Buckwheat Nutrition
A Guide to Buckwheat Nutrition
If you are interested in buckwheat nutrition, chances are that you are looking for healthier foods to add to your diet. Buckwheat is often thought to be a grain when in actuality it is a fruit seed. Because it does not actually fall in the grain family, buckwheat does especially well as a cereal grain substitute for those who have an intolerance to gluten. Even if you don’t have a gluten intolerance, you can still reap plenty of benefits from this excellent seed.
Buckwheat Nutrition
Buckwheat nutrition offers plenty of vitamins and nutrients without large amounts of fat. In a typical 2,000 calorie diet, one cup of buckwheat contains about 17 percent of the daily recommended allowance of fiber. It also contains 98 percent of the daily recommended amount of magnesium, 94 percent of copper, 22 percent of potassium, and 21 of percent iron. It also has large amounts of riboflavin, pantothenic acid, zinc, phosphorus, and niacin. Calcium, thiamin, and vitamin B6 can also be found in buckwheat in smaller amounts. There are quite a lot of carbohydrates in buckwheat—about 41 percent of the daily recommended amount—however the complex nature of these carbs require more energy to digest them.
Health Benefits of Buckwheat
There are plenty of benefits to be had by adding buckwheat to your diet. Studies have shown that people who consume buckwheat on a regular basis are less likely to develop high cholesterol or high blood pressure. Studies have also suggested that eating buckwheat can cause an increase in high-density lipoproteins, or HDL cholesterol. This is the healthy cholesterol that keeps the low-density lipoproteins, or LDL cholesterol, numbers in check. Buckwheat also has components called flavonoids, or phytonutrients, which boosts the effectiveness of vitamin C. Vitamin C is an essential nutrient that helps the body to fight off illnesses and maintain a healthy immune system. Flavonoids also play an important role when it comes to regulating blood flow. They also prevent blood from clotting too much. Because of these traits, buckwheat can effectively lower one’s risk of heart disease.
In addition to preventing heart disease, regular portions of buckwheat can also lower your chances of developing diabetes or help you to manage an existing diabetes condition. Anyone who is at risk of diabetes or already suffering from the condition probably knows that regular bread—even whole grain—is a no-no. Unfortunately, bread is a lot like potatoes when it comes to the typical western diet and it can be difficult to avoid bread altogether. Tests have been done to compare the blood glucose, or blood sugar, levels of those who consume buckwheat rather than grain-based breads and the results were quite impressive! Those who ate buckwheat had significantly lower blood sugar levels than those who ate bread. In fact, those who consumed three times more buckwheat than bread still managed to have lower blood glucose levels!
Cooking with Buckwheat
You might be worried about having difficulty finding buckwheat-based products in your local supermarket. Buckwheat products can often be found in the gluten-free or alternative grains section of your local grocery store, but you can also use it to cook your own meals. Instead of paying an escalated price for buckwheat baked goods at the health food store, why not bake them yourself? You can easily cook your favorite recipes—all you need is to invest in a sack of buckwheat flour and use it in the place of regular flour. You don’t have to give up pancakes, muffins, cakes, or bread because it is so easy to whip up these goodies yourself!
If you feel that buckwheat nutrition could improve your overall health, then why not give it a try?