 Hi, I'm chef Robin Today's workshop is from hands helping and nurturing diverse seniors and the Heinenberg senior community center Today, we're going to be talking about grains explained Grains are one of those mystical things for a lot of people to figure out how to include in their diet So today we just kind of want to demystify them and give you guys some helpful cooking tips and Understand why actually we want to include grains in our diet When we were younger and we learned about the food pyramid Serial grains were a very small part of what was included in that food pyramid as we've become more and more knowledgeable About foods and how they affect our health the RDA Recommended allowance now for grains is six to nine servings a day and half of those servings are supposed to be whole grains So let's talk about what a whole grain is Figure out why we would want to eat whole grains and then also how to prepare them so this is just the new plate of What is a healthy meal? And so half is fruit and vegetables and then a quarter should be your grain serving and a quarter is a healthy protein And that's why we want to figure out about healthy grains for those of you who might be Questioning what a whole grain is exactly a whole grain is a kernel from a cereal grass So these are some amber waves of grain right here and That whole kernel Still contains all three edible parts of the whole grain so those edible parts are We're gonna talk now about grains anatomy instead of graze anatomy In grains anatomy Grains are very small. They're kernels The outer part is the brand and that's the protective outer skin of the grain But what that brand does for us health wise when we eat a whole grain is it gives us really really healthy fiber So the brand is bringing the fiber to the plate Also, it contains B vitamins Then the starchy Inner part of that kernel is called the endosperm and that's the largest part of the grain It's the food for the germ It also provides protein and vitamins and minerals Like I said, it's a spark a starchy carbohydrate I just want you to be aware that every single part of this whole grain is bringing something different to the table That's why we want to include them all and then the wheat germ Which I'm sure you guys have heard about before is where a new plant could sprout It also contains B vitamins But the germ is where those healthy fats from a whole grain come from So the brand is going to give us fiber The endosperm is going to be a starch and give us protein and vitamins And then the germ is going to add on to all of that other goodness with healthy fats So all three parts of a whole grain are very important to include in our diet So I kind of went over that but here we have a poster of why actually to include grains and again Right off the bat healthy fiber and fiber is really important as we age because all of our systems are getting a little bit slower a little bit older We may need some extra help and by including healthy healthy fiber in our diet It can keep us in the rooms that we want to be in instead of spending a lot of time away Healthy nutrients all three parts of that grain are bringing healthy nutrients to the table Iron and B vitamins copper magnesium zinc. I can't tell you exactly Why our bodies might need copper or zinc? We could look them all up go through the list But just remember that all of those different systems in our body Need different things and so if we can find a food that helps to address those needs It's important that it's included in our diet Also eating healthy grains can lower your cholesterol The fats that are in whole grains are healthy fats It also can reduce chronic inflammation Information is an issue that a lot of people have as they age So anything that can address that and reduce that is important Like I said before the daily recommended daily allowance is now thought to be at least six to nine servings a day And a serving size just to give you some idea of what a serving size would be Would be one slice of bread Three cups of cooked popcorn And actually that is not a very large amount A cup is actually a small amount. So three cups of popcorn Not really that much One half cup of grits or barley or cooked millet or miller rice One half cup is considered a serving One half cup of pasta is considered a serving One cup of whole grains cereal And one half of a bagel or an English muffin is considered a serving So where you see these numbers six to nine may seem like a lot of food to you Actually, it's not that much if you were to go through your menu for the day You probably could be even over that amount. So Let's take a few minutes and I this is what I really want to spend time on because a lot of people Are anxious about cooking whole grains So they see kernels of rice that are beautiful Rice can come in all different colors and shapes and varieties And they're very Threatened by oh, but I don't know how to cook that. I don't know how to cook that So just to be assured When you go to the grocery store if you buy grains in a package Every grain that you buy in a package is going to have recipes with it and cooking instructions with it So say for instance you buy A bag of rice on the back Is all the information concerning a serving size and also how to cook it