Common buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) is a pseudo-cereal crop that produces short, wide-spreading plants bearing bright green, heart-shaped leaves and small white flowers. Although it may seem a bit odd to end our Grain of the Month adventure with a pseudo-cereal like buckwheat, it has played an important role in diets around the world, mainly in Asia and Eastern Europe.
Buckwheat has been providing essential nutrients, vitamins, energy, and fiber to humanity for approximately 8,000 years. Its first starring role as a cultivated crop appears circa 4000 B.C. in the Balkan region of Europe, but its thought to have truly taken hold inland in Southeast Asia and from there spread to Central Asia, Tibet, the Middle East, and Europe. There are accounts that Japan’s Emperor Gensho ordered buckwheat cultivation throughout the entire country to prepare for dry weather in 722. Here in the U.S., buckwheat first hitched a ride with European colonists and, since that time, can be found growing in just about every corner of the globe.
In fact, some early American crop yields are recorded by Dr. Jonathan Pireria in his book A Treatise on Food and Diet, published in New York in 1843 – complete with a recipe for buckwheat cakes!...
It’s high in soluble fiber,
Helping to slow down the rate of glucose absorption. This can be especially important in people with diabetes and anyone else trying to maintain balanced blood sugar levels. One Slovenian study in 2001 showed boiled buckwheat groats or bread made with at least 50% buckwheat flour induce much lower postprandial (after-meal) blood glucose and insulin responses than white wheat bread.
It’s a potential source of resistant starch, a type of starch that escapes digestion in the small intestine. Resistant starch is often considered the third type of dietary fiber because it possesses some of the benefits of insoluble fiber and some of the benefits of soluble fiber. While most of the starch in buckwheat is readily digestible, the small portion that is resistant (about 4-7%) can be highly advantageous to overall colon health."
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World's Healthiest Foods