To sprout your grains, you soak them overnight in whole form (the whole spelt berry for instance), drain them well, and place them in a container (usually a tray or a jar) with a a cheesecloth cover. In a day or two, they will begin to send out little tails, the sprouts. You grain seed is transforming itself from a seed to a seedling. The nutrition content of the seed changes, including a reduction in the phytic acid content.

If you are sprouting primarily to reduce phytic acid, it is probably not the most time-effective strategy for you. I would recommend instead simply grinding the grain fresh and using a sourdough preparation method. However, there are legions of devotees to sprouted grain flour and more power to them. It is the Cadillac of flour.

It sure does seem like a pain when you’re hungry to be working on tomorrow’s dinner, after all, but the fact is that soaking beans for a day makes healthier beans and they actually cook more quickly.

Beans have a substance called phytic acid which bind to magnesium, iron, zinc, and calcium and keep you from absorbing as much of these minerals as you would have otherwise. Particularly if you rely on beans for iron and zinc as complete vegetarians do, you will benefit from soaking your beans.

I actually recommend soaking them for quite a few hours (18 give or take) at high temperatures (140 degrees give or take, mainly take). I’m kind of scared of the 140 degree recommendation, however. I have never had the tools to keep it at that temperature and someone reports to me that she does and they were funky. Eeww. I’d probably cook them up anyway, but who wants to deal with funky? (I may try to reproduce it because now I’m curious.) In any case, I start my soak water out pretty warm and then don’t worry about it until I add more water. When the beans have soaked up most of their water, I add more and I add it at a pretty high temperature. In the winter I’m sure it’s down to 40 degrees in about three minutes in our century-old historic brothel, but I can’t really worry about that. I eat beans and enjoy them regardless.

If you would like to read more than a ramble, go to the article at the Rebuild site on soaking beans. It has the graphs you see in the soaking beans video below (plus an extra or two).

Grains contain phytic acid which inhibit your absorption of iron, zinc, calcium, and magnesium. If you rely on grains (and legumes and nuts) for these minerals, it is absolutely to your benefit to soak them before eating them. Here is a list of the phytic acid content in some grains and other foods for comparison. The list comes from a 1987 review article by Harland and Oberleas.

Phytic acid in various grain foods

Oatmeal: 943 mg/100 grams

Barley infant cereal: 897 mg/100 grams

Mixed grain cereal: 510 mg/100 grams

Wheat bran: 3,011 mg/100 grams

Wheat bran muffin: 498 mg/100 grams

Wheaties: 1,467 mg/100 grams

Phytic acid in other foods

Chocolate chip cookie: 148 mg/100 grams

Avocado: 1 mg/100 grams

Collard greens: 12 mg/100 grams

Broccoli: 18 mg/100 grams

The phytic acid paper goes into detail on the effect of soaking grains, adding yeast to bread, sourdough fermentation, and other rise cycles. All are more or less effective, with some exceptions (like oats, corn, and soy). The key is to find what works best in your kitchen and given your busy schedule. It would be a shame to go crazy trying to manage kitchen preparation techniques to be healthy, all along not able to enjoy the food over all of the stress in your kitchen.

In the YouTube video below on soaking grains I discuss the issue in brief. The graphs I refer to are on an article at the Rebuild site on soaking grains if you are interested in reading more.

There actually is not a huge literature on phytic acid in nuts and seeds, as there is for grains. I assume the biggest reason for the lack of research is that most people do not center their entire diet around nuts (save my preschool son) as they do rice and beans in some cases.

I listed the phytic acid content of almonds previously and compared them to other nuts. Here’s the list again from a 1987 review article by Harland and Oberleas:

Almonds 1,280 mg/100 gram

Cashews 1,866 mg/100 gram

Chestnuts 47 mg/100 gram

Hazelnuts 1,620 mg/100 gram

Peanuts, toasted 933 mg/100 gram

Jif peanut butter 1,252 mg/100 gram

Black walnuts 1,977 mg/100 gram

English walnuts 760 mg/100 gram

Marcona almonds are probably in there somewhere. Without a huge body of literature, it’s really hard to know. Different samples of almonds are going to have a different phytic acid content, just to make things more complicated. In the phytic acid paper I talk about chopping the nuts up before soaking them, dehydrating them, and then turning them into almond butter or almond milk. I have a second child heading to preschool in a year or so and we may begin this ritual all over again.

