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Brown Millet

Brown millet – the robust ancient grain

Brown millet are small brown pellets that are very firm and do not soften when steamed like golden millet. Millet is a staple food in many developing countries and is a grain.

Brown millet provides valuable carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and fiber as well as secondary plant substances. While most types of grain also contain gluten protein, this variant of millet does not contain it. Rather, it is gluten-free and is therefore becoming more and more popular with us as a side dish. Golden millet is also gluten-free.

Also read the Cooking & Kitchen article Worth knowing: Wholemeal flour and gluten-free flour.

Golden millet – the “blonde” sister of brown millet

Golden millet (common table millet) consists of golden-yellow grains and is offered peeled. In contrast to brown millet, it becomes soft when steamed and can be used in many dishes, whether savory or sweet.

Brown Millet

Unlike golden millet, brown millet is not used as a side dish, but as a dietary supplement. In addition, as an unpeeled variant, it is one of the whole-grain cereals and must first be ground in order to be able to use it.

In addition, it is usually offered in health food stores with a special grinding process (Centro phone ground). The ground in this way can also be easily utilized by the human organism. All in all, this type of millet can be eaten raw.

It is important to mention that brown millet should not be heated. Instead, it is recommended to take the cold.

So brown millet is more common on the plate

In order to provide the body with sufficient nutrients, one to four tablespoons should be consumed daily. On the one hand, you can either stir them into food or drinks, on the other hand, you can sprinkle them over muesli. You can also use them in bread. However, some nutrients are lost during the baking process.
Health effects of brown millet
Millet and its subspecies are rich in minerals (silicon), trace elements (fluorides, sulfur, iron, magnesium, zinc), and vitamins (especially B vitamins). Basically, there are more nutrients in brown millet than in golden millet.

Due to the high silicon content, some arthrosis patients have had good experiences with it. In addition, the silica it contains is good for hair and nails. Also, read the Cooking & Kitchen article Selenium & Silicon.

Grinding in our own grain mill

In principle, grinding in your own grain mill is possible. However, the brown millet is not as fine as with Centro phone grinding.  Pour the ground millet over the yogurt and wait a bit before adding the rest of the muesli.

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Food

Avocado Brown Inside? Why You Shouldn’t Throw Them Away

If an avocado is brown on the inside, you don’t necessarily have to throw it away. In many cases, the delicious fruit is still edible. In this tip, we explain how to distinguish ripe avocados from spoiled ones.

Avocados are delicious, are rightly considered a healthy superfood and are becoming increasingly popular. However, the tropical fruits have a catch in addition to their bad ecological balance: It is not exactly easy to distinguish ripe or spoiled avocados from the outside – the surprise often only comes after cutting open. If you then find that the avocado is brown on the inside, you don’t have to throw it away right away. We explain how you can recognize a good avocado.

Avocado brown inside – still edible or spoiled?

There are two reasons why avocados turn brown on the inside:

If you cut open an avocado and don’t use it right away, the flesh will turn brown over time. This is due to oxidation, which also causes the brown coloring of sliced ​​apples. As a result, the avocado no longer looks as appetizing, but it is still edible. It is better to cut open avocados just before eating them. Alternatively, you can brush the cut surface with a little lemon juice to slow down the browning.
However, if the avocado is already brown on the inside when you cut it, it may no longer be edible. Below you will find out what you should pay attention to in this case.
If the avocado is brown on the inside, you should rely primarily on your senses and feelings. The following indicators will help you distinguish a ripe from a spoiled avocado:

If there is only a brown spot under the avocado skin, it is most likely a bruise. In this case, you can cut away the spot and still use the remaining fruit.
If the avocado only has one or two small brown spots inside, it’s still edible in many cases. Simply cut away the spots and use the remaining pulp.
However, if the flesh is streaked with brown spots or brown in several large areas, the avocado is no longer edible. In this case, you should discard the fruit.
The same applies if the fruit is very fibrous and has thin threads. Then the avocado is also no longer edible.
If you then have an unpleasant smell or taste or even moldy spots, you should definitely not eat the avocado anymore.
Caution: If the avocado has visible mold anywhere, you should definitely not eat it. It is then not enough to just cut away the moldy area, since the mycelium of the mold could have spread invisibly throughout the fruit.