and also how to Include it in a menu If you buy your grains from a bulk department in a co-op or a health food store Oftentimes they will have menus available for you And if you decide to buy grains in that way, you can decide to take home half a cup of amaranth three cups of spelt five cups of teff flour Any amount that you care to because it's not prepackaged You decide how much you would like to buy and take home But the health food store here City market also has provided these lovely folders that list Explanations all about the grains that are in the market and how to prepare them There's a recipe on back on the back along with serving information This is about the rices that they have And this is about whole cereal grains that they have so three really nice pamphlets loaded with information They tell you cooking time they tell you cooking ratios Lots and lots of information that are available for free So and you don't even really have to buy the grains if you don't want to you could buy something else But these are there for the taking so very nice Reference material to take advantage of so refined grains are whole grains That have been milled to take away The bran or the germ And then sifted smooth and sometimes even bleached to be a nice bright white color So when you hear the words take away or you hear the words bleached That might kind of like Be an alarm system for you that that's probably not the healthiest to eat If you're going to Enjoy grains. I want you to enjoy them in any way that you find flavorful to you if you're intimidated by whole grains Then finding grains in a refined manner that you enjoy to eat It's much more important that you eat Than not eating but refined grains are definitely less healthy for you Because they have taken part of that nutrient system away. They have taken the bran away They have taken the germ away so consequently When that Happened during the industrial revolution when they started grinding grains and sifting grains to the point Of not having the bran and the germ in them People actually became ill. They became ill with a disease called polegra and a disease called berry berry so What happened then Was they started enriching grains It seems very kind of counter intuitive But people became enamored of white bread people became enamored of white pasta It was a lighter texture. It wasn't quite so dense it had a longer lasting shelf life and so The consumer and the manufacturer weren't going to go backwards They decided instead. Well, let's just put back in some of what we've taken out so They did do that and that is referred to an enriched grain product So when that happens They can't necessarily put it back in exactly As the whole brain naturally occurred Some of these vitamins are synthesized. Some of them don't come from a natural product Also, they can never replace the fiber that's lost so enriched products Are not unhealthy for you But ultimately the healthiest over and above Is the whole grain itself So let's backtrack a little bit now and we'll learn about cooking There's three different ways that I want to speak to you about cooking grains None of them are threatening all of them are easy and I hope that you enjoy it All right, so the first method is really really simple It's just like you would cook pasta or noodles. You have a pot of boiling water. It's not measured It's just boiling water with a little bit of salt added if you can use salt You put your grain in you boil it until it's tender You drain it out There you go the thing about the pasta method Is that oftentimes if you have a lot of leftover water Some of that nutrient is going to be in that water And if you don't reuse that water for either making a soup or starting a bread Or steaming your vegetables It's possible that you're going to lose nutrient matter down the sink It's a very reliable way to cook grains but necessarily if you find yourself pouring away that water Nine times out of ten you might want to rethink how much water you're adding your grains you're adding your grains to or grains added to one or Or maybe just trying another method. So this is the most intimidating method for people The ratio method because they feel like they never get the ratios exactly right all grains have a different Matter of manner of water that they want to absorb to become nice and tender and fluffy The amount of grain I mean the amount of water that you would add to quinoa to cook nice and softly is different The amount of water that you might want to cook basmati rice in so It is important if you're going to use the ratio method to check your recipe either on your package or on your flyer and Start off with a measured amount of water. It could be two parts water to one part grain Three parts water to one part grain one and a half parts water to one part grain It's going to vary but you start off with measured liquid Then you add measured grain To that liquid bring it up to a boil Turn it down to a simmer and cover it and keep simmering until all of that liquid is absorbed So it's a timing thing It's also a measurement thing and that's why I think people sometimes get a little bit put off by the ratio method But it is the way most rice's Wheats arrows are cooked so The third method is it for extra flavor the pilaf