Until then, here’s more advice from me on getting the most out of your almonds: Almond mastication. Chew your almonds well to benefit as much as possible from the fat. Hopefully my close-up talking head video doesn’t interfere with your digestion of said almonds.

Beans as a class have high levels of phytic acid which can inhibit your mineral absorption. However, the highest levels are found in the mature bean, dried for us that we hydrate later and cook.

What about green beans? These are immature beans in a pod and we generally eat the whole pod. We eat them raw in salads or lightly cooked in a stirfry. Should we be concerned about phytates in green beans? 

I addressed the question in a video cast below.

I do hate to think that we would miss  out on raw and lightly cooked green beans over concern for their phytic acid content. For most of us these are not a core part of our diet. Furthermore, they have not concerned phytic acid researchers to date. I provide the rationale in the video.

If you are phytates obsessed (like me), check out the paper on phytic acid which provides you with a look at the research and strategies for your food preparation.

Read more

Soaking grains @ the Rebuild blog

Soaking beans @ the Rebuild blog

Grains and phytic acid

Nuts and phytic acid

Oats and phytic acid @ the Rebuild blog

Soy and phytic acid @ the Rebuild blog

What about the immature form of the bean, edamame? Edamame is often enjoyed as a snack. You can purchase the pods and pop out the beans to eat as a crispy treat. Should we be concerned about the phytic acid?

I addressed the question in a video cast below. Personally I wouldn’t worry a whole lot about phytic acid in edamame unless it is all you eat and you are deficient in minerals. I provide the rationale in the video.

In my household I do pay attention to the preparation techniques I outline in the Phytic Acid Paper (which you can purchase here: phytic acid). I do think we can go to far; obsession uses up its own set of nutrients. Edamame is a pretty good example of a food that makes a decent low-calorie snack and is worthy of being eaten without a whole lot of worry.

A reader asked me this question and there is actually very little information on the topic, but the lack of information is telling.

I address the question in a video cast below and generally conclude that we need not worry about it. I would encourage people to use sourdough baking techniques with their coconut flour as a general good practice.

I should add as well that the phytic acid paper available on this site is not a gluten-free paper but it does have techniques you can adapt in a gluten-free environment. In one memorable phone conversation with a reader about doing a gluten-free version of the paper, I told her that even if there is a market for such a paper, I have to consider the cost of tasting all of the recipes. That's at least ten pounds. I should lose at least ten before considering another version of the paper.

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday.

Bloggers: You can be an affiliate for the phytic acid paper to support your blogging (and the Rebuild book while you're at it). Contact info (at) RebuildMarket (dot) com and include your blog. We'll get you the details.

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Reducing Phytic Acid in Your Food:

A visual analysis of the research on home kitchen remedies for phytic acid

 42 pages
18 graphs/data displays
Easy and tasty recipes
Digital delivery – download immediately
Click here to see a sample page (PDF)

***

Phytic acid in grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds reduces your body’s ability to absorb minerals from those same foods, but there are easy, research-based kitchen techniques to break down the phytic acid in your food and allow you to benefit from more of the minerals in your diet.

Systematic, reader-friendly analysis
The paper includes 18 unique graphic displays of data from food science and nutrition research on phytic acid. It will walk you through the best bread preparation technique, for instance, using evidence from peer review journals.

You will learn how to prepare rice, corn, oats, flat breads, sourdough breads, beans, nuts, and seeds.

Did you know that brown rice should be pre-soaked because it contains very little of the native enzyme that breaks down phytic acid?

Below is one graph from the paper or you may view a sample page

 

The paper addresses misconceptions:

“Rice doesn’t have to be soaked” because it is low in phytic acid to begin with. This paper provides data on phytic acid levels in brown rice and it provides a process to reduce those levels.

