Pips and Particles

This weekend, for the first time this year, it felt like spring might actually arrive. Two whole days of relative warmth and sunshine can convince the most frozen and winter weary among us. Even the daffodils are starting to poke their heads out of the ground in anticipation.

However, for me, the most conclusive evidence of all that spring might be near is that stores are starting to sell gardening seeds. Having worked in the retail world for almost 20 years now, I have this Pavlovian response when I see the UPS man bringing boxes of seeds into the store. My spirits lift, the color green flashes before my eyes and I have an overwhelming desire to make an appointment at the bike shop for a tune up.

It’s no wonder that the sight of seeds provokes such strong emotions. Civilization owes its existence to these tiny bundles of new life. It was at least 10,000 years ago when humans first discovered that they could save the seeds of wild plants over the winter then plant them in anywhere they chose.

This small discovery has led to amazing changes. Settlements developed when humans no longer needed to move around to find food, but instead needed to stay put to tend their crops. When one person could grow the food for many, it freed up time to create art and to fight battles. Writing and arithmetic were invented to deal with the accounting of this excess food. Animals were domesticated since it was now possible to feed them as well.

Unfortunately, all the changes weren’t positive. Wars were probably invented not long after agriculture, since now rulers could afford to feed their troops. New diseases sprang up from people living in close quarters. Diets were greatly simplified from the previous variety of the hunter-gather, which led to deficiency and poor health (something we’re still trying to overcome).

You probably remember a lot of this from high school history class, but have you ever stopped to think about what an incredible thing a seed is. Seeds are like miniature space ships for the next generation of a plant. Everything the plant needs to survive its journey from parent to adolescence is contained inside the seed coat: the embryo of the plant, a good-sized food supply, and protection from the elements and predators.

And lucky for us, some of these seeds are also tasty and nutritious. Grains, legumes, and nuts are the groups of seeds we eat the most.

And eat them we do. Seeds provide the bulk of calories for the 7 billion humans currently on the planet (and the cynic in me thinks that seeds, or more specifically agricultural, is probably the reason there are so damned many of us). Worldwide, we grow and consume over 600 metric tons per year of rice alone.

Of the three groups of edible seeds, grains (the seeds of grasses) play the most dominant role in our diet (and is really what I intended to talk about in this article before I got all distracted by history and space ships). Wheat, rice and corn form the bulk of the diets for most people on earth (in the States, we prefer to feed it all to animals first and then eat the animals but that’s a topic for a different article).

These three grains were also the first grains to be domesticated. Wheat was developed in the Fertile Crescent around the same time that rice was being developed in China; as long as 12,000 years ago. Corn is a relative newcomer to the domestic grass scene and first appears in South and Central America around 6,000 years ago (although there is still much controversy about the exact time and place of corn’s origin).

The structure of all grains is similar. There is the outside seed coat which is there to protect the embryo and regulate the amount of water allowed to pass inside the seed. It is the seed coat that is removed when grains are refined. This makes the grains whiter and quicker cooking, since water can now easily pass through the grain.

However, the layer below the seed coat, the aleurone layer, is also removed when grains are refined. This thin layer (only one to four cells thick) is where all the good stuff is. It’s high in oil, minerals, protein, vitamins, and flavor.

Below the aleurone layer is the bulk of the grain, the endosperm. This is the food storage area for the embryo. It is composed of mostly starch in a matrix of protein. The closer you get to the center of this mass, the more starch there is and the less protein. So the more refined a grain is, the less nutritional value it contains.

Last but not least is the embryo, or germ. The embryo is located close to the outer wall of the seed so it can easily emerge and start growing a new plant when the conditions are right. The germ is rich in oils, enzymes and flavor. But, alas, is also lost in refinement.

Refining grains has given us white bread and white rice. But it’s also given us the disease beriberi; the result of a diet that relies too heavily on refined rice, which lacks thiamine. Refining robs us of most of the fiber, oil and B vitamins in the whole grain and leaves us with mostly starch.

So why do we refine grains? That’s a good question. Stay tuned in two weeks to find out the answer.
To Be Continued…


Sprouted Wheat Berries

1/3 c Whole Wheat Berries
1-Quart Glass Jar
Cheesecloth or sprouting lid

Soak the wheat berries overnight in 1 quart of tepid water. In the morning, rinse the berries in tepid water and drain completely (save the soaking water for your plants, they’ll love you for it). Place the rinsed berries in the jar. To make draining and rinsing the seeds easier, place a piece of cheesecloth over the jar and secure with a rubber band or a metal ring. If you have a sprouting screen, you can use that as well. Place the jar in a dark place, like a cupboard or pantry.
Rinse and drain the seeds twice a day for two days. They should be sprouting by then. Place them in cold water and gently separate them. You will want to use them right away, since this is when they are at their nutritional peak. They can be stored in a tightly sealed container in the refrigerator for a couple of days.
You can eat them in salads or bake them into bread or throw them into a hot vegetable dish during the last moments of cooking. They are sweet and nurishing