"Food Technology" Series | Buckwheat is a food crop that can be used as both medicine and food, and is very helpful in stabilizing blood sugar

"Buckwheat is the only pseudocereal grain crop in the Polygonaceae family that is internationally recognized as being both medicinal and edible. It has high research value in nutrition and health," said Wang Min, a professor at the College of Food Science and Engineering at Northwest A&F University, in an interview.

Epidemiological studies have found that the incidence of glucose-lipid disorders and insulin resistance is low in people in areas where buckwheat, especially bitter buckwheat, is the staple food, indicating that long-term consumption of buckwheat and its processed foods has a certain preventive and auxiliary therapeutic effect on regulating human glucose-lipid disorders. Studies have shown that a variety of active substances in buckwheat, such as rutin, quercetin, proanthocyanidins, D-chiro-inositol, D-fagopyrine and other phytochemicals, are closely related to its functionality.

Buckwheat currently has two cultivated varieties: bitter buckwheat and sweet buckwheat. Due to the particularity of the plant family, its seeds are three-edged (sweet buckwheat) and three-edged with ventral grooves (tartary buckwheat), which are very different from common Gramineae crops such as wheat, rice, and corn. In particular, the distribution and composition of phytochemicals, proteins (amino acids), and dietary fiber are significantly different from common grain crops. This not only makes buckwheat a natural whole grain food raw material, but also forms a good complementary effect with conventional staple foods in terms of nutrition and functionality. Compared with sweet buckwheat, the rutin content in bitter buckwheat can be as much as 10 times higher than that in sweet buckwheat, so bitter buckwheat exhibits better nutritional functionality.

Tartary buckwheat is produced in abundance in Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and northern Shaanxi. Since 2000, Professor Wang Min has led his team to conduct in-depth research in the tartary buckwheat producing areas of Liangshan, Sichuan and northern Shaanxi, and conducted a series of studies on the hypoglycemic function of tartary buckwheat's rutin, quercetin, D-chiro-inositol, protocatechuic acid, buckwheat starch, buckwheat dietary fiber and other nutritional active substances, clarifying the structure-activity relationship of tartary buckwheat flavonoid compounds on the inhibitory activity of α-glucosidase, and revealing the mechanism of action of consuming tartary buckwheat in reducing postprandial blood sugar. At the same time, buckwheat flavonoids and protocatechuic acid, the main metabolite of anthocyanins, can regulate the molecular mechanism of glucose and lipid metabolism disorders by inhibiting fat intake.

Professor Wang Min introduced that the exploration of the special health value of bitter buckwheat has brought it a high economic value, and more and more consumers are choosing buckwheat food. In the processing and utilization of buckwheat: its large-grain high-quality grains can be used to make rice and buckwheat tea; small and medium-sized grains can be made into buckwheat flour (which can be processed into staple foods such as steamed bread and noodles, and non-staple foods such as biscuits and cakes); buckwheat bran can be further made into buckwheat bran oil for cosmetics, or made into buckwheat meal replacement fiber powder after ultrafine grinding; buckwheat husks can be used to make buckwheat pillow cores, and flavonoids can also be extracted and used as ingredients in health products.

This article was scientifically reviewed by Wang Min, professor at the College of Food Science and Engineering of Northwest A&F University, with contributions from Qiao Jingfang from the Whole Grain Channel of the People's Daily Health Client.