kevin: Yeah. Eating oats is still good for you.

Michelle: Yeah, exactly. So the cut whole grains, just to wrap that one up, they are still also very minimally processed. And they also generally, as a rule, don't contain any other additives such as sugar, fat, or salt. So they're a great choice. And then moving to number three on the whole grain hierarchy, rolled whole grains. So they're just below cut grains. And that would include not just the rolled oats that I mentioned, but also rolled barley. And they are still also very nutritious. But because of their expanded surface area, and they've been rolled, so they've got more surface area, they are more quickly absorbed into our bloodstream than intact or cut grains. So that does increase their glycemic index. But sometimes that being absorbed more quickly into the bloodstream is what you're after in that moment too.

Kevin: Yeah, exactly. You need a quick hit.

Michelle: Yeah. Number four on the whole grain hierarchy is shredded whole grains. Oh my gosh. This was a staple in my dearly departed dad's diet.

Kevin: Here's a blast from the past. My mother, every single morning, had a Muffet. Do you remember Muffets?

Michelle: No, I don't even know what a Muffet is.

Kevin: Oh, it's so from the 70s.

Michelle: It's one of your British things.

Kevin: No, no. I don't know. Maybe. I don't know where it came from. But no, it was a shredded wheat product. And it's basically the same as shredded wheat, only it came in circles, like little kind of pucks, about the size of a hockey puck. And you'd basically pour a bit, or the way she had it, she'd pour a bit of boiling water from the kettle over it just to soften it a little bit. And then she'd put like 18% cream on top of it. So I think that completely destroyed any nutritional benefit and lots of brown sugar. But that's all she ate for breakfast, Muffets, which is basically shredded wheat.

Michelle: Very similar to our shredded wheat at our breakfast table. I don't think I used water. I think we would just pour milk on it and tons of brown sugar.

Kevin: Yes. Yes. Well, because it tasted a little bit like sawdust.

Michelle: It tasted like wheat.

Kevin: Exactly. It tasted like nothing, basically.

Michelle: And when you're a little kid, like, especially, you know.

Kevin: You want your Captain Crunch.

Michelle: We were used to like.

Kevin: Sugar, sugar, sugar.

Michelle: What is it? Choco Puffs or something like that.

Kevin: No, I never liked those. But Honeycomb. Oh yeah. I loved Honeycomb.

Michelle: I loved Honeycomb. Lucky Charms.

Kevin: I never liked anything with marshmallows in it. So Lucky Charms and Choco Puffs and, or no, Count Chocula and all that. I never liked those.

Michelle: Oh, I loved them. It was terrible. I used to, I remember throwing tantrums in the grocery store so that my mom would put them in the grocery store.

Kevin: I want those marshmallows for breakfast, Mom. Those purple and brown marshmallows.

Michelle: Yeah. So, oh, that's so crazy. Okay. So after, after the shredded whole grains, ground whole grains would be number five, further down the hierarchy. So this is also ground whole grains are what we know as ground whole grain flours, right? So whole grain flours, obviously going to be better than what refined flour, right? So, but it's still not as, not as good as the ones above it. Sure. So flours of course are what we use in baked goods and bread and crackers and cereals and other things. And the reason why they're not as high in the hierarchy is because they often contain other additives like sugar, salt, fat, et cetera. And the even greater surface area than being, than being rolled or shredded because now they are ground. It's just, I think I love to bring these things back to tea. It's the same with tea, right? You're going to have lesser quality in a teabag because crushed hair curl that the chopped up nature of the tea increases all of the surface area. So you're going to get all of your caffeine at once. And you're also going to lose other nutrients by the oxidation and the other exposures that come from that increased surface area.

Kevin: Cause when you're powder, you're basically down to you're nothing but surface area, like underneath the surface at that point.

Michelle: You're losing nutrients more rapidly because there's more, more exposure. So it's the same thing with grains. It's the same thing with any food.

Kevin: Sure.

Michelle: And they also tend to be once we're grinding our whole grains and adding these additives, more calorie dense, right? So, okay. Number six on the hierarchy is flaked whole grains. And this is mainly, again, it comes in a cereal form such as, I don't know, Kamut flakes, corn flakes, like wild corn flakes. Yeah, exactly. So they undergo an extreme amount of processing. They often have a lot of taste enhancers.

Kevin: Aren't flakes basically like reconstituted powder?