method I'm sure everyone has heard of rice pilaf Where you saute aromatics and what I mean by aromatics are garlic and onions carrots celery You saute those add your dry grain into those Add some salt or herbs and flavoring add your liquid carefully simmer until tender Simmer until all of that liquid is absorbed Then you have vegetables with your grain kind of a done deal. So Let's talk a little bit more about Tips for cooking because there's some important things that I would like for everyone to remember Especially for buying grains in a bulk grain department or a bulk Situation you want to wash them off. I just have this little strainer I put my grains in this rinse them, rinse them, rinse them So washing is very important Also Pre-soaking for quicker cooking Some of these grains because it is the whole grain it is the bran It is the endosperm. It is the germ all contained in one little wonderful package Can take a fair amount of time to cook that said If you've ever heard of overnight oatmeal All it is is pre soaking overnight. So before you go to bed Measure out your oatmeal measure out your liquid Pour it over set it on your counter and then the next morning your cooking time is quite reduced And that can be done with any of these other harder Grains as well So this is dry roasting for added flavor Dry roasting would be After you've washed your grains If you didn't pre-soak them just to get a sauté pan Have it warm Put your grains in toast them around And it creates this nice nutty flavor just an added element of flavor to your grains Another thing that I recommend is once you become comfortable cooking whole grains Do batch cooking and what I mean by that is Grains are marvelous in that They are one of the very few foods That when you cook them you actually end up with more There's not that many foods out there They don't shrink or tighten up or you lose moisture and you're left with less than you started with But with grains you're adding moisture and you end up with more so a cup of quinoa Cooked is going to yield you Two and a half to three cups of quinoa finished product So I encourage you once you become comfortable to make More than for just one meal and what you have left over Can go into soups or stews onto salads into muffins Anything that you would enjoy Pancakes anything that you could see adding your grain to To kind of extend its life and to make your life in the kitchen a little bit easier and shorter So do batch cooking and make a little bit more than just for one meal Another thing that you can do is For flavor to add aromatics like we were speaking about before To your liquid and also you can change up your liquid You can use chicken stock vegetable stock Lots of people like to do a Thai Basmati rice and coconut milk So it doesn't always have to be water. It can be another liquid You just want to be careful Coconut milk has a lot of fat. So you want to kind of keep an eye on that as it's cooking and absorbing Except for this method you're never necessarily going to be boiling your grain It's always going to be on a simmer and slowly absorbing that liquid up so There are some helpers This is if you are totally fearful Of scorching the bottom of your pot and having rice that you're never going to get out There's things on the market called heat diffusers And all they are are plates of metal with a wooden handle usually that slide right over top of your oven burn oven burner stove top burner You can use it with an electric oven. You can use it with a natural gas oven if you have a flame or just a burner And diffusing means that it kind of spreads out the heat So that there are no hot spots Anywhere on your pot and the heat is much more evenly Distributed along the surface of the bottom of your pot If you don't want to go out and buy a heat diffuser But you have a friend that gets a big can of coffee from Costco just take that coffee top through your can opener And if you have one of those super duper senior healthy Our senior friendly can openers It leaves a nice round edge and not a raw edge and that can be your diffuser Just put that again on top of your burner Put that again underneath your pot and it will help you if you are Scared of scorching the bottom of your pot Um, another thing is a lot of people got air cookers for Christmas Air cookers are great for cooking rice. There's also appliances that are specifically called rice cookers Where you just put the amount of liquid in you put the amount of grain in you turn the dial You put the top on walk away make the rest of your dinner very easy And then pressure cookers also You can pressure cook grains And If you have your pressure cooker instruction It will give you the number of minutes and the amount of pressure that you need to have available to do that So it's really not at all difficult to cook grains You really can find a lot of direction out there if you search it out I want to talk now just about how to include Some simple steps on how to include whole grains in your diet And like making any changes any lifestyle changes at all especially to your diet I'm just going to advise you if you don't eat whole grains on a regular basis now To slowly start out I wouldn't challenge myself to eat a whole grain every single day for a week If it was