The Effects of Soaking and Sprouting on Phytic Acid

Scientific studies give us insights into the means to remove phytic acid from grains. Sprouting grains is a wonderful step in the fermentation process. But it does not remove that much phytic acid. Typically sprouting will remove somewhere between 20-30% of phytic acid after two or three days for beans, seeds, and grains^32b under laboratory conditions at a constant 77 degrees Fahrenheit.^33b Sprouting was more effective in rye, rice, millet and mung beans, removing about 50% of phytic acid, and not effective at all with oats. Soaking by itself for 16 hours at a constant 77 degrees typically removed 5-10% of the grain and bean phytic acid content. Soaking increased or did not reduce the phytic acid content of quinoa, sorghum, corn, oats, amaranth, wheat, mung beans and some seeds. ^34b These statistics do not illustrate the entire picture. Even though soaking quinoa actually increased phytic acid contents, soaking and then cooking quinoa reduces its phytic acid levels by more than 61%.^35b The same holds true for beans. Soaking and then cooking removes about 50% of phytic acid. With lentils this same procedure removes 76% of phytic acid.^36bRoasting wheat, barley or green gram reduces phytic acid by about 40%.^37b A very interesting report shows the value of grain and bean storage in relation to plant toxins. In humid and warm storage conditions beans lost 65% of their phytic acid content.^38b

Grain Bran and Fiber

Grain bran is high in insoluble fiber that your body cannot digest. This explains the usual indigenous practice to remove grain bran through sifting or other methods. While bran is a fine food for mice, and has been used as an animal feed, these plastic-like substances are not good for humans. Even bran used as fertilizer needs to be fermented to release its vitamins. Many indigenous cultures process their food to make it soft, tasty, and easy to digest. When I was younger I believed the premise that bran was healthy because it had lots of nutrients. So I would force myself to eat bran muffins. Even with the large amount of unhealthy sugar, the bran muffins tasted terrible. I was not listening to what my body wanted when eating the bran. My body did not want to eat bran; it wanted to spit it out. The benefits of fiber from bran are unproven. The large bulky material may irritate your digestive tract. Bran-enriched food, especially bran that is not thoroughly fermented, will have extremely high amounts of demineralizing phytic acid. Focus on foods that taste good and are easy to digest and absorb rather than foods that the television or government says are good but that your body feels repelled by.

Indigenous People’s Fermentation of Grain

It is difficult to hand tailor the available information on grain and legume toxicity and transform it into guidelines for making all grains safe to eat. Each type of grain has a substantially individual botanical structure. Further, each grain species has regional differences; for example, there are more than 50,000 known varieties of wheat.^39b The concentration of grain toxins may vary widely based on the particular grain and its regional variety.

To make grain, nut, legume, and seed consumption healthy we need to remove as much phytic acid and other grain toxins as possible. Because each grain, nut, bean or seed is its own entity, each requires different types of attention to make it safe to eat. How safe grains are for you to eat varies greatly based on your genetic lineage, how old you are (kids are far more susceptible to wrongly prepared grains), how efficient your digestion is, how many grains, nuts, seeds and beans you consume, and what other foods you eat.

Indigenous people went through extreme lengths to process their grains to make them healthy to eat. In our modern culture we do not go to these same lengths, and suffer as a result. The lesson I have learned from the proper preparation of grains and beans is that there are no shortcuts. One wrong move with them, and your teeth might be crumbling apart. Food fermentation preserves food, enriches the vitamin and amino acid content, removes plant toxins, and decreases the cooking time. Grains that are prepared for alcoholic beverages are at first sprouted.

Rye , Wheat, Spelt, Kamut, and Barley

Indigenous cultures know how to prepare grains and beans properly to ensure optimal health. In the Loetschental Valley in Dr. Price’s time the natives did not have doctors or dentists because they did not need them. They also consumed large amounts of sourdough rye bread. A careful analysis of the Swiss diet nutrient chart earlier in this book shows that the high alpine rye bread only provides a little bit more than 0.1 grams of phosphorous in the daily diet than white bread. This is not the huge difference in nutrients that whole grains are supposed to have over white flour. The explanation for this is that the people of the Swiss Alps did not use the whole rye grain.