Recognizing ripe avocados: you should pay attention to this

If you observe the following points, you can tell a spoiled avocado from a ripe one before you buy it and thus avoid food waste:

With the pressure test, you can see the degree of ripeness of an avocado from the outside: press lightly on the skin with the palm of your hand – an unripe avocado is hard, while a ripe avocado gives slightly. On the other hand, if it feels mushy or seems to have collapsed under the skin, the avocado is probably already bad. Attention: Don’t just do the pressure test with one finger but with the palm of your hand, otherwise the avocado will easily bruise.
Pay attention to the base of the stem: If the avocado is already brown here, it is probably already brown on the inside and no longer good. A better sign is if the avocado is still fresh and green at this point.
The color of the skin can also indicate a spoiled avocado: In the case of the most common type of avocado, ‘Hass’, it should be dark green or brown. If the skin is already black, the avocado is probably no longer good – especially if it feels a bit spongy. Other avocado varieties, such as the ‘Fuerte’, keep their green color even when they are already ripe.
Mold is always a clear indicator of a spoiled avocado. Even if the avocado only has a moldy spot on the outside, you shouldn’t buy it anymore.

Use unripe and overripe avocados

A sliced ​​avocado should be light green to yellowish on the inside and pleasantly soft (see picture above). If the flesh is still hard, the avocado is not yet ripe and has not yet developed its delicious aroma:

Unripe avocados ripen within a few days at room temperature. This is even faster if you store the avocado near apples.
If you have already cut open the avocado and only then discovered the hard flesh, you can still let it ripen a bit. So that it doesn’t turn brown inside, you should brush the cut surface with a little lemon juice or olive oil, put the stone back in the middle and close the two avocado halves together again. So you can easily let the avocado sit for another day and ripen.
If an avocado is already very ripe and soft, you can no longer cut it into pieces and use it in a salad. Nevertheless, you can still conjure up delicious dishes from overripe but edible avocados:

Especially for homemade guacamole, avocados should be really ripe and soft anyway, as the flesh is crushed anyway. Our recipe shows you how to make the delicious dip yourself.
You can also use overripe avocados for other sauces, dressings and dips. Depending on the recipe, you can simply puree them with the other ingredients.
You can also use ripe avocados in smoothies. It is particularly tasty, for example, if you puree an avocado with two bananas, a heaping tablespoon of cocoa powder and, if necessary, some sweetener.

Buying avocados sustainably – buying tips

Avocados are rightly considered a healthy superfood: The tropical fruits are rich in unsaturated fatty acids and have a high content of B vitamins, vitamin A and vitamin E. They also provide several essential amino acids and minerals such as potassium and magnesium.

However, the avocado is not so brilliant in terms of its ecological balance: Most of the fruits come from Central and South America and have therefore been transported long distances in refrigerated containers. In addition, avocado trees need a lot of water: an estimated 1,000 liters of water are needed for one kilo of avocado – and the growing areas are usually already dry.

Organically farmed avocados have a better life cycle assessment than those from conventional farming that uses mineral fertilizers. In some supermarkets and health food stores you can also buy avocados from Spain, Portugal or Israel. This means that the delicious fruits have a significantly shorter transport route behind them.

Nevertheless: Even organic avocados from Spain have an immense ecological footprint and should therefore only be bought and used seldom. Instead of guacamole, you can also make pesto yourself from local ingredients, for example.

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Food

Carob: Brown Powder with a Big Effect

Carob has long been established in organic supermarkets. Carob what? The powder from the dried fruits of the carob tree contains numerous nutrients – and offers a delicious alternative to chocolate. Exactly the reason to take a closer look. Together with ChocoSan, we will introduce you to the advantages of the superfood and give you delicious tips on how to prepare it.

Origin and production of carob

Carob is the roasted and finely ground pulp of the carob fruit. They grow on the carob tree, whose best-known product in this country is probably the carob bean gum. In order to obtain carob, the ripe fruits are cleaned, broken up, and crushed. After the stalks and seeds are removed, the pulp is either dried, roasted for longer shelf life, and then ground or processed directly into syrup.

