Whole grains definitely can be part of a healthful diet, but they are much more nutritious and digestible when prepared the way our ancestors did. Whole grains and legumes contain an antinutrient called phytic acid, which can bind with certain minerals, such as zinc, calcium, and iron, and prevent them from being absorbed by the body.
Soaking, fermenting, or sprouting your grains and legumes before cooking them will neutralize the phytic acid, thus making these foods much easier to digest and making the nutrients easier to assimilate. Phytic acid can be neutralized in as little as seven hours when soaked in water with the addition of a small amount of an acidic medium such as vinegar or lemon juice. Soaking also helps to break down gluten, a hard-to-digest protein found in such grains as wheat, spelt, rye, and barley. If you’ve been eating whole grains and legumes for years without soaking, don’t stress. A small amount of phytic acid is reduced just by the cooking process alone. But for minimal effort, you can significantly improve the digestibility and nutrition of these important foods. Fortunately, grains and legumes are very easy to soak; here are basic instructions:
1. Start the soak the night before or the morning of the day you want to eat them.
2. Pour the grains or legumes into a bowl and cover with warm or room-temperature filtered water. Add a tablespoon of something acidic, such as yogurt, raw cider vinegar, lemon juice, whey, or kefir, for example.
3. Cover and allow to sit at room temperature for at least 7 hours or longer.
4. Change the water after 24 hours if you’re still soaking (see note below).
5. Drain and rinse the grains or legumes before cooking with fresh water.
Even though 7 to 8 hours is the minimum recommended for soaking, even a few hours is better than nothing. An extra benefit to soaking grains is a shorter cooking time. The longer you soak them, the less time is needed to cook and also less water. There’s no formula to figuring this out, but usually if you soak 1 cup of brown rice for 8 hours, you can reduce the cooking time from 50 minutes to about 40 and use about ⅓ cup less water. For 1 cup of soaked quinoa, you can cook for about 10 minutes and use 1¼ cups of water.
If the grains or legumes have been soaking all day but you can no longer commit to cooking them, change the water and refrigerate them for up to three more days.
If you don’t want to make the effort to soak, many supermarkets now carry sprouted grains (as well as sprouted flours, nuts, and seeds) that have already been soaked; you can simply follow the package directions to cook them.