As in many cultures across the world, the Swiss natives started with a whole rye kernel. But after grinding it slowly on a stone wheel, they sifted the rye and removed approximately ¼ of the flour mixture by weight of all impurities.^40bBran and germ consist of approximately 15-20% of the entire kernel. To be clear, if they started with one cup of flour, after sifting they would have ¾ of a cup of flour remaining. This rye bread still probably contained trace amounts of bran and germ vitamins. Even without knowing the science of phytic acid and lectins, they removed the phytic acid through fermentation, and removed toxic lectins in the germ and bran of the rye grain by sifting out the germ and the bran completely. It is likely then that the safe consumption of our most common grains similar to rye, like wheat, kamut, spelt, and barley involve a substantial or complete removal of the bran and the germ. The high Alpine natives produced a sourdough rye bread in large batches, which included a four-and-a-half-hour hand mixing time.^41b While the people in the Loetschental Valley baked their bread once per month, a more ancient recipe was based upon only one single communal bread baking per year. That means for the rest of the year the bread aged while it was hung on walls. There is evidence that aging grains under certain conditions removes phytic acid and it may also further degrade other grain toxins.

When considering healthy grain consumption we often overlook the importance of the other foods eaten with the grains. How healthy a grain is to eat for the health of your teeth depends on how much phytic acid and other toxins the grain has as well as how much or how little calcium is in your diet. The Swiss natives who enjoyed near total immunity to tooth decay understood this principle and combined their rye bread consumption with cheese and milk in the same meal. This food combining of calcium-rich cheese and milk, and vitamin C-rich dairy products protected them against any residual grain toxins left in their bread not destroyed by milling, fermentation, sifting, baking and aging. The secret to the healthy Loetschental Valley people is their preparation methods which produced grains low in toxins, as well as their consumption of grains in combination with dairy products which were high in calcium, phosphorous, and fat-soluble vitamins.

Wheat and dairy products eaten together is not just seen in the high Alpine villages. In Africa a traditional dish made from wheat known as kishk involves a laborious process to make the wheat safe to eat. First the wheat is boiled, dried, and then ground. The bran is completely removed as in the case of the Loetschental rye preparation. Milk is soured in a separate vessel, and then milk and bran-free wheat are soured together for 24-48 hours, and finally dried for storage.

Ancient beer recipes do use the bran and germ of grains. Ancient beer is a fermentation method that extracts the good vitamins from the bran and the germ without exposing the beer drinker to the grain toxins. Unfortunately modern commercially brewed beers can cause cavities.

Healthy Oats

The Gaelics of the Outer Hebrides regularly consumed large amounts of oats, but they did not suffer from scurvy, rickets, or tooth decay. In contrast, rickets was very common in more modern parts of Scotland where oats were also consumed. The difference between the two oat-eating groups was the fat-soluble content of their diets, and how the oats were prepared. Oats were stored outdoors after harvesting and the oats partially germinated for days or even weeks in the rain and sun.^42b The outer husk was collected and fermented for a week or longer. This could have been used to produce an enzyme-rich starter for souring oats. Oats may have been fermented anywhere from 12-24 hours and as long as a week. I am unclear if the oats were consumed whole, or if the bran was removed. I am further unclear on all the details on how oats were prepared. Modern oatmeal flakes typically have the bran removed. The diet of the Outer Hebrides was extremely rich in fat-soluble vitamins A and D from cod’s head stuffed with cod livers which would protect against phytic acid. Their diet was also very rich in minerals from consumption of shellfish which could replenish potentially lost or blocked minerals if there was any phytic acid left in the oats. The combination of soil tending, careful oat preparation, and a mineral- and fat-soluble rich diet allowed oats to be a healthy staple for the isolated Gaelic populations.

Unlike the careful harvesting and storage of oats by isolated cultures, even organic whole oats you buy in the store are heat treated and they are not left in the fields to germinate and dry. Oats are heat treated because the high fat content of this grain can easily suffer rancidity during storage. The heat treated oats lose their entire phytase enzyme content however, so soaking or souring oatmeal will not destroy any phytic acid prior to cooking. There is a surprising percentage of people I have talked to who have cavities or whose children have cavities who are heavy oat eaters. This confirms the results of the Mellanby’s years of human and animal trials. In the rickets experiments, oats that are first sprouted and then soured for two days lost their ability to produce rickets.