something that I never had done before I would start slow Introduce them maybe at breakfast time and when we talk about at breakfast time You might want to introduce steel cut oats, which are very healthy for you and also Have a designation of being whole grain so Or oatmeal is also very healthy. This is just a little bit less processed than oatmeal so but If you're a cereal person at breakfast time too This is a toasted oat And again whole grain it says it right on the box. That's what you want to search out Is those packaging that have the words whole grain on them? And then you know that that product has been made using all of the oat and not just Some milled part of it. So Start slow if you started breakfast, you might want to trade out to something that's a little bit more healthy If we think about Lunchtime or if we think about toast There are several products on the market Excuse me. This is a pepperage farm and if you can see and I'm not necessarily endorsing that you run out and get pepperage farm I'm just asking you to be kind of an investigative shopper To actually search out for those products that are healthiest for you Calorie for calorie. We all have to eat So let's make those calories that we do eat as healthy as we can at least Once or twice a while so um Whole grain oatmeal Right there. You can't avoid it. So it's it's saying to you that the oatmeal that was used to make this bread And the wheat flour that was used to make this bread All or whole grains before they got started So that's important. This is bread from uh clingers Which a lot of you know and this is a vermouth maple oat bread It has very few ingredients So that's kind of another indicator sometimes of a healthy product And that it will list everything that's in it and the list will be short If you are buying a product that maybe has A list that's so long and so magnified that you can't read it Maybe it has some things in there that aren't the healthiest and possibly not whole grain So i'm just encouraging you to search it out take your readers if you need to but um And when you look at the ingredients in this it's only It starts off with unbleached enriched wheat flour stone ground whole wheat flour So the second product whole oats whole grain oats So the second and third product in this bread are whole grains So you can be pretty sure that this is a whole grain product and a nice bread to enjoy it is If you can just see by the color it is a little darker Definitely darker than some bean white bread So that could also be a good indicator to you of its healthy nature Um If we switch gears and think about dinner time One thing that was helpful is pre soaking but The manufacturers of food products and the grocery stores want your dollar So they are doing everything to keep up with food trends Food recommendations from doctors and also to alleviate a lot of stress in the kitchen So when I was shopping for this workshop These are two products that I came across that are super quick success 10 minutes This is quinoa Boil in a bag 10 minutes 100 quinoa So it's a really straightforward product It's very easy to cook obviously if it only takes you 10 minutes And that would be something that you could start and then create a meal around and very little time so Just to consider that and this is minute 10 minutes brown rice So ordinarily If you're buying brown rice and cooking brown rice it can take anywhere from 45 to 55 minutes to cook This brown rice has already been parboiled for you, which is just a process that they've You know boiling they've done the first step for you So it's enabled them to still keep all of the goodness 100 whole grain of the rice kernel but It's available to you and can be used in 10 minutes from boiling So I think that's really a remarkable kind of thing to rely on If you have issues with standing if you have issues with just being in the kitchen If you just want to eat in quick manner, but eat healthy There are products there that are available that will enable you to do that and I also want to tell you that again Because these expand as they cook Don't be put off by price Everything that I brought today was on sale Ordinarily you're going to find sale items in every section of the store And sure enough in the grain section all kinds of on sale items So breaking it down per meal cost is not really out of control And probably within your budget if you're also thinking of how expensive Meat proteins are or other animal proteins are they're very comparable. So Let's see So start slow switch to a switch a familiar so if you Are always having white rice or white macaroni or white noodles Like these beautiful guys right here would say Enriched macaroni product So I know that this product is a long way from where it originated that it's been All of the brand has been taken all of the germ has been taken Only thing that's left is the starchy carbohydrate to make this pasta And in that being said then they decided to fortify it with extra vitamins and Other things but not saying it's bad. I'm just saying it's probably not the healthiest for you Or the most naturally occurring product, but if this is your go-to Maybe on occasion You might want to Try some whole grain pasta You can cook them similar times You could start off with three