Michelle: Gosh, I don't know. I don't know how they make them. They're just, I don't, they don't look, they don't look like they came from anything real. That's for sure.

Kevin: Yeah, no, exactly. No, I understood that basically what they do is they powder, like for corn flakes, they powder the corn, and then they basically like add glue to it or whatever. And it reconstitutes into these huge sheets, and then they end up cutting it up. And that's how you get the random sizes and such.

Michelle: So for all of the rabbit holes I've gone down, Kevin, I've never gone down that one. And I'm curious to know why you did.

Kevin: I don't know, because sometimes the weirdest things interest me. So it's a little bit like Pringles, like Pringles potato chips. They're not actually, like they're potato powder that has been reconstituted into those perfectly shaped little U's that they are. So they're not actually cut, they're not slices of potato. It's powdered potato. Why do you know that? Again, I don't know. I honestly don't know. It's like these facts that are just stuck in my brain, and I can't remember, you know, a doctor's appointment tomorrow, but I can remember the cornflakes are reconstituted powdered corn.

Michelle: Or how to manufacture a Pringle.

Kevin: Yeah, exactly. No shade on Pringles. Please don't screw with Pringles.

Michelle: Oh, don't eat your Pringles. Don't be silly.

Kevin: I prefer Miss Vicki.

Michelle: Well, see, if you're going to have a processed snack, make sure it's really worth it. And thoroughly enjoy it. And don't make it an everyday thing. Make it a once in a while. I'm really craving that. Make sure it's really worth it. And then go back to the main thing.

Kevin: A cookie is not an everyday treat. A cookie is a sometime treat.

Michelle: Oh, my God. Cookie monster.

Kevin: Okay, time to move on. The bottom. What's the seventh layer of the bottom layer?

Michelle: Puffed whole grain. Do you remember these? Puffed rice?

Kevin: I do. I always hated puffed rice. I hated it. My mother bought it for me. And I despise even with mounds of sugar. You could put a mountain of sugar. You could have a one to one ratio of puffed rice to sugar. And I would still despise it.

Michelle: It never tasted good. Never. And yeah, my mom used to buy it, too. I don't know what they just had some sort of marketing back in the day.

Kevin: And you know what's worse? Puffed wheat.

Michelle: Puffed wheat. Puffed wheat is gross.

Kevin: Oh, gross.

Michelle: And the Weight Watchers staple, the rice cake, is also in this puffed category.

Kevin: Rice cakes.

Michelle: My former mother in law from my first marriage, she used to follow Weight Watchers and God rest her soul. She was a lovely woman. But I remember going to their place and she was always pulling out the rice cakes and putting just putting a little bit of the, you know, butter or peanut butter or something on it.

Kevin: Oh, yeah. Rice cakes. It's like a very 90s thing. Like rice cakes were very 90s things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it was because I think they were new and then they started like they were. I don't know how they're marketed.

Michelle: Well, they they they used to be. I don't know. I don't follow the Weight Watchers program. That's obviously not part of nutrition. But, you know, it was chosen because it's low in calories, but it's also, you know, extremely low in nutritional quality and extremely high glycemic. So, right. Yeah. So, I mean, it's it's it's the most heavily processed in the bottom of the hierarchy. Hey, if you enjoy a rice cake or or puffed rice or, you know, that's that's your jam and you like to have it once in a while. Sure. But just don't make that a majority of your of your diet and don't slather it in the in the unhealthy, unhealthy additives like the extra sugar and stuff that you use to try to make it even, you know, marginally palatable.

Kevin: So it doesn't taste like you're eating cardboard.

Michelle: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. So when we go higher up the hierarchy, we're getting more fiber and we're getting more protein and we're getting more phytochemicals. And, you know, having learned this myself, I mean, I was like, OK, you know what I'm motivated or I was at the time to try some other grains. And, you know, diving into this today is a really good reminder to me to remember to continue to rotate through and experiment with some other things. You know, fun fact with, you know, things like amaranth, it behaves just like popcorn. When it's heated, it will pop.

Kevin: I tried that once. I tried that once and it didn't work very well.

Michelle: Oh, I've gotten my amaranth by me. I only did it out of curiosity. It's not like I had a goal of like popping my amaranth, but I just find that fun. Food is so fun.

Kevin: I tried and maybe I didn't do it properly. It was a bit of a failure. But that's OK. But it's also fun to fail with food sometimes.

