• Acid-forming
• Moderately warming
• Buildup food Cereal grains are associated with the rise of civilization the world over. Mythologies consistently credit supernatural beings with having brought and taught their use to humans. Grain foods— rice, bread, corn— are part of religious ritual and ceremony and revered as essential to life everywhere. They are the first solid foods given to infants, and when prisoners in times past were given bread— whole-grain bread— and water, it was because they could live on that. Jonathan Swift’ s Gulliver found this out in one of his travels: Oats … These I heated before the fire as well as I could, and rubbed them till the husks came off … I ground and beat them between two stones, then took water and made them into a paste or cake, which I toasted at the fire, and eat warm with milk.… And I cannot but observe that I never had one hour’ s sickness while I staid in this island … There are good reasons for the popularity of grains. They are, together with beans, the only foods that contain all the major nutrient groups needed by the body: carbohydrates, protein, fats, vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Animal foods contain protein but no carbohydrates( with the exception of milk and its products); sugar is pure carbohydrate without protein; and fruits and vegetables are high in vitamins and minerals but too low in protein and fats. That is why grain“ comes closer than any other plant product to providing an adequate diet.” 28 Their protein content makes grains body builders, while their complex-carbohydrate content ensures a steady blood sugar level supportive of intense mental activity. The right amount of whole grains in the diet will support resistance to stress( thanks to the vitamin B complex), endurance, steadfastness, and the capacity for steady work. Too much grain can make the body acidic, as meat would, unless it is accompanied by appropriate quantities of vegetables, seaweeds, or fruits. If it is not well chewed, grain can also cause flatulence and overweight. The saliva contains an enzyme called ptyalin, which initiates the breakdown of starches, and if that enzyme doesn’ t get a chance to act, the rest of the digestive process becomes much more laborious. Grain consumption also has certain nonphysical, psychological or spiritual effects. Eaten to excess, grain may cause a certain rigidity, self-righteousness, and the kind of quiet arrogance that admits no correction. In the right amount, whole grains— not cracked, or ground, but unbroken— can foster a holistic world-view. Ancient Central American Indian lore has it that grains facilitate socialization and social intercourse; and in the West, breaking bread with one’ s neighbor is the ultimate symbol of a spiritually strong social connection. Time and again I hear from my students that a change of diet toward one that includes a significant proportion of brown rice, millet, barley, kasha, and wheatberries has helped dramatically in changing their perception of life— from a fragmented, alienated, self-centered view to one of connection, integration, and oneness. BEANS
• Contractive
• Acid-forming
• Warming
• Buildup food Grain and beans have traditionally formed a pair in dietary systems world wide. We can name the classic combinations almost as if they were one word: rice-and-beans, lentils-and-barley, cous-cous-and-chick-peas. In the Americas, we find cornbread and black-eyed peas as native staples. Aduki beans, soybeans, rice, and millet are the basic foods of China and Japan. Kidney beans, split peas, lentils, and white beans are all popular in Europe as complements to wheat, barley, and rye. Lentils, green and yellow split peas, mung beans, and many other legumes are used daily with rice in Indian households. Chick-peas and fava beans are favored in Africa and the Middle East, accompanying millet, couscous, and bulgur wheat. In her well-known and aptly titled book Diet for a Small Planet, Frances Moore Lappé conferred scientific understanding upon these traditional pairings. The concept of“ complementary proteins” is currently well established among all those even marginally interested in nutrition. This concept holds that it is the combination of certain plant foods( grain with beans, or beans with seeds) that provides a higher amount of usable protein than would be expected by just considering the protein content of the individual foodstuffs. For example, if you were to eat enough wheat to get 30 grams of usable protein, and enough beans to get 70 grams, when you eat them together you would actually get 133 grams, not 100. Although all plant foods contain all eight essential amino acids( the ones that cannot be manufactured by the body), these appear in patterns that apparently make them less usable than the protein in eggs, milk, and meat. However, when people are raised on low-protein diets, as they are in most of the world, they are much more efficient at extracting the full nutritional value of plant foods than people raised on high-protein diets. When people switch from an animal-protein diet to a vegetarian diet, then, it is particularly important that they consume complemented vegetable proteins, because their body system is conditioned to expect protein that is fully utilizable. Unfortunately, many people who have added whole grains to their diet and eliminated or greatly