Dr. Cathy Sevcik, Naturopathic Doctor and Bowen Therapist

NATUROPATHIC DOCTOR & BOWEN THERAPIST

Sprouts and Microgreens: Petite but Mighty!

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My first successful crops of bok choy and red cabbage: pretty and delicious!

I must admit, I’ve not been that interested in sprouts since the 80’s when my mom got on the alfalfa sprout bandwagon and snuck those boring little stringy things into practically everything.

But I’ve recently shifted my thinking when I started eating microgreens which I was buying at my local upscale grocery store, for the cost of their weight in gold. Being ever practical and in need of new hobby, I decided to look at growing them myself and then the whole world of interesting sprouts and microgreens literally germinated and grew in front of my eyes!

Sprouts

Sprouts are merely germinated seeds. They are soaked in water for a specific period and then usually rinsed twice a day. They are harvested at 4 – 6 days. Both the seed and sprout are consumed. The nutritional content will be similar to that of the seed, but it will be easier to digest than the unsprouted seed.

I’ve been sprouting both larger mixed beans/seeds and the smaller mixed brassica (cabbage family) seed blends. I have difficulty digesting large beans and pulses so after I’ve sprouted them, I add them to a soup or stew and cook them. The mixed brassica seeds are small and once they are sprouted, they are perfect for adding to a salad or a slaw.

Microgreens

Microgreens are to sprouts as infants are to babies. They are grown until the first two sets of leaves have emerged, usually 10 – 14 days. They are then harvested and the root and seed is not eaten. Microgreens are the trifecta of food perfection: tasty, pretty and extremely nutritious! They pack more flavor and have been tested to contain 4 – 40 times more nutrients (such as vitamins like A, C and E and carotenoids) than their mature plant counterparts (Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2012).

I decided I wanted to grow my own microgreens indoors in my apartment-style condo. I decided that I wanted to do this hydroponically so that I didn’t have to deal with soil indoors. After spending some time on the internet watching YouTube and searching for Canadian suppliers, I put together my little microgreen and sprout farm.

My first two pilot crops failed.

I did not give up and I am so glad I didn’t. I’ve been enjoying red cabbage, bok choy and flax microgreens. They are very flavorful! I add them to grated carrot and apple for my version of a slaw salad.

I am by no means an expert but if you want some help or encouragement – let me know!

How to Cook Beans and Pulses

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Proper preparation and cooking makes beans and pulses more digestible and less gas forming.
Proper preparation and cooking makes beans and pulses more digestible and less gas forming.

Want to eat more pulses but don’t want the (gas) pain? Me too so I went searching for information and here is what I found.

Go Slow: If you have not been eating pulses because they cause a lot of gas for you, then you probably need to work your way up slowly. Sitting down to an entire cup of baked beans or vegetarian chili is not going to go well for you. Start by adding pulses to dishes that contain other ingredients so that you don’t eat more than 1-2 tablespoons of pulses at any one sitting. This process will give your body and microbiome more time to adapt. You may never be able to eat a really large amount of pulses at a time but even a small amount is healthful.

Eat sprouted beans and pulses: Where I shop, it is easy to buy fresh mixed sprouted beans. The company recommends sprinkling them on salads etc. For me, that would give me terrible gas. I actually use the sprouted beans in soups, stews and chili. They are already easier to digest due to the sprouting process and I further soak and cook them to help out my delicate digestive tract. If you want to make your own sprouts, one source I read noted that the only ones that are actually easy to sprout are lentils and garbanzos – so keep that in mind.

Soak pulses before cooking: This is where the advice gets specific. Many sources say, soak for 8 hours or overnight – this is not nearly long enough, as my colon plainly advised me. Here is what I have gleaned from reading a variety of sources:

• Soak for at least 48 hours (ie 2 days) before cooking, up to 3 days even
• Change soaking water frequently, up to 3 times per day. Rinse the anti-nutrients away with each water change.
• Use very warm soaking water (but under 150 degrees Fahrenheit – or else you will deactivate the enzyme that breaks down the fiber). Obviously the water will cool off by the time you change it but the warmth aides in rehydrating the beans and enabling the enzymes to digest the oligosaccharides that we can’t digest ourselves.
• Use alkaline soaking water. There were a variety of conflicting pieces of advice on how to achieve this but one method that seemed credible was to add a small amount of baking soda to the water.

Cook the bean dish on low heat for an extended period: Traditional recipes using pulses always used a slow cook method in order to improve digestibility as much as possible.

Eat the meal with some fermented food: The probiotic in the fermented food may help digest the remaining fiber in a comfortable way in the digestive tract.

If you need ways to improve your iron stores, consider eating your pulses with a small amount of animal protein. This may not impact the gas forming property of your meal, but evidence suggests that the non-heme iron in the beans is more readily absorbed in the presence of heme-iron, found only in animal sources.

Go – cook and enjoy! I welcome comments and suggestions that you may have to help others add more of these healthy foods to their diet.

Beans – The Magical Fruit, and Other Cautions

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Beans, legumes and pulses contain anti-nutrients that require proper preparation.
Beans, legumes and pulses contain anti-nutrients that require proper preparation.

Why do people avoid eating beans, legumes and pulses?

Because these foods cause gas. And most people don’t like that.

There are actually a few issues concerning pulses that need to be dealt with in order to reap the benefits of their nutrient content which I explain below.

Plants don’t have our nutritional needs in mind when producing their seeds. In fact, certain compounds in seeds prevent their break down in animal digestive tracts so that the seed can travel through intact and be ‘deposited’ in a distant location where a new plant can grow. There is no point in eating pulses and legumes if we can’t break them down.