Michelle: So I thought that I would take a second, Kevin, to just sort of talk about, you know, which ones of these grains are the highest in fiber. And so I've got sort of the ranking from the Whole Grains Council. Yes, there is a Whole Grains Council in the United States. And among the highest in that listing is bulgur wheat. OK, bulgur wheat at two point nine grams per 16 grams. And oh, just maybe a note on that. So when they're doing this ranking, they use 16 grams of grain as the benchmark because it's considered to be like a one ounce equivalent to like as a standard serving size of whole grains. So like, for example, a slice of whole grain bread that weighs one ounce, which is twenty eight grams, typically contains 16 grams of whole grain.

Kevin: OK, I see.

Michelle: So that's why they they use 16 grams as sort of sort of their baseline. OK, so so in 16 grams of bulgur wheat, there's two point nine grams of fiber.

Kevin: OK.

Michelle: And then just below that would be barley, which has two point eight grams of fiber per 16. Rye is that two point four grams of fiber per that serving. Now, there's a wheat rye cross called triticale. You don't care about it too often, but it is it is one that that's out there and it's often, you know, in an ingredient, two point three grams. I can't say that I've seen it for sale in the grocery store shelves. Maybe it is. And I've just never noticed.

Kevin: I don't know. Very niche and specialty.

Michelle: Yeah. Regular wheat at two grams per 16 grams of the grain. Now, that doesn't mean that the others aren't like, you know, aren't as good. It's just that they they are a little bit less than fiber. But, you know, all of the intact grains are kind of, you know, if you look at it on a whole food dietary level, they're all very similar. Right. So camut is still very high in fiber. One point eight. Oh, it's one point seven. Spelt wheat. One point seven. Even tough is is one point three millets, one point four corn. You're good old fashioned corn. One point two buckwheat is up there. One point six. So I mean, wild rice is that one. And if if fiber isn't that is if there isn't as much fiber, then there's going to be more of other things. Like I said at the very, very beginning. Right. Yeah. So and then protein is another thing that we tend to get more protein in intact whole grains than we do from the more processed ones. Right. And let me see here. In terms of protein, we get the most from camut. Fourteen point five grams per hundred grams on our plate. Wild rice. Fourteen point seven spelt. Fourteen point six grams of protein. Quinoa. Fourteen point one. Amaranth would be next at thirteen point six tough. Thirteen point three. So you the tough was lower in the fiber, but higher in the protein. Yeah. Roll the oats. Thirteen point two. And like still, you know, a good source of protein, just not at that higher end of the spectrum. Bulgar, buckwheat, millet, sorghum and brown rice.

Kevin: OK.

Michelle: Yeah. So I've got another fun fact about whole grains.

Kevin: OK, hit me. I love your fun facts.

Michelle: Although the name has caused some confusion, white whole wheat flour milled from hard white winter wheat is actually still 100% wheat with all of the germ intact. So sometimes people see winter wheat or white whole wheat and they think that it's, you know, they liken it to white flour, refined white flour, and it's not. But but but white whole wheat flour and regular whole wheat flour are both just as good as a different different species. Right. So the white whole wheat flour is lighter in color than whole wheat and whole wheat pastry flours, which are milled from red wheat, is still a smarter choice for bakers that are looking for lighter colored baked goods, but still with whole grain nutrition. Yeah, I like that fun fact.

Kevin: Yeah, it's I find it amazing that, you know, if you just look into it a little bit, you can always find some reasonable substitute that you still want to make your your pie pastry or whatever. You know, you can find options that are better improvement over your standard, you know, white pastry flour.

Michelle: Yeah, exactly. And, you know, that's exactly what we used to do in the tea room. We weren't we weren't trying to deprive people of tasty desserts for afternoon tea. We were just trying to make them better and make them a little bit healthier. Yeah, exactly. And then then then the then the conventional alternatives. And I think that's a very reasonable thing if you're not as long as you're not having afternoon tea every single day.

Kevin: Yeah, exactly. So as you know, you should be allowed to enjoy it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Michelle: Yeah. Now, if now if you're that extremely busy person, you're on the go, you have very little time, you're dealing with busy job, busy kids, you know, which is I know a lot of us out there. I wanted to just take a second to acknowledge what are the fastest cooking whole grains for people?

Kevin: Yeah.

Michelle: All right. So there's and there's a lot of options here. And again, I'm going to kind of go from the fastest to still to the longest.

