"How Much Do You Know About Nutrition" Series | Is barley too hard to eat? Sprouting can make it more delicious and healthy

“Although highland barley has high nutritional value, it tastes too hard and not tasty!” It is for this reason that many people stay away from eating highland barley.

Dr. Ji Fengdi, an associate researcher at the Beijing Institute of Nutrition Sources, came up with an idea - to let highland barley sprout. This not only solved the problem of highland barley being unpalatable, but also improved the nutritional value of highland barley.

Dr. Ji introduced that the nutritional characteristics of highland barley are "three highs and two lows", namely high fiber, high protein (lower than oats and wheat, and higher than other cereal crops), high vitamins, low fat and low sugar. It also contains β-glucan (the content in highland barley is higher than that in oats), polyphenols and other bioactive substances, which play a certain role in lowering cholesterol, controlling blood sugar and regulating immune function.

In areas of my country where highland barley is the staple food, they often make highland barley into tsampa and eat it with butter tea, which is high in calories. However, if you eat highland barley rice directly, it tastes rough, unpalatable, and has a low digestibility; if you process it into highland barley flour, it is difficult to use it alone to make noodles because of its low gluten protein content, and there are not many application scenarios.

"Once, I drank an oatmeal yogurt, which was very refreshing. The oats were chewy and had a rich taste. At that time, I thought it would be great if the hard barley could be made into this state. I thought of many solutions, such as reconstituted rice, puffing, etc., but in the end I found that sprouting was more effective." Dr. Ji began to lead the team to conduct research on sprouted barley.

Dr. Ji found that compared with unsprouted highland barley, the taste of sprouted highland barley is very good and it has a strong sense of fullness. In addition, after measuring some nutrients, it was found that after the germination of highland barley, the functional components such as total phenols and flavonoids increased significantly, the soluble sugar increased, and the activity of various enzymes increased significantly, making it easier for the human body to digest and absorb. The sprouted highland barley rice is a "complete whole grain food" that retains the entire seed coat of highland barley. Various B vitamins, mineral elements, β-glucan and other nutrients are retained, and γ-aminobutyric acid (which helps regulate blood pressure, improve liver and kidney function, assist in the treatment of diabetes, improve sleep quality, etc.) is very rich, reaching 41.45 mg/100 g. These results made Dr. Ji very excited, and he quickly developed related products-sprouted highland barley rice in small bags, which is easy to carry, open and eat directly, or pour a bag into yogurt, or add it to salad, the experience is good.

In addition, Dr. Ji Fengdi and her team have also developed sprouted barley tea, barley powder rich in γ-aminobutyric acid (8.308 g/100 g), selenium-rich sprouted barley, flavor-enhanced sprouted barley powder, etc., to make barley more delicious and healthier.

This article was scientifically reviewed by Ji Fengdi, an associate researcher at the Beijing Institute of Nutrition Sources, and Qiao Jingfang from the Whole Grain Channel of the People's Daily Health Client also contributed.