The nutritional content of carob

Carob contains hardly any sodium and fat, but a high proportion of high-quality dietary fiber. Together with the natural sugar they contain, they provide a lot of energy with a relatively small amount of calories (255 kcal per 100 g). In addition, there are vitamins A, B, and E, trace elements such as iron and manganese, natural minerals such as potassium, calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium, as well as secondary plant substances such as flavonoids with antioxidant properties. Unlike cocoa, carob is also free of stimulating substances such as theobromine and caffeine.

And last but not least, carob can also have a positive effect on digestion and support the natural function of the gastrointestinal tract thanks to its high proportion of fiber and starch. In addition, carob is said to have a basic effect.

The uses of carob

In principle, carob can be used wherever cocoa powder is usually used as an ingredient. With its sweetish, caramel-like taste, carob resembles the taste of cocoa but is less bitter than it. Carob offers interesting taste variations in cakes, creamy desserts such as pudding, or in spreads. To get used to the transition from chocolate to carob, it is initially advisable to replace only part of the cocoa used with carob and then gradually increase this proportion. Since carob already contains sugar, you can also use less sweetener. This is how you save additional calories!

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Cooking Tips

Cooking Brown Rice: How it Works and Why it is so Healthy

If you want to cook brown rice, you have several options. We will introduce you to two variants – a particularly quick and a particularly healthy way of cooking brown rice.

Brown rice is so healthy

Basmati rice, long grain rice, parboiled rice, black rice, wild rice: there are many different varieties and types of rice. Brown rice is popular because it is largely untreated and still has the outer layers of the rice grain. Brown rice therefore contains more minerals and trace elements than white rice – but it also takes longer to cook. We explain how to cook brown rice properly.

Cook brown rice – soak, wash, cook

If you want to cook rice, you basically have two options: the swelling method and the water method. The soaking method is particularly energy- and water-saving, but has one major disadvantage: In addition to the valuable micronutrients, pollutants also remain in the rice. This is a problem with brown rice because it is usually particularly heavily contaminated with arsenic, as reported by the Federal Office for Risk Assessment (BfR). Arsenic is a metalloid that is carcinogenic to humans. You can find more information about arsenic, its occurrence and its effects in our article on the subject.

We therefore recommend that you soak the brown rice beforehand, wash it and cook it with a higher water-to-rice ratio. In this way you can reduce the arsenic content by up to 80 percent.

Cooking brown rice – this is how the preparation works:
Soak the brown rice in water overnight. The rice should be covered with water about two centimeters high.
The next day, rinse the rice until the wastewater runs clear.
Then put the brown rice in a saucepan with five times the amount of water. In other words, there are five cups of water for every cup of rice.
Bring the water to a boil on the highest setting. Once the water is boiling, turn the heat down to low and let the brown rice simmer, with the lid on, for about 20 minutes.
Remove the pot from the stove and let the rice sit in the covered pot for another ten minutes.
The brown rice is ready. At this point you can loosen the rice grains with a fork and add a pinch of salt. But be careful: very hot steam escapes when you open the pot.

Cooking brown rice using the quick swelling method

With the swelling method, you only add enough water to the rice so that it completely absorbs the water when cooking. Therefore, the source method is particularly water and energy-saving. However, the arsenic contained in the rice is not flushed out with this method of preparation. If you have enough time, you should still soak the brown rice first to reduce the arsenic content.

Cooking brown rice using the swelling method:
Optional: Soak the brown rice in plenty of water overnight.
Rinse the rice with clear water until the waste water is no longer cloudy.
Put twice the amount of brown rice in a saucepan: for every cup of rice, add two cups of water.
Bring the water to a boil on the highest setting. Once the water is boiling, switch to a low setting. With the lid on, let the rice gently simmer for about 20 minutes.
Remove the covered pot from the heat and let the rice sit for another 10 minutes.
At the end you can fluff up the brown rice with a fork and add a pinch of salt.
By the way: If you have cooked too much rice, you can heat up the rest of the rice the next day. Alternatively, you can freeze the cooked rice and preserve it for a long time.

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Food

Brown Millet: Nutrients and Recipes For The Spelled Grain

Brown millet is still a largely unknown type of grain. In this article you will find out what distinguishes the millet variety and how you use it.

Brown millet: characteristics and ingredients

Brown millet is the red-orange form of the so-called proso millet. Millet has become better known as a healthy grain in recent years: According to the Bavarian consumer advice center, it is rich in minerals and vitamins and contains a particularly large amount of iron, vitamin B6 and silicon. Millet is also gluten-free and therefore also suitable for people with celiac disease.