“I don’t need to worry about it because I eat an orange, high in vitamin C, with my oatmeal.” I love oranges too. Learn an approach that is at least as twice as effective as that orange.

“In bread making, you must soak flour for eight hours to reduce the phytic acid.” Soaked flour baking has covered the Internet and some of the most creative bakers have even made this process work. But I have the great news that there are ways at least as effective and that make better, no-fail bread at the same time.

“Corn must be soaked in lime to be healthy.” I love a good tamale (a Mexican food made of corn soaked in lime) but I also love polenta. Learn an easy method for preparing corn. Polenta and cornbread recipes are included.

“Sprouted grain flour is the gold-standard in baking.” This might be true depending on the circumstances, but in your home kitchen it is probably a good place to cut food costs. Check out the data in the paper.

“I must soak nuts in a salt solution.” Find out what research says about soaking nuts and seeds. Learn options to improve nut-based milks.

The paper will teach you processes and recipes:

•    How to soak beans, based on scientific studies

•    How to soak breakfast porridge

•    Which porridges are exceptions and what to do about them

•    How to cook with corn

•    How to soak brown rice

•    Recipes for banana, zucchini, pumpkin, applesauce, and ginger breads, all 100% whole grain and extremely tasty. Variations for each. These recipes alone are worth the price of the paper.

•    Recipe for 100% whole grain bread

•    Recipes for pizza dough, polenta, cornbread, and pancakes

•    An easy way to get started with sourdough (Really, you can be a mediocre baker and get great results. You may discover you are not a mediocre baker after all.)

The most extensive consumer information

For three years we have offered a free e-course on phytic acid on this website, billed as the most extensive information on the Internet. It was the most extensive information, but has been surpassed by this in-depth paper.

The paper is a PDF file and the Table of Contents allows you to navigate easily through the paper. If you want to look up something quickly on corn, you can click on that section in the Table of Contents and you will find it immediately. You will also be able to search the document.

Download now

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Notice in the graph below that soaking and boiling the soy beans made little difference in the phytic acid levels. Steaming made a bit of difference but the biggest difference came when the soy was fermented as tempeh.

Tofu in fact is soaked, strained, and cooked and then a coagulant is added. It likely retains
nearly 100% of the phytic acid. Tempeh will be a much better choice.

The graph that you see below is included in the digital phytic acid paper, a 50-page downloadable paper loaded with food science graphs and recipes to help you understand how to improve your mineral absorption through basic kitchen techniques. Read more about the phytic acid paper.

Corn is an interesting grain because it is more difficult to reduce its phytic acid content. Notice in the graph below that phytic acid is reduced readily in wheat, rye, and barley but not so in oats and corn. (Read more about oatmeal and phytic acid at the Rebuild blog.)

Corn products from masa such as corn tortillas, corn
tortilla chips, and tamales is made from a corn dough that has been
nixtamalized.  The corn is soaked
in lime to improve the bioavailability of niacin.  This preparation process reduces the level of phytic acid by
only about 20% (Bressani et al. 2004). 

What then can you do to reduce the phytic acid further in corn?

You can make the masa/nixtamal yourself using a masa recipe (cornmeal soaked in a lime solution) or you can purchase it at a Mexican market. Once you have the masa you could soak it again to reduce the phytates further, but it is unclear how effective that would be. With limited kitchen time, your best strategy is one of these two:

(1) Add a vitamin C-rich food to your meal.

(2) Eat the corn with a small amount of meat to improve your mineral absorption.

(3) Use a complementary grain technique much like I recommend in this article on soaked grains at the Rebuild website. (I should add that recipes like cornbread and corn muffins that include cornmeal with whole wheat flour have the complementary flour built in since wheat is high in the enzyme that breaks down phytic acid.)

(4) Don’t worry about it if it’s not a big part of your diet. 

Read more about Kitchen Techniques to Reduce Phytic Acid in Your Food in the phytic acid paper, available for purchase.

