The saying "The whiter the bread the quicker your dead" is a bit tongue and check. However like all sayings it has a grain of truth in that refining destroy's nutrients. Most of us hopefully know that refining slashes the vitamin content. This is because the removal of skin/husks etc is removal of the live part. With grains the starch is covered by the seed coat. It is this seed coat that contains the vitamins essential to the seeds germination. Thus refining removes these vitamins.
However I had no idea how massively the minerals are reduced. Below is a graph on the reduction in trace elements (trace minerals) when refining occurs. Going from brown flour to white flow, brown rice to white rice and raw cane sugar to white sugar.
The blank spaces is where there was no data available (as of 1986). You can see that most of the trace elements are 90+% removed ! (clicking graph brings it up in higher resolution)
Reference: Thorsons complete guide to Vitamins and Minerals. All you need to know about vitamins and mineral for your health by Leonard Mervyn. pg 221
No comments:
Post a Comment