Give this grain center stage
A barley grain may appear humble, but it's a nutritional steam engine capable of powering your body by providing a combination of essential vitamins and minerals.
And not only can it provide you with energy, its fiber content can leave you feeling more full and satisfied than if you'd snacked on over-processed junk food. That fiber content can also help you visit the bathroom on a regular basis, as well. I'm always perplexed by folks who say they're no longer as regular as they used to be, but they don't look to their diet first to fix the problem. Here's a healthy answer!
Barley will also feed the healthy bacteria in your gut by providing insoluble fiber. When these bacteria break down this form of fiber, butyric acid is produced. This acid is food for the cells in your large intestines, and also helps to keep your colon healthy.
Another benefit of barley's insoluble fiber is that feeding your healthy bacteria provides an environment where that population of good bacteria can grow. You want as much healthy bacteria as you can pack into your gut. It's clannish and will leave little space for anything but its relatives, so the bad bacteria will be hard-pressed to gain a toehold.
The fiber in barley has a high amount of beta glucan, a polysaccharide that helps lower cholesterol—similar to oats. That's why you hear oatmeal recommended on television commercials as being a natural cholesterol-fighter. Beta glucans latch onto bile acids and carry them out of the body. The liver has to make new bile acid to help digest fat, and uses cholesterol to do it. Keeping that cholesterol busy in manufacturing means there's less to go around to build up in your system. (It's similar to the old adage of "idle hands.")
This provides you a good start in understanding what benefits the addition of this humble grain to your diet can provide. And this is only a slice of total barley picture.
I have patients who say they'd love to try new grains, but aren't quite sure how to work them into their meal plans. You can use barley in place of potatoes, rice and even that oatmeal I just mentioned. For a change, try it for your morning breakfast. Add some walnuts and dried fruit or sliced banana, top with a little almond milk, and you have a breakfast that should hold you through much of the morning.
Barley requires as much, if not more, cooking time than rice. I recommend you cook up a batch of it. You can use it for breakfast a couple of times this week, and use it as a base to ladle chili over for your supper one evening. I like to team it up with oat groats. Soak them overnight. This gets rid of the nutrient-blocking phytates, plumps them up, and makes them both easier to cook in the morning. I then add almonds or walnuts and some raisins or blueberries for a breakfast that keeps me going all morning.
