Phytates

Whole wheat is high in phytic acid, a fact that has made devotees of Sally Fallon (author of Nourishing Traditions) diligently soak their grains or choose options like oatmeal. Fallon recommends soaking grains, legumes, and nuts to reduce the phytic acid in the food and increase your absorption of key dietary minerals.

Fallon lit the phytate spark but did not examine variation in grains, specifically the grains' native ability to break down phytic acid. It turns out that wheat does a pretty good job. On the other hand, oatmeal may be more problematic in the phytic acid department.

Notice the reduction of phytic acid in wheat in the graph below, compared to other grains. Wheat is a great performer. It is likely that any ground wheat recipe that requires the grain to sit for a bit in a warm place (as is the case with many breads) may end up with no phytic acid whatsoever.

These variations and a whole lot of other phytic acid tidbits are available in the Phytic Acid White Paper available for purchase here.

Note: If you wanted to replicate the above you would need a pH of 4.5 and a temperature of 45 degrees C or 113 F (a beach cooler works well to keep temperatures high). Lemonade has a pH of 2.5 to 2.7 so a dilute lemonade would approach a 4.5 pH or if you have litmus paper, even better. Notice the high acidity, pH 4.5 and high temperature, 113 F. A longer soaking would naturally acidify the water (fermented rejuvelac) and then rinsing for a few days until the root tails pop out and also placing the container in the sun would result in very low or 0 phytic acid as shown in the graph. This is all well and good but it turns out sprouted wheat is high in phosphorus which prevents calcium absorption (see below). Carob powder mashed with banana is much more balanced mineral-wise.

Beans: Simply cooking beans will not be effective in reducing phytate levels appreciably, nor will sprouting. Your best bet is a warm, 18-hour soak. Read more.

Beans even if soaked, sprouted and cooked are still too high in phosphorus which prevents calcium absorption.

Are Grains the Hidden Reason for many Modern Diseases including Tooth Cavities? Healing Our Children website

By accident medical doctor J.D. Boyd healed diabetic children’s decayed teeth by designing a grain-free diet. The diet meant to control diabetes not only stopped cavities it turned soft tooth enamel hard and glossy. These findings were published in 1928 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Dr. Boyd’s diet consisted of milk, cream, butter, eggs, meat, cod liver oil, vegetables and fruit.

Please note that both Dr. Mellanby’s and Dr. Boyd’s tooth-remineralizing diet came from a time when milk, butter and cream were raw, farm-fresh and grass-fed.

(note: Grass-fed dairy products contain high levels of vitamin K. Weston Price used butter oil and cod liver oil to reverse dental caries. This protocol caused the dentin to remineralize and seal dental decay with a glassy finish. In the numerous butter samples tested, "Activator X" was present only when the animals were eating rapidly growing green grass occuring in high rainfall periods. Price found the highest concentrations of Activator-X in "the milk of several species, varying with the nutrition of the animal." Price only used butter oil and cod liver oil to heal teeth so the elusive Activator-X factor was the animal derived MK-4 not the bacteria/plant derived MK-7. The MK-7 form of K2 can be produced by bacterial fermentation, natto is the highest source with sauerkraut being a minor source. MK-4 is the type that mammals synthesize for themselves. Instead of cod liver oil vegetarians can use dark yellow butter, butter oil, grass fed cheese and yogurt. Or buy a complete form of K-2 like Life Extension's product; Super K w/ Advanced K2 Complex which contains MK-4, Mk-7 and K1.)

Meanwhile in two other feeding experiments by Dr. Mellanby a low fat-soluble vitamin A and D diet with the addition of ½ to 1 cup of oatmeal per day produced an average of six new cavities per child during the trial period.

Their preexisting cavities did not heal in any way. A diet with less oatmeal and some fat-soluble vitamins produced an average of four and a half new cavities per child, with a few of the preexisting cavities healing during the experiment. The take-home message from these experiments is that oatmeal has a devastating effect on teeth, and that the maximum amount of bone growth and tooth remineralization in these studies occurred with grain-free diets.

MELLANBY, EDWARD

(b. West Hartlepool, Durham, England, 8 April 1884; d. Mill Hill, near London, England, 30 January 1955)

The following is from Phyticacid.org:

Phytic acid / phytates in whole wheat

Beans: Simply cooking beans will not be effective in reducing phytate levels appreciably, nor will sprouting. Your best bet is a warm, 18-hour soak. Read more.

Please note that both Dr. Mellanby’s and Dr. Boyd’s tooth-remineralizing diet came from a time when milk, butter and cream were raw, farm-fresh and grass-fed.

Meanwhile in two other feeding experiments by Dr. Mellanby a low fat-soluble vitamin A and D diet with the addition of ½ to 1 cup of oatmeal per day produced an average of six new cavities per child during the trial period.

MELLANBY, EDWARD

Sprouted wheat (uncooked and unfermented Essene bread) has 7 times more phosphorus than calcium or a Calcium to Phosphorus ratio of 1/7 (28 mg Ca/200 mg P per 100 grams) which will pull calcium from the teeth and bones.