Optimizing Nutrition: How to Eliminate Anti-Nutrients

What are Antinutrients?

Antinutrients are compounds found in nuts, seeds, cereals, pseudocereals, legumes, soy, nightshades and cruciferous vegetables. There aare different types of antinutrients:

Antinutrients with known harmful effects to human health:

1. Lectins
2. Phytic acid or phytate: found in legumes and grains
3. Anti Trypsin inhibitors
4. Glucosinolates
5. Goitrogen
6. Saponins
7. Oxalates

Antinutrients with known benefits to human health:
1. Polyphenols
2. Flavonoids

How do Antinutrients work:

1. They can inhibit amylase, trypsin and pepsin making more difficult to digests proteins, carbohydrates and other nutrients making fermentation and gut dysbiosis more easy to exist
2. Block the absorption of minerals: zinc, magnesium, calcium, iron, manganese,etc.
   a. Eating foods that are rich in Vitamin C and Vitamin A can counteract phytate and increase iron absorption.

Lectins:

Lectins for example are known to increase gut permeability and inflammation. These compounds can penetrate cells lining the digestive tract and cause a loss of gut epithelial cells, damage the membranes of the epithelium lining, interfere with nutrient digestion and absorption, stimulate shifts in the bacterial flora, and trigger autoimmune reactions. Lectins can cause GI upset similar to classical food poisoning and immune responses like joint pain and rashes. Improperly prepared raw grains, dairy and legumes like peanuts, and soybeans have especially high lectin levels.

How to remove Antinutrients from food:

1. Soaking
2. Fermenting
3. Cooking

Grains:

It is very important to rinse thoroughly and soak for 8 hours in lightly salted water and then rinse.

• White rice does not need to be soaked.
• To help with digestion, grains can be toast a little in the pan, once drained and after soaking (except for white rice that is not soaked).

Quinoa:

It is a food rich in minerals (calcium, phosphorus, iron), it contains all the essential amino acids, its carbohydrates are slowly absorbed.
Preparation tips:

1. Soak for a minimum of four hours in lightly salted water, up to 24 hours or more, maximum 3 days and it’s necessary to change the water 3 times a day with extended soaking. Rinse before preparing
2. Rub the grains with the water, until the foam caused by the saponin comes out (proinflammatory component and harmful to the villi). This substance is what gives the bitter flavor to the quinoa. To destroy it, the best thing is rinse the quinoa with boiling water (a foam will come out where the saponin is found) or soak and rub two or three times with your hands to reduce the amounts of these compounds.
3. Proportion of water in order to cook it: one cup of quinoa for one cup of water (this yields 3 cups cooked quinoa)
4. Bring to boil, cover and lower heat, cook for about 10 minutes.
5. It can be toasted in the pan before cooking to give it a nutty taste.

Rice:

It is the most balanced and best assimilated cereal. It is a very energetic food and that does not leave metabolic residues.

Preparation tips:

1. Soak for eight hours minimum or more, the same as for any other cereal with a little bit of salt.
2. Clean the rice under the tap with cold water.
3. Put the water to boil with a little salt.
   • You can also add a piece of kombu
     seaweed.
4. Add the rice and water:
   • Brown or long rice, two parts of water for one of rice
   • Whole Basmati, one and a half parts of water for one of rice.
   • Semi-integral and wild, three parts of water for one of rice.
5. Cook times are between 15-20 minutes for white rice and soaked Brown rice, up to 30-60 minutes for Wild Rice.

Buckwheat:

This is technically not a grain as it is a seed! So sometimes referred to as a pseudograin. It is a great option as it is high in protein, low glycemic index and is gluten-free. It has so much fiber that it doesn’t spike glucose a lot after eating it. It contains Rutin (antioxidant), which reduces inflammation and blood pressure.

Preparation tips:

1. Put it to soak for 8 hours minimum with a little salt
2. Rinse and drain.
3. Toast a little in the pan.
4. Bring the water to a boil (2 cups of water per cup of cereal).
5. Add buckwheat to the water, when it starts to boil, along with salt or kombu seaweed. Is delicious as a savory or sweet dish (like porridge). Also makes good baking flour.
6. Cover and cook over low heat for 15 minutes.

Legumes:

You need to soak legumes for 24-73h (remember to change the water 3 times a day). If you still have digestive issues with legumes you can cover them with a cotton cloth wet and leave them until the next day just before they start to germinate; wash them again and they are ready to cook.

Nuts and seeds:

We can toast them or leave them to soak for 8-12 hours or up to 3 days. Soaking removes more of the antinutrients and enhances digestibility. For pine nuts, cashews, pecans, pistachios, it’s better to toast them before soaking. For the rest you can soak them directly.

The procedure for soaking nuts/seeds is as follows:

1. Soak in warm water (weak mineralization) for 8 – 12 hours or more with drops of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar.
2. Rinse thoroughly
3. We have the option of keeping it as it is in the fridge (in a glass jar for 2 days with a cloth or kitchen paper in a lunch box). The ideal is to soak overnight the fruits or seeds that we will eat the following day.
4. You can also dehydrate them or toast them in the oven at the lowest temperature ~150-200 F.
   • Spread out on the tray oven (if we have an oven function with a fan, use this, it will help in the drying and roasting process).
   • To take advantage of the fact that we turn on the oven, the ideal is to introduce several trays with different seeds or nuts. Once toasted, let cool.
5. You can store dehydrated nuts/seeds in glass jars in the fridge or keep them in small bags in the freeze.
6. Remember that to take advantage of seeds nutrients you need to process them into a powder. You can mix several different ones and add to smoothies, soups, on top of salads, etc!