The Sprouted Buckwheat Groat ~ What it is & Why we Love it

At hOMe Grown Living Foods, we infuse many of our products with Sprouted Buckwheat Groats. The light nutty flavour and dense nutritional profile make Buckwheat a Super Food in our opinion and a wonderful addition to a Whole Foods diet. In whole form, Sprouted Buckwheat Grouts are the base for our Hemp Chia BUCKwheaties and CHOCO Chia Hemp BUCKwheaties. When ground up they make an excellent binder for our RAWgles!

What are Sprouted Buckwheat Groats?

Like many of the other so-called “whole grains”, buckwheat is not technically a grain nor a cereal. It is a seed related to rhubarb and sorrel making it a suitable substitute for grains for people who are sensitive to wheat or other grains that contain protein gluten.

Buckwheat’s beneficial effects are due in part to its rich supply of flavonoids, particularly rutin, known to strengthen capillary walls. Flavonoids are phytonutrients that protect against disease by extending the action of vitamin C and acting as antioxidants. Buckwheat’s lipid-lowering activity is largely due to rutin and other flavonoid compounds. These compounds help maintain blood flow, keep platelets from clotting excessively (platelets are compounds in blood that, when triggered, clump together, thus preventing excessive blood loss, and protect LDL from free radical oxidation into potentially harmful cholesterol oxides. All these actions help to protect against heart disease.

Buckwheat is also a good source of magnesium. This mineral relaxes blood vessels, improving blood flow and nutrient delivery while lowering blood pressure—the perfect combination for a healthy cardiovascular system. The protein in buckwheat is a high quality protein, containing all eight essential amino acids, including lysine.

Why we Love to grow Buckwheat in the Garden?

We LOVE to plant unhulled buckwheat as a spring and summer cover crop in our garden. Buckwheat suppresses weeds and attracts beneficial insects and pollinators with its abundant blossoms. It is easy to kill, and reportedly extracts soil phosphorus from soil better than most grain cover crops.

Few cover crops establish as rapidly and as easily as buckwheat. Its rounded pyramid-shaped seeds germinate in just three to five days. Leaves up to 3 inches wide can develop within two weeks to create a relatively dense, soil shading canopy.