The problem with preparing truly healthy-to-eat oats is that you need to special order oats that are still alive in order to sprout them. I am uncertain if you can make heat treated oats safe for the health of your teeth. My suggestion would be to sprout oats for two days and then to dry them and remove the oat bran through grinding and sifting or flaking. Then you would need to sour oats at a warm temperature with a starter for 24 hours before consuming. The consequences of oats that are not expertly prepared for our teeth are a documented cause for concern.

Healthy Rice

In rice-eating countries across the globe, rice is rarely consumed in its brown form, with the whole bran. In a quest to find the most ancient and traditional preparation methods, I found several accounts of partially polished rice. Rice is traditionally stored in its husk, and then fresh pounded before cooking. How much bran is removed in traditional brown rice preparation seems to be dependent on the breed of rice, and the other foods available in the diet. Ancient rice preparation included low tech milling, such as tumbling the rice with stones which removes a significant portion of bran and germ from the rice.^43b But some portion of the bran and germ remain. That exact amount of bran to be removed will depend on how long the rice is fermented, and the specific type of rice used. A good guess would be 50% of bran should be removed from rice. Milled rice has usually a little bit of germ, polished rice no germ.

Rancid rice has a bitter aftertaste. In several nutrient absorption studies brown rice consumption did not lead to more nutrient absorption compared to rice with the bran removed. In one specific study, brown rice was compared with milled rice (rice without most of the bran and germ, but not polished totally white). There was no difference in nutrient absorption even though the brown rice actually contained more nutrients.^44b This apparent contradiction would be explained by the phytic acid and other anti-nutrients in the rice. One study showed that the anti-iron phytate levels in rice were disabled by the vitamin C in collard greens.^45b Because rice goes rancid rapidly or because insects and rodents eat it quickly, in rice-eating cultures rice is stored in the husk, or stored as white rice. In most of the rice-eating populations across the world it is very difficult to find brown rice.

In a rice-based diet rice toxins are neutralized by sour fruit and vegetables high in vitamin C, land or sea organ meats rich in fat-soluble vitamins, and sometimes via the fermentation of rice or beans. Completely bran- and germ-free rice, known as white rice, can cause a vitamin B-1 (thiamine) deficiency in a diet very high in or exclusively of white rice. The condition is known as beriberi. Beriberi rarely occurred in people eating partially milled rice which retained a small portion of the bran. I know of people in rice-eating cultures with beautiful white, cavity-free teeth who grew up on white rice.

Brem is a special rice-cake bread from Indonesia. It goes through a truly heroic fermentation process in which the rice is fermented for 5-6 days, and then it is sun dried for an additional 5-7 days. Millet and rice are also traditionally fermented with fish, pork or shrimp for several weeks to produce fermented condiments. The healthiest rice I have eaten is a partially milled rice (it has streaks of bran on it) that has been soaked with the brown rice starter as described in chapter six.

Healthy Corn

Even more than rice, the healthy preparation of corn as a grain is largely dependent upon the variety of the corn being used. This leads to a wide variety of traditional corn preparation methods which range from simple roasting to fermenting for two weeks.

Corn is universally nixtamalized when prepared for consumption as flour. This is a process of soaking corn in an alkaline solution to release niacin (vitamin B 3) and then hulling. Modern corn tortillas, chips, and corn meals have either no corn bran or germ, or have very little corn bran or germ. They also are nixtamalized. Typical corn products with the bran and germ removed would be lower in phytic acid and lower in toxic properties than whole grain corn. I cannot clearly advise on how much of these corn products is safe to eat in relation to dental health. They seem comparable to unfermented unbleached wheat flour. If a food has the entire corn kernel in it, and it has not gone through a thorough fermentation process it probably is very high in anti-nutrients like phytic acid and lectins. I am certain that food products containing the entire corn kernel, either as it is, or as sprouted corn should be avoided. Another issue of concern with corn is genetically modified corn. Because of cross pollination, even many not genetically modified corns may have some genetic alteration. Animals typically will not eat genetically modified (GM) corn unless they are forced to do so. Those that have eaten it have had reproductive problems among other problems.

