HEALTHY LIVING
EINKORN
SORGHUM
MILLET
TEFF
Eat Like the Ancients:
Heirloom Grains Return “Heritage grains” such as einkorn are trendy and expensive — but are they any healthier than ordinary wheat? ::
BY LAURA JOHANNES Y
ou’ve heard of heirloom tomatoes. Now meet heirloom fl ours, ground from grains fi rst
domesticated thousands of years ago. Also called “heritage” or “ancient,” these grains are now in supermarket breads, health-food store pasta, and cookies. They are billed as exceptionally nutritious and, in some cases, safe for people who can’t tolerate gluten. Some dietitians say they aren’t necessarily better than modern whole grains, and new research casts doubt on the gluten safety of some products. Any grain that contains gluten, no
82 NEWSMAX MAXLIFE | MARCH 2013
matter how ancient, isn’t safe for people with celiac disease, a severe intolerance to gluten found in about 1 percent of the population, says Alessio Fasano, director of the center for celiac research at the University of Maryland in Baltimore.
THE ICEMAN EATETH One of the oldest wheats to
recently hit store shelves is einkorn (the fi rst syllable rhymes with “mine”), which was domesticated some 10,000 years ago, says Austrian archeobotanist Klaus Oeggl. The stomach contents of Ötzi, a 5,200-year-old mummy also known as the Iceman, suggests his last meal was
likely an einkorn fl atbread, says Dr. Oeggl, a professor at the University of Innsbruck. “Heritage grains are more
delicious and more nutritious,” says Eli Rogosa, founder of the Heritage Grain Conservancy, a Colrain, Mass., nonprofi t working to save ancient wheat varieties from extinction. Modern wheat is bred for high yield, not for maximum nutrition, she says.
PRICEY ALTERNATIVE Today’s einkorn fl our is expensive,
in part because of its low yield. A 5-pound bag sells for $34.95 on the Heritage Grain Conservancy’s website. That is at least four times the
EINKORN/IMAGO STOCK&PEOPLE/NEWSCOM / SORGHUM STALK/LISA KYLE YOUNG/PHOTODISC/GETTY IMAGES / SORGHUM SEEDS/ISTOCKPHOTO/THINKSTOCK MILLET/ISTOCKPHOTO/THINKSTOCK / TEFF STALK/MARTIN ZWICK/AGE FOTOSTOCK/SUPERSTOCK / TEFF SEEDS/KEITH BEATY/TORONTO STAR/ZUMAPRESS/NEWSCOM
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