When it comes to nuts and seeds a lot of people have questions about the fact whether you should soak them or you should eat them dry. Here you will get the answer to this question with the reason.
Why we should soak nuts and seeds before consuming them?
Well, you see a nut and a seed in nature that’s supposed to germinate and grow into a plant. But basically, when a nut and seed are in their raw form and it’s not mixed with water it’s meant to be dry. What I mean by, this is only when a nut and seed mix with water that’s when the whole germination process starts.
The growth of a nut or a seed into a plant or into a tree. So nature’s natural defence mechanism is to protect the nut and seed in its dry form. This means it cannot spoil it holds possible and potential life for a new plant or a new tree.
Now, nuts and seeds are great for our health. Right from essential fatty acids to protein and amino acids minerals. It’s fantastic, it’s one of the best raw foods that you could ever have in your plan but, we should be soaking these nuts and seeds and I’m going to explain to you exactly why we should be doing that.
Nature needs to protect the raw form of a nut or a seed. So it covers the nut or seed with phytic acid or it covers it with certain enzyme inhibitors or covers it with a certain amount of tannins. That’s great for protecting the seed and when the seed falls into the ground or you put water into it, that’s when the water and the seed start off the process of germination or growth. So until the water hits a cedar or a nut it’s basically protected.
Now when we consume dry seeds and dry nuts the problem that happens is enzyme inhibitors that’s protecting the nuts and seeds may not be too good for the insides of our system.
What are enzymes?
You have two kinds of enzymes you have a digestive enzyme which has the role of breaking down food in the human body. And then you have metabolic enzymes, which are basically working with the biology of the human body.
Now enzyme inhibitors like the word you know suggest when that gets into our system, it binds on to certain minerals and vitamins that we have. So these enzyme inhibitors basically interfere with our enzymatic reactions in the body which means they can actually impair digestion in the human body. It can be very, very heavy on our digestive systems if these enzyme inhibitors get into our system.
So that’s one of the reasons why we soak our nuts and seeds so that we break away those enzyme inhibitors and it’s easier for our bodies and our stomach to digest and break down the nuts and seeds.
The second reason why you should soak nuts, seeds and grains
The second thing is they’re naturally covered with tannins. Now tannins are not a bad thing because we find tannins and even the tea that we drink. In black tea, in green tea, tannins sometimes block the absorption of iron in our body. So if we’ve just had a meal or we’re eating nuts for their protein or eating seeds for a variety of minerals. Basically, the tannins that we also ingest block the absorption of iron into our system. So that becomes a problem as well.
Phytic acid nature covers most seeds and nuts and grains with something called phytates. Now phytates are anti-nutrients which means they bind iron, magnesium, copper and zinc in our colon. So you know we’re consuming good food, but we’re not absorbing it. It’s not about what you eat, it’s about how your body breaks down and absorbs what you eat that’s extremely important.
Benefits of Soaking nuts, seeds and grains
1. We want to wash away this phytic acid by soaking your nuts, by soaking grains, and by soaking seeds in water so that the phytic acid, the enzyme, inhibitors, and the tannins are all kinds of getting washed away.
2. By soaking nuts and seeds you make the protein in a form which can be better assimilated by the human body.
3. By soaking certain grains we help to break down that very tough gluten, which causes a problem in most people today. So right from your legumes, to your grains, to your lentils, to your nuts and seeds, it’s a good idea to soak them.
Quick Tip
Soak them for about six to eight hours for grains and legumes it’s totally different. Sometimes it could be 12 hours in warm water with a little bit of salt or a little bit of apple cider vinegar or plain vinegar to break down all these chemicals.
So when we ingest it, we’re getting the best out of seeds and nuts.
Why it is recommended to soak certain seeds?
Like pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds because you’ll see that they even start sprouting post you know a night of soaking and that’s great that’s that has so much of nutrition. Just imagine a seed holds the potential life of a plant or a tree so that’s nutrient-dense vitamins and minerals all in that one seed, which, if you sprout you have much more nutritious and much better health benefits.
So get into a habit of soaking your nuts and soaking your seeds. The third reason over and above just nutrition. Have you ever figured out where dried fruits, dried nuts and seeds are stored they’re stored in large warehouses all over?
In India usually, we have a lot of unhygienic conditions. We have rats and we have rodents all around you know roaming on these places and if they’re taking like pee and all of these things which are out there lying on factory and warehouse flows we’re putting a lot of toxins and dirt into our system. So I definitely suggest washing and soaking your nuts, they taste better and it has a better nutritional impact on your body.
Make sure that you have nuts and seeds in your daily diet because that’s how you get raw into your diet. Cooked food is dead food. You’re cooking food you’re killing all of the enzymes and most of the nutrition. So we want to have a proportion of raw food that we get from fruits, vegetables nuts and seeds. Remember fermenting your grains also increases the B vitamin absorption in your body.