quarters white and just a quarter Of the whole wheat or whole grain pasta and just see how you enjoy it It definitely is going to have a different bite. It's definitely going to be a little denser. It's definitely not going to like That kind of slitter slither, but If we're considering our health We might want to consider just at least trying it. It is nutty. It is fun. It's very, uh I think this it's very good. I like it Okay So switching to a familiar if you're a white bread girl You might want to go to a different kind of bread If you're a white pasta person, you might want to go to a different type of whole grain pasta And if you want to rethink your snacking, okay The best snacks, of course are fruit and vegetables But Rarely do we always go for that celery stick and carrot? So if we're rethinking our snacking We probably want to rethink in a healthier direction as well. There are products out there I just brought two That are going to tell you 100 whole grain Triscuits only has three ingredients So it really is relying on the whole grain to make this cracker Wheat thins as well 100 awesome With whole grain wheat thins 21 grams of whole grain per serving so very important just to do a little bit of uh I examining on your boxes and packaging to see and This also Let's see Oh, sorry Oh snacks I'm sorry, and if you enjoy popcorn as a snack Popcorn really has very little added to it. This is a gluten-free No artificial colors flavors. No artificial preservatives snack So this would be a great way to get your serving of Grain for the evening while you're watching I don't know your television shows or whatever so Even if you're starting slow I still think that you could challenge yourself to include whole grains in your diet without too much trouble They are incredibly healthy for us. They do bring a lot of fiber and nutrients and vitamins and healthy fats All in one bundle to the table and the variety Is unbelievable So we are mostly familiar with rice and wheat and barley and buckwheat and rye As far as grains that we think of but there are so many more out there This is this month's Food and wine magazine and i'm not promoting you to run out and get food and wine magazine But i just want to make sure that you understand exactly how Incredibly varied our grains out there in the world and they have and also How trendy if you want to be food trendy Grains are all over the place now So this is a whole section of this brand new magazine and it's called grains of 20 and it talks about grains that i never heard about before but probably are available This is talking about a beautiful salad made with sorghum So sorghum is a tall grain that grows down south but can also be found here And bob's red mill if you're familiar with bob's red mill They do a lot of grains and you can find their products in the grocery store This is talking about a grain called phonio That's very healthy for you has a lot of protein and they have a recipe here that they added it into meatballs so A different way of thinking about getting your grain in your diet would be to adding it into meatloaf Meatballs some other kind of preparation where it's just kind of folded into a batter or A meat product This is a millet little flatbread It's kind of maybe off-putting to you because of the color but That is the color of the Millet flour So I don't know. I think it could be very dramatic on a plate instead of off-putting And then these are some noodles that are made with teff flour Teff is the flour that's used in a lot of Ethiopian foods It has a very interesting nutty and Just it's a flavor that you won't you know It's a flavor just like basmati rice has its own flavor Or forbidden rice has its own flavor teff also has its own flavor And uh, it's usually used as a flour to make porridges or in that situation these beautiful dark colored noodles that are very filling so um When I talk about filling too and I talk about calorie for calorie Grains one thing that I didn't mention is that they're great for watching your weight Because when you eat grains and the density of grains or the density of a pasta Or a bread made with whole grains is different and you feel more full So if you feel more full, maybe you're not going to snack on that bag of Cheetos later I don't know maybe but um anyway, so it could help you if you have a weight gain Target if you want to gain weight or you want to lose weight So I just think grains are Just fantastic and I also think that there's so many varieties that to deny yourself something just because you've never tried it before or you don't See it on every like menu in a restaurant that we've not been to in a year, but If you don't see it and it's not a familiar word That doesn't mean that it's not good for you or that it wouldn't be fun to kind of try out And I just think that maybe just even Once in a blue moon if you accept that challenge You could be very pleased with the outcome and maybe grains will become more of your go-to part of your menu so I want to thank hands for helping us put together this workshop and also the heinenberg senior community center I hope you guys learned some stuff about grains that maybe you didn't know before and that You'll be encouraged just to try out grains Once in a while or frequently Thanks