Holistic Health Catalyst: Soaking your grains! Day 6

I have today off and I'm looking tov cram as much as possible into it. Considering the full assault we endured last night at the Woodspoon I'm impressed I was up at 9 today. We were busier than we've been in over a year, and this is a busy spot!

I definitely over ate last night so today I'm going to focus on my efforts on cleaning the house*, building this business* and preparing some go to foods for this week. I finished my morning pages, and put a load of laundry in. I'm going to start soaking brown rice, and I'm going to quick soak some chickpeas for hummus to have as a quick snack.

Soaking:

You need to soak your whole grains, wether you have steel cut oats in the morning, or brown rice with lunch to prepare them. Soak in water with a little acid like lemon, vinegar, yogurt, kefir... over night or 8 hours. I've read studies that brown rice should get a full 24 hours with a starter culture, but now were just getting in to far! I do that sometimes, it doesn't always happen and something is better than nothing and brown rice that's not soaked at all is still better than white rice. Always rinse until the water runs clear with rice.

Why?

Basically grains, nuts, legumes and seeds are all made to not be digested. They have built in defenses so they can survive and reproduce like us all! So to break down their defenses they need to be soaked with a little acid. It's a pre-digestion. The soaking will help reduce any sensitivities like gas, or even mild gluten allergies.

Next it makes the nutrients available to your body. So if you want that bowl of oatmeal your eating to be many time more nutritious than it already is just set it out the night before with water and a little yogurt and you've just made something you already eat even more nutritious with out adding more calories to your day!

Finally when you soak the the item you're soaking expands. You get more bang for your buck, let's say you soak your oatmeal. The next morning it's expanded, you dump the water and add a little less to cook. That oatmeal is going to finish being much bigger than if you just cooked it. you will need less, and you will get more hydration with your meal. You won't need to soak as much the next night and low and behold a month later you've still got half a carton of oatmeal when you used to be buying a new one! Ya dig?

*email me for a free Health History and these tips will be tailored specifically to you in your 6 month program designed for YOUR health and wellbeing!

If you'd like to read more here's an article on the why to soak whole grains.

And a guide to soaking many different things

The Vegan Vampire with kale at Sustain. I met a couple friends and we got to sample a coconut water with burdock root! This is what happens when you hang out at a juice bar, delish healthy samples. A year ago that would have been the bar I was tending and the samples would have been cocktails I was creating or craft beers. Amazing how it feels to be stepping into my life. As they say you must be your own first client.