What about barley?

[Bazza1234]

Having decided to eliminate processed wheat flour from my diet - and enjoying oats and barley but never having really eaten much of them, I am finding many recipes that utilise barley. I have eaten it twice recently - the first time I cooked it in a rice cooker and I didn't put enough water in it - and it boiled a bit "dry" - but it was still OK to eat. The second time I cooked it on the stove top and this time used too much water - with the result that there was quite a bit of liquid still in the pot so I strained the barley and kept the liquid. I sub-consciously thought that perhaps the liquid would have some value - and the internet tells me that it does - I had unknowingly invented "barley" water . Tonight I enjoyed a glass of it after the evening meal - I now feel quite satiated

And i have found these health benefits for barley water ( plus of course the barley itself which we used in a low fat Indian Curry ) top10homeremedies.com/kitch...

What do your think??

[Bazza1234]

I have been diagnosed ( sort of) with atherosclerosis - basically hardening of the heart arteries. It is my understanding that this happens to many/most people eventually with advancing age, so to avoid heart attack in the not too distant future, I have to closely examine what has got me here -high cholesterol (for which the medical profession think mostly about statins) , diet, exercise, alcohol, smoking, genetics. I am aware that I have drunk too much coffee and alcohol over the past 30 years - so these are going, eaten too much refined wheat products and eaten quite a lot of red meat with little regard to other sources of fat. I especially like Indian and Thai cuisine which can be quite heavy in fat, although not necessarily so for all recipes. I think that I recall somewhere a calculator that told me that I should eat no more than 30 Grams of fat each day ( and even then not animal fat) - it is very easy to get to that 30 grams per day level and most westerners diet would greatly exceed that. "Something" has got me to where I am at now - and things have to be changed - a reduction in my fat consumption is one of those things

[deejames]

Cooked barley is great in any thick soup. Also in home baked bread to give a nutty chewy taste. I eat it nearly every morning. Cooked barley in biscuits and cookies.

You can see I love it as a grain

[Macrovioletics]

Congratulations for the changes you are making, you seem to be serious about it (and the health problem is not a joke).

Have you tried other non-refined sources of carbohydrates, like quinoa, polenta (milled corn, but good for the Heart), millet, amaranth and a whole variety of whole grain rices (long grain, basmati, red, wild, black, short grain...)?

I usually recommend to anyone interested to join cookery classes for wholefoods in their area. I know that macrobiotic chefs are trustworthy with unrefined produce, so here is a link to them (if there is nobody listed in your area, perhaps they have contacts that are not on the website):

macrobiotics.org.uk/cooks/

Good luck!