Here is a summary of what are known as anti-nutrients in pulses:

Phytates: Phytic acid or phytates are the storage form of phosphorous in plants. The chemical structure of phytic acid causes it to bind with minerals preventing absorption in our digestive tract. Traditional cooking methods help to remove phytic acid from pulses so that minerals consumed in and with pulses are better absorbed.

Trypsin inhibitors: Trypsin is a critical enzyme in protein digestion in humans – in fact, it starts off the cascade of events that allows any and all proteins to be digested. Pulses contain trypsin inhibitors. These trypsin inhibitors prevent us from accessing the protein content of the bean. Protein is one of the main reasons we want to eat beans and pulses. Fortunately, just like plants have worked on outsmarting our digestive system, traditional cooking methods have helped humans circumvent this anti-nutrient.

Complex Oligosaccharides: Although we want the pulses in our diet for the fiber that feeds our microbiome, too much fiber of a certain type can result in excessive gas production. Excess gas, which can be embarrassing and painful, is probably the primary reason why many people avoid eating legumes and pulses. And we have all heard the advice about soaking to reduce gas – it just doesn’t work!

Well as it turns out, an over night soak is just not enough.

Stay tuned for next week’s blog on how to cook and eat pulses with minimal digestive upset!

2016 – International Year of the Pulses

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Health benefits of pulses
Pulses could rescue us from our environmental and health crisis.

Pulses could be a key player in helping us get out of the looming environmental and health crisis.

You may not be familiar with the term pulse, but you are familiar with the food. Pulses include lentils, dried peas and dried beans. Pulses are dried seeds and are a subset of legumes which includes any plant whose fruit is enclosed in a pod. Legumes have a unique ability to absorb nitrogen from the air and manufacture their own protein. Nitrogenous fertilizers can be reduced when growing legumes, making them comparatively advantageous over other crops. And of course, when compared to animal farming, there is a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gasses and an obvious environmental advantage.

Let’s turn our attention to the health benefits of dietary pulses.

Protein: Pulses contain more protein than most plants. Pulses and whole grains when consumed together provide all the essential amino acids necessary for human health. If you are a vegetarian, it is really advantageous to have pulses in your diet. But even if you are not a vegetarian, you can reduce the amount of protein that you eat from animal sources and eat more pulses for an overall healthier diet.

Minerals: Minerals are essential to our health – from forming part of our bones, carrying oxygen in our blood or being incorporated in enzymatic processes in our cells. Minerals are an essential part of all living systems and so we consume them in all our foods. Pulses happen to contain proportionally higher amounts of minerals than many other foods.

Fiber: My favorite reason for including pulses in the diet is to increase fiber intake. In my opinion dietary fiber is the most under-appreciated factor in a healthy diet. Fiber slows the absorption of sugar into the blood stream after consuming a meal which helps to maintain insulin sensitivity and prevent diabetes. Fiber improves bowel regularity. Fiber feeds the microbiome which produces essential nutrients to our health. One essential by-product of fiber fermentation in our gut is butyrate. Butyrate feeds our colon cells thereby maintaining the integrity of the gut. Butyrate is also a natural cholesterol modulator.

Stay tuned for next week’s blog explaining the down sides of eating pulses!

 

Are Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPI’s) Safe?

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Get to the root cause of your discomfort rather than covering up the warning with a PPI.
Get to the root cause of your discomfort rather than covering up the warning with a PPI.

In the US, 15 million Americans are taking a proton pump inhibitor (PPI). PPI’s are the most effective drugs for reducing stomach acid secretion. Drugs included in this class are Prilosec (omeprazole), Prevacid (lonsaprazole) and Nexium (esomeprazole). People take these medications long term for the treatment of heart burn or gastro-esophageal reflux disorder (GERD). Once on one of these medications, the patient is rarely counselled to taper and discontinue, even though doing this would not cause a return of symptoms.

PPI’s were once believed to be a very benign medication, but research has surfaced questioning this assertion.

PPI’s have been associated with osteoporosis. The proposed mechanism of action is easy to understand. Most minerals require adequate stomach acid to be broken down and absorbed, calcium included. PPI’s likely reduce the absorption of calcium, thereby reducing bone density and increasing the risk of fractures.

PPI’s have been associated with dementia. In animal models it has been shown that PPI’s change certain activities in the brain that may increase the accumulation of amyloid plaques, the hallmark of Alzheimer’s. It is possible this also occurs in humans.

PPI’s have been associated with kidney disease, both acute and chronic. The mechanism may be related to the kidney’s role in maintaining pH balance in the body. PPI’s must disturb pH by profoundly reducing stomach acid.

PPI’s have been associated with C difficile infection and pneumonia. By reducing stomach acid, the body is likely more vulnerable to bacterial infection. Furthermore, the change in gastric pH likely changes the gut microbiome which has a major impact on all systems.

PPI’s have been associated with heart disease. This research is quite new and a novel hypothesis has been presented that suggests that PPI’s may alter production of nitric oxide in blood vessels. Nitric oxide is a primary regulator of blood vessel health.

As you can see, research is stacking up that suggests that long term PPI use could be detrimental to multiple organ systems.

Most people start PPI therapy due to digestive complaints such as heart burn or chronic indigestion. These symptoms are telling the individual that something is wrong. In only extremely rare circumstances, does a person actually produce too much stomach acid. The signal means that lifestyle factors are not in alignment with the body’s needs. The discomfort is like an engine warning light. You don’t fix the engine by covering up the light.

Diet plays a large role in heartburn, GERD and other forms of indigestion. Identifying and removing food intolerances is an ideal way to get to the root cause. The overall diet may need to be reviewed and tweaked. Other lifestyle factors can also be important.

Ultimately, if you have discomfort in your digestive system, your body is asking you to pay attention and make some changes. Respond to the warning by making the changes that your body needs, not by circumventing the warning system with a PPI.

 

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