The better-known golden millet has yellowish seeds. It is peeled before use. Brown millet, on the other hand, is processed with the peel and husk. This preserves important nutrients such as fiber and B vitamins. However, the peeled type of millet is easier to digest and contains fewer pesticides and other problematic substances such as tannins, oxalic acid and phytic acid.

Excessive amounts of these substances in brown millet can have a negative effect on your health: phytic acid impedes the absorption of calcium and iron, among other things. Tannins make protein absorption and starch digestion more difficult. Oxalic acid can also promote the formation of kidney stones, especially in people who already have kidney problems. That doesn’t mean you have to give up brown millet entirely. However, you should consume them in moderation and make sure you eat a balanced diet.

In terms of calories and macronutrient distribution, brown millet does not differ significantly from other types of millet: Govinda organic brown millet, for example, contains around 308 kilocalories per 100 grams. It consists of around 51 percent carbohydrates. About 10 percent is plant-based protein and 4.5 percent is fat. Of these, 3.8 grams are unsaturated fatty acids.

Use and sale of brown millet

You can get brown millet in organic shops and health food stores. Here it is mostly sold in ground form. You can add brown millet flour to muesli, yoghurt and smoothie bowls, for example. You can also stir it into liquids like soups or juices. It is also suitable as an ingredient for bread, cakes and other baked goods. In these cases, however, be careful not to use excessive amounts: brown millet should not be the main ingredient, but only used as a supplement.

You can also sometimes find brown millet as a dietary supplement. Manufacturers advertise the supposedly health-promoting effects of the millet variety. For example, brown millet is said to help against hair loss, nail diseases, arthrosis, tooth decay or osteoporosis.

However, none of these assumptions has been scientifically proven so far, according to the Bavarian consumer advice center. There are also no studies to date on the possible side effects and risks of consuming too much brown millet.

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Lifestyle

Remove Brown Limescale in the Toilet

Tips, tricks, and home remedies to remove brown limescale in the toilet. Now get the toilet really clean again and remove the brown deposits easily and naturally.

Effectively remove brown lime

A toilet is often cleaned and appears hygienically clean, but where the water is permanently standing, limescale deposits and overtime turns brown and simply ugly to look at. There are simple and helpful solutions for this, which we have summarized for you in this article.

1) Get rid of the brown discoloration with vinegar

You can remove brown lime or urine scale with a tried-and-tested household remedy: Vinegar is a cheap remedy that effectively removes deposits in the toilet. Thanks to the acetic acid, vinegar is a miracle cure for limescale.

The brown urine scale and brown limescale are removed by pouring a little vinegar into the toilet bowl and then using the toilet brush to scrub off the discoloration. If this doesn’t work right away, you can leave the vinegar on for a longer period of time, for example overnight.

If you want to clean areas that are above the water surface, you can simply soak a piece of toilet paper in vinegar and apply it to the affected area. After a few hours of exposure, you can flush the toilet as normal and then use the toilet brush to remove the brown limescale in the toilet.

2) Counter unsightly discoloration with citric acid

You can use citric acid to combat brown lime in a similar way to vinegar. To do this, dissolve the citric acid powder, put it in the toilet, and let it work for several hours. Then use the toilet brush to scrub off the discoloration directly.

Alternatively, you can also apply the powder undiluted to the affected areas, including under the edge. Then leave it on for a few hours and scrub it off with the toilet brush. Then rinse thoroughly. The advantage of this method is that, unlike vinegar, it does not lead to an unpleasant smell and is just as effective.

3) Remove brown encrustation with steel wool

If the brown crust is really stuck in the drain area, you can also try steel wool as a last resort. This will damage the ceramic somewhat, but the brown lime can be easily brushed off. However, proceed as carefully as possible so that, in case of doubt, small scratches remain.

4) Remove brown limescale in the toilet with special tabs

If the brown encrustation still cannot be removed, the following will help: Self-active against urine scale and brown calcification are special tabs for the toilet, which work deep into the drain even in the water. Only to be recommended! The application is very simple: Put “Corega Tabs” in the toilet overnight and the next morning everything is snow white again.

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