Citation:

Bressani, R., Turcios, J.C., ColmenaresdeRuiz, A.S., and
dePalomo, P.P., 2004.  “Effect of
Processing Conditions on Phytic Acid, Calcium, Iron, and Zinc Contents of
Lime-Cooked Maize.”  Journal of
Agricultural and Food Chemistry 52(5): 1157 – 1162.

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday.

Generally speaking, grains have high levels of phytic acid, a substance that reduces our absorption of minerals such as calcium, iron, zinc, and magnesium. As an example, compare the milligrams of phytic acid in grains to a random collection of other foods. (This is a small sample of phytate levels as listed in a review article by Harland and Oberleas in a 1987 article.)

Phytic acid in an assortment of grains

Barley infant cereal: 897 mg/100 grams

Mixed grain cereal: 510 mg/100 grams

Wheat bran muffin: 498 mg/100 grams

Oatmeal: 943 mg/100 grams

Wheat bran: 3,011 mg/100 grams

Wheaties: 1,467 mg/100 grams

Phytic acid in other foods

Avocado: 1 mg/100 grams

Broccoli: 18 mg/100 grams

Chocolate chip cookie: 148 mg/100 grams

Collard greens: 12 mg/100 grams

Grains do have phytic acid and that phytic acid can reduce our body's ability to absorb the calcium, iron, magnesium, and zinc in the grains. That is a shame since these foods can be great sources of minerals.

Kitchen preparation techniques can reduce phytic acid in grains, many of which are very easy to adapt if you are a cook. Soaking, sprouting, and fermenting are easily added to your kitchen routine. If you are interested in detailed information on phytic acid in your foods as well as easy kitchen techniques to reduce it, purchase the Phytic Acid White Paper.

Read more

Soaking grains @ the Rebuild blog

Soaking beans @ the Rebuild blog

Nuts and phytic acid

Oats and phytic acid @ the Rebuild blog

Soy and phytic acid @ the Rebuild blog

Nuts and seeds as a class tend to be high in phytic acid, a substance that reduces your ability to absorb the minerals in the mineral-rich nuts and seeds. Almonds are no exception. From a 1987 review article by Harland and Oberleas, I list the phytic acid content of almonds and an assortment of other nuts and seeds below.

Almonds 1,280 mg/100 gram

Cashews 1,866 mg/100 gram

Chestnuts 47 mg/100 gram

Hazelnuts 1,620 mg/100 gram

Peanuts, toasted 933 mg/100 gram

Jif peanut butter 1,252 mg/100 gram

Black walnuts 1,977 mg/100 gram

English walnuts 760 mg/100 gram

Reducing phytic acid in nuts and seeds is tricky. Soaking is recommended by such writers as Sally Fallon in Nourishing Traditions. The problem is that a nut like an almond has a small surface area. It would be better to grind the nut at least slightly before soaking it. I realize that you then have nuts pieces which are not always near as interesting as the whole nut. Nonetheless, this is a morsel of advice I offer in the Phytic Acid White Paper which you can purchase here.

Read more:

Soaking grains at the Rebuild website, with food science visualizations

Soaking beans at the Rebuild website, also with food science visualizations

Phytic acid in oats at the Rebuild website

I don't know what Michigan-based food scientists do to make Corn Flakes, but whatever it is that they are doing, it appears to reduce the phytic acid in their product. In a 1987 review article by Harland and Oberleas they provide the phytate levels for Corn Flakes. Just to humor ourselves we can compare it to some of our other favorite corn products:

Kellogg's Corn Flakes: 70 mg/ 100 grams

Kellogg's Corn Pops: 94 mg/ 100 grams

Doritos Corn Chips: 635 mg/ 100 grams

Fritos Corn Chips: 506 mg/ 100 grams

Quaker Corn Meal: 943 mg/ 100 grams

I am envisioning a run on Kellogg's Corn Flakes and Corn Pops. Try some oatmeal instead. And buy the phytic acid paper while you're here.

Nuts and seeds as a class tend to be high in phytates which reduce your ability to absorb the minerals in the mineral-rich nuts and seeds. The only exception I have seen is chestnuts. From a 1987 review article by Harland and Oberleas, I list the phytic acid content of almonds and an assortment of other nuts and seeds below.

