Buy This Not That – GRAINS
Today’s Topic is “GRAINS”
The three most important crops in the world are all grains, namely corn, wheat, and rice.
I have to admit, I averaged the micro-nutrients %RDA for simplicity, and it may not be the best way to look at this, but our purpose of looking at major nutrients, this works. I used sources like cronometer.com to calculate all nutritional information. None of these grains are good source of Vitamin B12, Vitamin A, C or D. I looked through several brands of products to average the cost of available grains in the market. Most of these grains can be bought in Amazon for the prices below. Note, the cost of these grains may be higher in a neighborhood grocery store.
| Nutrition Value in 1 cup of Cooked Grains | ||||||||
| Most Common | Less Common | Least Common | ||||||
| Nutritional Value | Corn | White Rice | Brown Rice | Bulgur Wheat | Quinoa | Buck-wheat | Millet | Teff |
| Cost per lb for Organic | $2.70 | $3.00 | $4.00 | $3.50 | $3.70 | $4.00 | $4.50 | $6.30 |
| Average % RDA | 6% | 8% | 16% | 10% | 14% | 10% | 11% | 34% |
| Calories | 140 | 205 | 215 | 153 | 220 | 155 | 210 | 250 |
| Fats (g) | 2 | 0.5 | 2 | 1 | 3.5 | 1 | 2 | 1.5 |
| Carbs (g) | 32 | 45 | 45 | 34 | 40 | 33 | 41 | 50 |
| Fiber (g) | 3.5 | 1 | 3.5 | 8 | 5.2 | 4.5 | 3 | 5.5 |
| Protein (g) | 5 | 4.5 | 5.5 | 5.5 | 8 | 5.7 | 6 | 9 |
| B1 (Thiamine) | 6% | 17.0% | 20.0% | 7.0% | 13.0% | 3.0% | 15.5% | 18.0% |
| B2 (Riboflavin) | 7% | 1.2% | 8.2% | 3.0% | 12.0% | 11.5% | 9.5% | 11.0% |
| B3 (Niacin) | 11% | 12.0% | 26.0% | 11.0% | 4.0% | 16.0% | 13.0% | 11.5% |
| B5 (Pantothenic Acid) | 3% | 6.2% | 10.0% | 5.0% | 11.0% | 5.7% | 4.7% | 6.5% |
| B6 (Pyridoxine) | 9% | 7.3% | 12.4% | 7.5% | 8.0% | 5.0% | 10.7% | 16.5% |
| Vitamin E | 1% | 0% | 1.70% | 0% | 5.80% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Vitamin K | 0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1.0% | 0.0% | 0% | 0.0% | 1.5% |
| Calcium | 1% | 2.0% | 1.0% | 2.0% | 3.0% | 0% | 1.0% | 13.0% |
| Copper | 4% | 5.5% | 10.0% | 8.0% | 18.0% | 25.0% | 22.0% | 29.0% |
| Iron | 4% | 10.5% | 6.0% | 6.0% | 15.0% | 5.6% | 9.2% | 29.0% |
| Magnesium | 10% | 5.0% | 20.0% | 18.5% | 29.0% | 26.5% | 16.0% | 32.0% |
| Manganese | 12% | 37.0% | 90.0% | 68.0% | 58.0% | 30.0% | 46.0% | 315.0% |
| Potassium | 9% | 2.0% | 3.0% | 5.0% | 9.0% | 6.0% | 3.0% | 8.5% |
| Selenium | 2% | 16.0% | 16.0% | 1.5% | 7.5% | 5.5% | 2.0% | 4.3% |
| Zinc | 6% | 5.0% | 9.6% | 6.0% | 13.5% | 7.2% | 6.0% | 17.0% |
Assessment: Based on nutritional value, ancient African grain, Teff cannot be beat by any others, which has the highest amount of protein. However, Teff is also the most expensive among all the grains above. Teff, a gluten free grain, is also very high in Manganese. B vitamins and minerals such as Zinc are abundant in tiny grains of teff. Did you know teff is the smallest grain in the world? On the lower end of spectrum are white rice and corn, which are cheapest grains, but also have the least nutritional %RDA among the micro-nutrients I looked into.
MEB’s Choice: My choice for go-to grain is quinoa (white or red). It has decent amount of protein and doesn’t cost as much as teff. It is also one of the three most nutritious grains. Additionally, quinoa is easily accessible and can be cooked under 20 minutes. I use quinoa several different ways: breakfast with yogurt in place of oats, quinoa veggie fried rice, cold quinoa and chickpea salad. I will post recipes if you are interested. I occasionally use brown rice, but it takes over 45 minutes to cook, so I prefer quinoa. Another reason I prefer quinoa is because it is considered a complete protein, meaning it has all 9 essential amino acids we need. Happy Quinoa-ing! 🙂Â