Kevin: I'm going to I'm going to I want to make a little bet here. I'm going to guess that near the bottom is going to be wild rice, because whenever I make it, you can go through your list. I'm just predicting because whenever I make it, it always takes forever.

Michelle: I think it must I think it must take longer because it's I've only gone up to fifty five minutes and it's not on here.

Kevin: Yeah, I told you it's delicious. It really, really is delicious. I love it to bits. But oh, my God, it takes so long to cook.

Michelle: I usually if I'm putting wild rice in like a rice cooker, I usually have to do it twice as long.

Kevin: Mm hmm.

Michelle: Yeah. I like I have to do it and then I have to do it again.

Kevin: Yeah.

Michelle: And it's the kind of thing that you do when you've got more time.

Kevin: A lot of time. You have to plan far ahead for wild rice.

Michelle: It's so worth it. It's worth it.

Kevin: It is. It's delicious. I don't I just I don't cook with it as much as I'd like, simply because of the time, because I'm not that sure.

Michelle: OK, so let's look at the fastest, fastest cooking whole grains bulgur. Yeah. Takes ten to twelve minutes.

Kevin: Yeah.

Michelle: Quinoa, twelve to fifteen. Amaranth, fifteen to twenty. Worth trying the amaranth. Buckwheat groats. Some people also refer to this as cashew.

Kevin: OK. Yeah. Yeah.

Michelle: Fifteen to twenty minutes.

Kevin: Mm hmm.

Michelle: Millet. Twenty minutes. Tough. Twenty minutes. And then the longer cooking ones would be the farro, black rice, brown rice, barley. And I would put wild rice in that category, too. Right. If you've got the longer cooking greens, it's better if you add a little bit more water in addition to the longer cooking time. And that that's one way that you can actually help make them a little bit more tender.

Kevin: Right.

Michelle: Yeah.

Kevin: Makes sense. Yeah. Well, thank you for this information. This has been really interesting. And it's it's kind of confirmed some of the things which I knew and made me curious to try some of the grains that I don't use as much.

Michelle: I'm going to go upstairs right now and cook the amaranth. I mean, this has re-energized me.

Kevin: I yeah, I don't have amaranth in my house right now, but I should get some and try it again. I'm not going to pop it. I've already tried the experiment. I'm not popping it again. OK. Are you ready for the dad joke?

Michelle: I'm ready. Bring it.

Kevin: OK. How did the restaurant critic review the new diner on the moon?

Michelle: I don't know.

Kevin: Great food. No atmosphere.

Michelle: Oh, my gosh. Good one. I thought you were going to have a grain joke.

Kevin: No, I'm not that organized. Well, because I didn't know what you were going to be talking about.

Michelle: I know I kind of snuck up on you in this one.

Kevin: You did. So I can't have the thematic dad joke.

Michelle: I'm afraid to keep you on your toes. Otherwise, it sounds too preplanned.

Kevin: Exactly. And and let me just make sure all the listeners know we are anything but preplanned.

Michelle: Oh, no, we certainly were very organic. We we we go. We roll with the grain.

Kevin: Oh, and we roll with the grain wannabes, too. Those darned wannabes.

Michelle: Those pseudo grains.

Kevin: Those pseudo grains. The grain wannabe.

Michelle: They're like the hipster. The hipster of grains.

Kevin: Exactly. They're too good for everyone else. OK, well, thank you, Michelle, as always.

Michelle: Thanks, Kev.

Kevin: If our noobs out there have any questions, you can always get in touch with us at N number four, N O O B S at Gmail dot com. That's N for noobs at Gmail dot com. Or you can reach out to us at Facebook at Facebook dot com slash nutrition for noobs. And until next time, eat your greens and your grains and your grains. I beat you to it.

Michelle: And be real, everyone.

Kevin: This has been Nutrition for Noobs. We hope you're a bit more enlightened about how your fantastic and complicated body works with the food you put into it. If you have a question or a topic you'd like Michelle to discuss, drop us a line at N for noobs at Gmail dot com. That's the letter N, the number four, N O O B S at Gmail dot com. If you haven't already, you can subscribe to the podcast on whatever your favorite platform might be. Also, please consider leaving a review or telling your friends. That's the best way to spread the word. We'll see you next time with another interesting topic. The views and opinions expressed on Nutrition for Noobs are those of the hosts. It is not intended to be a substitute for medical, nutritional or health advice. Listeners should seek a personal consultation with a qualified practitioner if they have any concerns or before commencing any actions mentioned in the podcast.