My challenge is to make some raw vegan waffles. I might just bake waffles but I will spend the next couple weeks experimenting, researching and attempting to make, nutless, raw vegan waffles. I have buckwheat groats, golden flax seed and a cold iron in mind. Raw vegan toppings is another story. I'm accepting suggestions for raw vegan waffle toppings. I'd like to keep food combining rules in mind but I really want a waffle with cashew sour cream and fruit on it.
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I'd like to say a few words about the toxicity of buckwheat sprouts. The other day I posted a photo of a bed of various sprouts smothered in marinara sauce. I called it Sprout-ghetti. Some one asked me if I wasn't concerned with the photo sensitivity related to buckwheat sprouts. It's a valid topic and also a raw food myth/fact combo. I'd like to address it here once and for all.
This article by Gilles Arbourg is probably the most comprehensive on the subject. Here is my really, really short summary:
Buckwheat shoots and greens contain a "self-defense mechanism" in the form of a toxin called fagopyrin. A few years back some people went on a raw food cleansing diet consisting of mainly raw juices. Buckwheat greens and sprout juice comprised 20% of their diet for 6 months or more. Due to the huge amount of fagopyrin in buckwheat shoots and greens some of those people developed photo-sensitivity and sensitivity to touch, heat, cold. When they stopped taking the buckwheat greens juice, the symptoms eased and went away.
Let me condense that even further: If a person were to consume buckwheat greens as 20% of their diet for over six months, they might develop sensitivity that goes away after they stop consuming such a high quantity of buckwheat greens.
So my answer is no. Buckwheat greens poisoning is a rare occurrence in people who try to practically live solely on buckwheat sprouts and greens. I eat a varied diet containing a rainbow, nay, an encyclopedic mix of cooked and raw whole fruits, vegetables, legumes, tubers, lots of leafy greens, nuts, seeds, grains and sea vegetables and I don't fear toxicity of sprouts in the amounts I eat. I eat A LOT of seeds, nuts, legumes and I always sprout or germinate them before I eat them, raw or cooked.
"Unlike the shoots of the buckwheat plant, buckwheat groats, or seeds, are not generally problematic because they contain only trace quantities of fagopyrin"Sprouts in general contain small amounts of toxins to as a natural pest deterrent to discourage predators from munching them before they are able to grow, flower, produce seeds and ensure the next generation. That is why we should always eat a widely varied diet on a regular basis.
Ok, this random, all over the place, daydreaming and mythbusting post is over. I hope you got something out of it. I sure did.
dosis sola facet venenum (the dose makes the poison)
