![]() ![]() Have you already heard that you should not drink tea during a meal rich in iron? This is because tannins also bind to the iron in food, preventing us to assimilate it properly 10.Īs you see, tannins do really well in their job of protecting the seeds! This is why they are considered “anti-nutrients”. In our digestive system, tannins can even bind to our digestive enzymes, preventing us from digesting food properly 9. This property is used to tan animal skin, that is, to bind the proteins of animal skin to make leather. When you drink tea or wine, tannins bind to the proteins of your tongue, producing this strange feeling of astringency. They have the ability to bind with other kinds of molecules, like proteins or minerals 9. Tannins are very common molecules found in plants. Some oak varieties produce acorns that are actually edible raw 1.īut a lot of varieties contain high amounts of tannins, or tannic acid, a kind of astringent and bitter molecule, that protects the seed from oxidation, microbes, and animal predation. ![]() I would not be surprised if I find in France, within a couple of years, acorn flour in organic shops!īut, haven’t you heard like me that acorns are toxic?Īcorns contain tannins that are harmful in high quantities A friend of mine recently told me that we can already find coffee-like drinks that contain roasted acorns. While I was researching for this article, I realized that an increasing number of of scientific studies about acorns as food have been published over the last decade. It is also a rich source of minerals, mainly calcium, iron, and copper. For this reason, it has been described as “the grain that grows on tree” 1.Ĭompared to cereal flours, acorn flour is a bit lower in protein, a bit higher in oil, and has more fibers than whole grain flours. Thus, acorns are unusual nuts whose composition is closer to cereals rather than other tree nuts. But in general, flour made from acorn mainly contains starch (~40%) 8. The nutrient composition of acorn cotyledons is very variable, depending on the oak variety, the climate, the soil. We only eat the cotyledons of acorns, after the removal of the two protective layers: the tough pericarp and the thin seed coat. ![]()
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