Almonds 1,280 mg/100 gram

Cashews 1,866 mg/100 gram

Chestnuts 47 mg/100 gram

Hazelnuts 1,620 mg/100 gram

Peanuts, toasted 933 mg/100 gram

Jif peanut butter 1,252 mg/100 gram

Black walnuts 1,977 mg/100 gram

English walnuts 760 mg/100 gram

For comparison, here is the phytic acid content of a few other foods:

Heinz ketchup 7 mg/100 gram

Chow mein noodles 409 mg/100 gram

Elbow macaroni 260 mg/100 gram

Okra 5 mg/100 gram

Reducing phytic acid in nuts and seeds is tricky. Soaking nuts is recommended by Sally Fallon in Nourishing Traditions. The problem is that a nut has a small surface area. Soaking a ground food is more effective than soaking a whole nut or kernel. It would be better to grind the nut at least slightly before soaking it. I realize that you then have nuts pieces which are not always near as interesting as the whole nut. Nonetheless, this is a morsel of advice I offer in the Phytic Acid White Paper which you can purchase here.

Read more

Soaking grains @ the Rebuild blog

Soaking beans @ the Rebuild blog

Grains and phytic acid

Oats and phytic acid @ the Rebuild blog

Soy and phytic acid @ the Rebuild blog

Fallon lit the phytate spark but did not examine variation in grains, specifically the grains' native ability to break down phytic acid. It turns out that wheat does a pretty good job. On the other hand, oatmeal may be more problematic in the phytic acid department.

Notice the reduction of phytic acid in wheat in the graph below, compared to other grains. Wheat is a great performer. It is likely that any ground wheat recipe that requires the grain to sit for a bit in a warm place (as is the case with many breads) may end up with no phytic acid whatsoever.

These variations and a whole lot of other phytic acid tidbits are available in the Phytic Acid White Paper available for purchase here.

It is the anti-nutrient quality of phytic acid which lands phytic acid in the book Rebuild from Depression. The book contains a large food science section on increasing depression-fighting nutrients in your diet.

What if you already have too much iron in your body? Is phytic acid still a bad thing? What about the reports on phytic acid's antioxidant qualities? Is phytic acid good or bad?

It depends.

Blogging is a hard way to make money and, yet, good food bloggers are an important asset. To support food bloggers, we offer a generous referral fee on this digital product.

Contact: info (at) RebuildMarket (dot) com

Soy is high in phytic acid which binds to these minerals and keeps you from digesting them. An article on the Rebuild site (and the video below) describes an interesting experiment on soy milk and phytic acid (pictured at right) which shows clearly the need to ferment soybeans in order to reduce their phytic acid content. In the graph, notice that researchers used a series of techniques to reduce the content of phytic acid in the soybean. These techniques were progressive as well — they performed the first soaking step and then the second (boiling) and third step (steaming) on the same batch of experimental beans. It took fermenting the soybean in the form of tempeh to see any appreciable reduction in phytic acid. Very little phytic acid was reduced simply by soaking and cooking the bean (which tends to be much more effective with other types of beans).

For other beans, read more about soaking beans at the Rebuild blog.

For an extensive collection of information on phytic acid (including recipes), buy the Phytic Acid White Paper.

Read more

Soaking grains @ the Rebuild blog

Grains and phytic acid

Nuts and phytic acid

Oats and phytic acid @ the Rebuild blog

Soy and phytic acid @ the Rebuild blog

The white rice in your sushi order does not have phytic acid. Phytic acid is in the "brown part" of the rice. If you consume brown rice, which is much higher in minerals than white rice, you should consider soaking it. The added pay-off is that soaked brown rice is far lighter than brown rice simply cooked.

Read more about the food science behind rice and phytic acid at the Rebuild site.

For extensive information on phytic acid in food (and recipes), buy the Phytic Acid White Paper.

Food science actually has answers to these questions and I examine them in great detail on the Rebuild site: Soaking beans.

Read the article above for a sense of the quality of the Phytic Acid White Paper.