Ogi, a traditional fermented cereal from West Africa illustrates the efforts needed to make corn, sorghum or millet safe to eat for children. To begin, the grains are already sun dried after harvesting and stored in their hulls. The corn is then soaked for 1-3 days. The corn bran, corn hulls, and corn germ are completely removed. The mixture is then fermented for 2-3 days, cooked and then dried for storage.^46b

Pozol is a fermented corn dish from South America. The corn is cooked with calcium hydroxide to release niacin. The hull, or pericarp, of the corn is removed. Pozol is fermented for 1-14 days.

Not every single indigenous grain recipe removes the bran of the grain or even ferments the grain. Injera is an Ethiopian bread traditionally made from teff. The recipe I have for injera uses from whole grain sorghum. The sorghum is fermented with an enzyme-rich starter for 48 hours. Chapati is a flat bread from India made with whole wheat and it is not leavened. In both of these cases it appears the cultures took a recipe that was fine with one grain, such as teff in Ethiopia and rice in India, and then used that same recipe with another more recently introduced grain. Over the past several hundred years new levels of trading, immigration and adoption of customs from other cultures have created whole grain recipes that appear superficially to be traditional, but are in fact adopted and do not effectively remove grain toxins.

Sometimes it requires digging deep to find truly ancient and holistic grain recipes. There are so many examples of time-consuming and energy-intensive grain processing methods. If it was possible for cultures using these intensive methods of grain preparation to be healthy with less work, or to retain a higher yield by keeping the bran and the germ, I am certain they would have done so. I therefore believe these slow fermented and time-consuming ways of preparing grains, typically with the bran and germ removed, are the ones which will produce the greatest degree of health.

Characteristics of Indigenous People’s Grain Preparation

Biodynamic soil practices.
Careful grain harvesting, including slow drying in the sun.
Aging of grains.
Storing grains carefully, many times with the outer hull to preserve freshness.
Grinding grains fresh before preparation.
Combining grains with other foods.
Generally removing the bran and/or germ from the grain.
Use of starters in low-phytase grains.

Phytic Acid Content of Popular Foods

Avoid Commercially Made Whole Grain Products - Yeasted breads have 40-80% of their phytic acid intact in their finished product.^47b If a yeasted bread is made with unbleached white flour, however, it will not have much phytic acid. I have cited numerous examples of the problems with grain bran and germ, and demonstrated that these problems are eliminated by removing the grain bran and germ. There is a big price to pay for not removing most of the bran and germ in the grains in the grass family including wheat, rye, spelt, kamut, and barley. I have heard of several cases now of whole wheat sourdough with spelt causing severe tooth decay. This is because fermentation, while good at removing phytic acid, does not neutralize all the grain toxins like lectins in certain types and varieties of grains. This leads me to the conclusion that it is best to avoid commercially prepared breads, crackers, health food bars, pastas, cereals and anything else in the store that contains whole grains. No exceptions. Since quinoa and buckwheat are pseudo cereals and not exactly grains, there is some chance that they can be consumed whole provided you remove the phytic acid. But I do not know this for certain. Without knowing what the exact toxin is in the grains causing severe cavities, and without specifically testing each particular store-bought food, I cannot say that any whole grain foods from the store will keep your teeth safe from tooth decay.

Avoid sprouted grain breads - Another deadly food for teeth is commercially made sprouted grain products from whole grains. The whole grain plant toxins are not sufficiently neutralized by sprouting and these foods can cause severe tooth decay.

Avoid most gluten-free grain products - Many gluten-free products are made with brown rice. Brown rice will be very high in phytic acid and these products should be avoided. Gluten-free grain products made from white rice, on the other hand, will not have much phytic acid or grain toxins.

Avoid breakfast cereals – These now have bran or whole grains added to them for the advertised fiber and supposed health features of bran. Cereals with whole grains will be very high in phytic acid and likely high in other grain toxins.

Avoid health foodbars – Many contain whole grains that are not properly soured and are very high in grain toxins. They also contain lots of sugar.

Limit popcorn – Popcorn has some phytic acid. Definitely avoid it if you have tooth decay. Moderate amounts of popcorn are safe to eat for people who are otherwise healthy.

