Dear Mark: Visting Family – Primal Compromises and Grain Alternatives
Dear Mark,
Browsing the Crossfit nutrition forums, I recently came across an interesting discussion about buckwheat, a possible Primal-friendly grain alternative. It caught my eye because I’ve been on the lookout for alternatives to pasta and bread ever since I found out that my Standard-American-Diet family will be visiting for an entire week (!) next month. What are your thoughts on buckwheat in particular and my conundrum at large?
I’ve previously covered a number of popular grain alternatives in my post about quinoa. In that post you’ll find suggestions like eggplant, butternut squash, crustless quiche, sweet potatoes and stuffed mushrooms. These are good go-to options when you are feeding family members that are used to starchier foods, or when you are making the transition to Primal eating and are finding it difficult to not revert back to eating your usual biscuits, pasta dishes, pancakes and croissants. But what of buckwheat?
At first glance, buckwheat certainly looks promising. Unlike grains, it’s not a grass, but rather a flowering pseudocereal. The triangular seed from the buckwheat plant, called a groat, is harvested and can be milled into flour or used whole in cereals. Seed? Seeds work, right? Not necessarily. While I love most seeds for their high fat content and protein, they do have to be low in carbs to pass the test. Buckwheat groats are decidedly starchier than, say, flax (another story altogether) or pumpkin seeds, so we must use caution. Buckwheat’s glycemic index is 54, which is still fairly high despite being lower than actual grains.
Historically speaking, buckwheat certainly isn’t paleo. You can put lipstick on a pseudocereal, but it’s still a high-carb, high-glycemic-loading grain wannabe. It also requires significant amounts of processing (grinding, roasting, rinsing, sprouting) to become edible to humans, and the earliest known domesticated cultivation of buckwheat was in Southeast Asia, probably around 6000 BC, well after the advent of agriculture. A wild form obviously existed before, but – as with grains and legumes – not in large enough quantities for it to become a regular food source for early man.
Is there a place for buckwheat in the modern Primal diet?
If you want my strict Primal answer, then, well, no. But your question had another nuance: that you have family visiting, and that these loved ones can’t imagine eating a meal without a starchy side. So you are looking for some sort of middle ground. If you desperately need a grainish backdrop for a meat dish, I guess you could throw in a little quinoa or buckwheat. But my guess is that your family members might be turned off more by these pseudo-grains than they would be if you prepared something genuinely Primal for them – think steamed, sauteed or grilled veggies galore with clean cuts of meat prepared in dozens of ways. (Check out my Recipe category for scores of suggestions.) With quinoa, buckwheat, or even rice for that matter, it is likely neither you nor your family will be satisfied; you because it isn’t truly Primal, and they because they had to eat… buckwheat and KEEN-WAH.
You don’t have to get all preachy on your family about what they ingest, but you could use this visit as an opportunity to subtly inform them about their foods choices. That is, just prepare Primal foods and see if they even notice. My guess is they’ll be begging for seconds without even knowing how healthy they are eating. Who knows? By the end of the week they may feel better than ever.
I’ve addressed the social dynamics of eating in the past. Here are a few of the most relevant:
Dear Mark: How to Eat a Healthy Dinner with My Family?
You vs. The Mob: Mob Eating Mentality
10 Simple Steps to Help Motivate a Friend
Diet Change and Partner Dynamics
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
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I had my favorite fried rice on friday night for the first time since going primal (wife is Thai and makes a killer fried rice). It was an enlightening experience. It didn’t fill me up, I wanted to eat a lot more, my body felt sluggish, tired and over-all icky and I had my first anxiety attack since going primal. I was at a highschool football game I went to watch my youngest brother participate in and started freaking out about all the people when it wasn’t even really that busy (brain chemical imbalance?). I never fully believed the negative effects of grains until this experience. I am much better off without em and don’t need a substitute grain… primal all the way!
Listen, I know that when I take a visit back to my hometown and my grandmother has chicken noodle soup on the table for me, I do not pass that up. Is it okay to deviate from the primal diet occasionally?
Figured buckwheat was kind of like oatmeal, one of those things touted as healthy, but still boils down to a carby, carby food. And Jen, I occasionally deviate from the primal diet (usually in the form of beer), for me the important thing is to know when and by how much I’m deviating!
Mark said: My guess is they’ll be begging for seconds without even knowing how healthy they are eating.
I think Mark is right. I’ve been making low-starch and starch-less meals for several years now, for my own family and anyone else who happens to be here. Many people already know how I cook and eat, but not everyone (in which case I often don’t say anything unless someone comments). I never get any complaints and am often complemented on my cooking, either verbally or with clean plates and requests for seconds and thirds.
I think the key is having enough other tempting food choices, so that people can feel like they have “filled up”. I generally make an extra side dish or two when having guests, so that there is a lot of variety to choose from, in case they aren’t wild about everything (or the main course – which is always protein-based and plentiful). I make it easy on myself with some vegetable side dishes that are easy to make in advance/great as leftovers, such as marinated salads (cole slaw, broccoli bacon salad, fennel-kumquat salad), crudités, etc.
I also frequently make a side dish with cauliflower, prepared in such a way that it resembles a potato or rice dish, such as a gratin, mashed, puréed, etc. Low carb cookbooks are filled with delicious faux-starch variations with cauliflower (be sure to drain cooked cauliflower well for best results and don’t overcook).
Breakfast is perhaps the really tricky meal, because not everyone is into eggs or protein for breakfast, and people often have very set breakfast habits and don’t adjust as well at this meal. Some are die-hard cereal junkies and we just aren’t going to change them (yet). I don’t stock prepared cold cereals anymore, but I try to have some melon available as well, or some sort of seasonal lower sugar fruit, plain yogurt, cottage cheese, or some nice slicing cheese (dairy is the non-paleo indulgence in our house). Baked egg custard or a frittata (crustless quiche) is another good option, easily prepared in advance or good as leftovers. Usually I have enough tempting foods that the lack of cereal isn’t too much of a problem. But as a last resort, I also usually have some sprouted whole oats on hand to make oatmeal, if a guest insists they *need* cereal for breakfast. It’s easy to soak whole oats the night before, and show how fast unprocessed or even steel cut oats will cook when soaked overnight. I can live with serving sprouted oat porridge.
This was SO my weekend! I was visiting family in Chicago, so what was on the menu? Italian beef sandwiches, cheese slathered french fries, potato chips, beer, pancakes, chocolate, pop… and the list goes on. I tried, and failed to find a vegetable in that house. I did sort of indulge, I ate part of my roll with my Italian beef, but nothing really filled me up. I was hungry all weekend. (I’m never that hungry when I’m all primal!) If I’d known it would be like that I would have brought 3 lbs of broccoli with me. Luckily I’ve been going primal for a while now, so I can have higher carb days, but I don’t get the crash. But I hate being hungry and having no veggies around!! It’s so frustrating being around people that are the opposite of primal.
AMEN!
Haha! Never thought you’d read that! Consider it a sign of celebrity?
Don’t they have restaurants in southern California that can make all y’all happy
Dr. J, yes we do, but one dinner at those places will cost as much as I can feed the entire family for days, if not a week. When dining out, I want food at least as good as I can make at home, if not better. Otherwise the only advantage is not doing the dishes.
I know, picky, picky…
I thought buckwheat was a fruit, like a rhubarb.
rhubarb aint a fruit!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhubarb
I have an acquaintance that goes into anaphylatic (sp?)shock if she touches buckwheat. We have had to take her to emergency several times when she mistakenly ate some.