As I was surfing the web researching information relevant to my web site where I sell buckwheat pillows, I stumbled upon some information that grabbed my attention. Two things I am greatly interested in. One is buckwheat, and the other is diabetes. The first interest would be obvious, because of my inter net business, but the second is a more recent interest, or should I say, concern?
I have just been diagnosed as being borderline diabetic, so when I came across this information, I was all ears, or should I say all eyes? What are the chances of finding one article which combines both subjects which are the most important to me? "University of Manitoba researchers find links between buckwheat consumption and absence of diabetes in remote geographical area," or something to that effect.
Researchers had become aware of this area that had virtually no diabetics. They sent researchers to the area to see if they could isolate the factors that might be the cause of this. They had already ascertained that when people moved away from this area, they soon became subject to diabetes in about the same numbers as the prior local residents, so they knew it had to be some factor peculiar to that particular area.
After spending some time there they found one fairly obvious difference. The only flour that was consumed in the area was milled from buckwheat. Every conceivable food that would contain flour, was made from it. They simply did not use any other form of flour. Whether they were making bread, noodles, pancakes, pastries, biscuits, or gravy, it was made with buckwheat flour.
The university then conducted a test using diabetic mice. Apparently, mice react to things pertaining to diabetes, sugar, and insulin, in much the same way that humans do. Giving buckwheat to half of the diabetic mice, and not to the other half, resulted in the half given the buckwheat recovering very quickly from their diabetes. They then ran a small experiment with human diabetics, which resulted in a dramatic lowering of blood sugar levels in those given fairly small amounts of buckwheat every other day.
Being greatly encouraged by these results, they are proceeding with setting up full scale scientifically controlled studies on humans, indicating that based on the experiments with both the mice and the diabetic people, they are quite expectant of achieving possibly dramatic results from these studies.
Having just been diagnosed as being borderline diabetic, I thought I would start eating some buckwheat for breakfast, and see what results I might get.. I went to the local health food store (couldn't find anything except buckwheat pancake mix at the local grocery store) and bought some buckwheat groats (raw buckwheat).
I concocted a couple of recipes. For one I cooked about a third of a cup of groats in a bowl of apple cider. I knew that making oatmeal in apple cider was really good. Then I threw in a handful of raisins. I boiled that about ten minutes, tossed in some frozen berries, which helped cool it down so I could eat it. Sometimes I pour a little low fat milk on it. Pretty good. Next I made some with a third of a teaspoon of beef bullion powder, added some dried chives, some parsley, a little garlic powder, a little lemon pepper, two teaspoons of ground flax seed, a third cup of the groats, a shake or two of sea salt,and boiled that ten minutes in a bowl of water. As soon as this was cooked I dropped in an egg, and quickly stirred it up in the "soup". The heat of the soup cooks the egg, and I really like that recipe.
My results were very encouraging, but of course, anecdotal. I had had a blood test a couple of months before I started eating my buckwheat breakfast. I had weighed 261 lbs., and my hemoglobin A1c (measures your average blood sugar over the last 2 - 3 months) was6.9. After about 3 weeks of eating my buckwheat concoctions, my A1c was 6.1, and my weight was 243. I had not been aware that eating buckwheat also can cause weight loss because it is very high in fiber, and causes you to feel fuller, so you eat less.
Now I'm not saying that other people will get results like I have, and I'm not advocating this as what anyone should do, but I am saying that this research being conducted by the University of Manitoba bears watching. As for me, though, I'm going to keep on eating buckwheat for breakfast. They have found out, in the process of their research, that buckwheat has a whole lot of other very nutritious advantages, One article I read declared that buckwheat was likely destined to become the next super food. I'm sure it's better for me than scrapple with syrup on it, or a bowl of frosted flakes and a doughnut.
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