Safe Grains Guidelines

Low Phytic Acid, and Low Lectin Grains

Here are introductory guidelines that are easy to follow which reduce or eliminate the possibility that grains will harm your teeth. You want your grains to be as free from plant toxins as possible. These guidelines are for grains that are safe for the health of your teeth and that are easy to obtain. Many of the grain products available today are compromise foods. I therefore do not recommend them as part of an ideal diet but they should be adequate. For the reader who wants excellent improvement in dental health without spending hours in the kitchen fussing about grains, this part is for you.

Semolina is the name for the part of the wheat left over after removing the bran and the germ. It is used to make pasta and couscous. It is unclear how healthy these unfermented processed grains are to eat, but they will be low in phytic acid if they are not made from whole grains. Traditionally couscous and pasta would be made from semolina or other bran-free grains that are soured or fermented in some way. These options are not available commercially as far as I know.

Any type of bread made with unbleached white flour will be low in phytic acid. Fermented sourdough bread is the ideal way to consume unbleached flour. Sourdough bread with unbleached flour that is sour in taste is the best grain product available in the western world. Not all sourdoughs are created equally. The bread should be soured at least 16 hours and be sour in taste. Some artisan bakers even freshly grind the whole wheat or rye, and remove the bran and germ to make an excellent soured loaf.

White rice does not have much phytic acid. It appears that white jasmine and white basmati rice in health food stores retain a tiny portion of the rice germ because of their brownish color. White rice does not seem to have negative health effects on people like white flour does. The ideal rice preparation is with rice that is first aged for one year, freshly milled to remove about half or more of the bran and germ, and then soured. Since most of us cannot do this ourselves, our second best options are to choose between high quality white rice, and partially milled or brown rice prepared with a phytase-rich starter. The brown rice recipe is in the recipe section. If you are not going to soak your rice with a phytase-rich starter, then choose white rice.

Like the other grains, corn products should be fermented. There are many corn tortillas and other corn products in the stores that do not have the corn bran and germ. These should be low in phytic acid and not promote tooth decay. Just keep in mind if you eat any of these compromise foods that any unfermented grain eaten consistently has the potential to cause negative health effects in the long run.

Calcium – Just as in the Loetschental Valley grains go well with cheese. Calcium will block many negative effects from grains, nuts and beans. If you consume bread, have it with a large slice of cheese, or with a cup of raw milk, or both. Lentils go great with some yogurt on the side. The rickets-producing effect of oatmeal was limited by calcium.^48b When vitamin D is low in the diet, even phytic-acid-free grains can deplete levels of calcium.^49b This gives us an important clue to safe grain consumption: have calcium-containing foods with your grains.

Vitamin C – Vitamin C significantly counteracts the negative effects of grain anti-nutrients. Have vitamin C-rich foods with meals that have grains, nuts, beans or seeds in them. High quality unpasteurized dairy products have some vitamin C.

Vitamin C in Food

Folic Acid may play an important part in working with vitamin C to reduce the anti-nutritional effects of grains. High amounts of folic acid are found in liver from a variety of animals as well as in beans, spices, seaweed, leafy greens and asparagus.

Vitamin D – The anti-calcifying effects of whole grains are greatly reduced by vitamin D. Details about vitamin D were discussed in the last chapter. The more grains you consume, in particular oatmeal or whole grains, the more vitamin D your body needs. There is an upper limit to how much vitamin D will block the negative effect of whole grains. So even with plenty of cod liver oil, people consuming a high whole grain diet can have tooth decay problems. That is why it is important to consume grains that do not contain phytic acid or grain toxins. The combination of low phytic acid grains with vitamin D produced optimal bone growth and protection against rickets in diets that contained grains.

Protein – Traditional nut preparation combines roasted nuts with meat stews. Having protein with grains, nuts, seeds or beans may reduce some of their anti-nutritional characteristics.

Summary of Basic Grain and Seed Consumption Guidelines

Do not eat products containing whole grains or added bran.
Do not eat whole grains that are not home prepared.
Do not eat sprouted whole grain products.
Do not consume bleached white flour products.
Do not consume seeds regularly.
When you consume grains, nuts, seeds, or beans regularly, you need to make sure to have adequate calcium, vitamin C and vitamin D in your diet.

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