Reasons I Don’t Need Triticale and Seven Grains

A Response to Technological Health Foods

Triticale. The name alone gets my taste buds going. Oh, you haven’t heard of it? I’m sure you’ve eaten it before. Triticale is an artificial hybrid of rye and wheat, first developed in laboratories. It is a sterile grain, so come reproduction time, a special chemical (colchicine) is applied in order to make the plant reproduce. What’s colchicine, you ask?

There is a trend in the food industry that cannot be ignored – the growing demand for healthy, natural, unprocessed foods. With this demand comes one of two responses: (1) a turning to technology and artificial ingredients, made, in large, by big food producers, or (2) a turning to mother earth for her all-natural ingredients – a technique employed by most small health food businesses

Over the weekend, I was approached by a major self-proclaimed, health food distributor’s snack-stand from which “good snacks” (as they called them) were given for free. Let’s call them TritiHealth. Familiar with TritiHealth’s healthy image, I happily accepted the free snack. Then came the surprises. The first surprise was when I read the 30 item ingredients list, most of which I didn’t understand. “For a snack bar?” I thought. Among the most notable were our friend, triticale and evaporated cane juice crystals, an exotic name for sugar. Although I still did not have a full understanding of 1/3 of the ingredients, I found the TritiHealth bar to be an overall artificial, albeit healthy treat. After an attempt to chew my first bite, I gave up and threw it away. You would think that with all the enhancements made, they could have made it taste better than lightly sweetened cardboard. Had my TritiHealth bar pleased my taste buds, I would have let its artificial healthiness go. Their values read: “minimal processing,” “pure ingredients,” “natural goodness.” I think not.

And why do I need more than one type of grain in my snack bar? That seemed to be TritiHealth’s emphasis; that their snack bar has not one, not two, but seven. Ask any nutritionist and they’ll confirm that a serving of grain is a serving of grain, no matter the grain. Now, aside from fiber, each grain does offer a particular benefit that is sometimes not shared among its other fellow grains. For example, rye is rich in potassium, but not so much in farina. However, since TritiHealth has so many grains and only so much room to put them in their snack bar, there isn’t enough of each grain to receive its benefits. Instead of the pleasure of receiving potassium from a product rich in rye, you get the by-product effect of seven different grains. Good source of fiber, not much else. I've learned to stick to foods that focus on a select few grains. That way, the body absorbs more of the nutritional value of the grain.

It comes as a no surprise that I'm a huge fan of PistachiOats (and not because it's my mom's recipe). PistachiOats™ represents the emerging second response made to the growing demand for more healthy, natural, and unprocessed foods. It has all-natural ingredients and all of which I know and recognize without the use of Wikipedia. Added bonus, it tastes delicious. Unlike most other "healthy" and "all natural" products, PistachiOats is forthcoming and does not mask ingredients, such as sugar, with fancy names like crystal.

Small companies, such as Sano Villa, are taking on the big job. And while food production gods continue to turn to technology and laboratories to make healthy foods, the small business health food producers have flocked to the farms outside of laboratory walls. They’ve re-discovered the traditions and secrets to our ancestors’ health. No, it’s not triticale; it’s simple and natural, earth-made ingredients.