Phytic Acid: Kitchen Preparation Techniques To Reduce It In Food

Plant-based foods loaded with minerals such as beans, grain, seeds, and nuts contain a mineral-inhibitor phytic acid that keeps your body from absorbing. Your food might appear to have high levels of healthy minerals, but if your food is a high phytic acid food, you will fail to benefit much from the minerals in the food items. The great part of this story is that nature provides some inexpensive and straightforward techniques to increase the minerals you are absorbing. Soaking and fermentation methods are some of the most powerful strategies for reducing phytic acid in your food. If you prepare your meals intentionally, you may improve your absorption of minerals by anywhere from 50% to 1000%, depending on the food itself.

Bread makers will ideally use sourdough strategies to break down phytic acid. Flours used commonly in bread such as wheat do have phytic acid but, largely, they are high in the phytase enzyme that breaks down the phytic acid during the bread's rising cycle. As the flour sits in the starter itself, phytic acid is also reduced. A basic yeast bread recipe will break down the phytic acid to some degree. A sourdough preparation will be much better still.

For cooked breakfast cereal like a multi-grain cereal, you can soak them in warm water over night (about body temperature) to reduce the phytic acid. Use the same amount of water required by your recipe, warm it to about 100 degrees, and mix it with the cereal the night before. In the morning simply cook the cereal, but watch your cereal carefully and stir it well -- it will be done within minutes and could easily burn and stick to your pan. When your cereal is ready, not only will you absorb more minerals, you will also quicken the cooking time of your cereal and may find it to have a more creamy texture.

As far as beans are concerned, many cooks soak their beans before they cook them. To reduce phytic acid soak the beans the night before cooking them in in water warmed to above body temperature. When we soak beans, we start with a temperature of about 140 degrees and set the beans in a warm place. Of course, the water cools down in that time but as the beans absorb the water, add additional warm water to your bowl of beans. When the beans are soaked and ready to be cooked, pour off the soaking water and put in fresh water as your recipe indicates. Follow the instructions in your recipe and enjoy your bean dish.

Nuts and seeds can be soaked to reduce phytic acid, though the soaking will be more effective if the nuts and seeds are broken into pieces. By breaking them, you increase the surface area of the food and the warm water is able to work on them better. Soak them for twelve to eighteen hours, much like you would do the beans. Strain the water and then dehydrate the nuts or seeds on a clean cookie sheet until they are crunchy. You can dry the nuts or seeds in a warm area like a dehydrator or oven. In the summer, a car window works too.

Life always brings exceptions and in this field of research, there are foods that need more than soaking to reduce their content of phytic acid, including soy, corn, and oats. Each of these foods is low in the phytase enzyme that breaks down the phytic acid. Soy must be fermented -- turned into miso or tempeh in order to see any notable change in phytic acid. You can ferment oatmeal or corn too, but they also both improve with the addition of a grain high in the enzyme such as fresh wheat or rye. Cornmeal is often used in recipes with wheat flour for instance. Use whole wheat flour, preferable ground fresh to leverage the phytase in the wheat to work against the phytic acid in the corn.

These foods, plant-based foods filled with minerals, can be especially nutritious, especially if you prepare them using methods that reduce their phytic acid content. Soak your grains, use sourdough techniques, soak beans, and soak nuts. With a bit of advance preparation time in your kitchen, you can adopt these techniques and improve your health.