Buckwheat Lettuce (buckwheat greens)

[NoGMO!]

Is it really gluten-free? yes?

[raweater]

Read up on buackwheat lettuce, it contains a toxin that makes you photo sensitive and is very painful, buckwheat lettuce is toxic.

[VeggieMel]

I ate buckwheat greens for seven months solid every day and had no adverse reaction. Perhaps it only causes photosensitivity in some people.

[NoGMO!]

I ate buckwheat greens for seven months solid every day and had no adverse reaction. Perhaps it only causes photosensitivity in some people.

yes, I've read several times that it can cause photosensitivity in some people if eaten in large quantities.

[lydias]

is the buckwheat lettuce and the buckwheat sprouts the same?

[VeggieMel]

Some people call buckwheat lettuce (or greens), buckwheat sprouts, but it's more accurate to say lettuce or greens.

[NoGMO!]

is the buckwheat lettuce and the buckwheat sprouts the same?

they aren't the same thing. :o

the sprouts grow overnight and sprout short tails to be used for breads or whatever.

the greens also called lettuce take a week or so to grow and they grow vertically into 8 inch tall microgreens... like wheatgrass & sunflower greens, which can also be grown as sprouts or greens.

(the seeds to use for greens have to have the hull intact though, um except for wheatberries.)

here is a picture of buckwheat lettuce/greens
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:A0fqkH8CNWoJ:www.sproutman.com/freshlife_photos.html+buckwheat+lettuce&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us

[Carol the Dabbler]

I ate buckwheat greens for seven months solid every day and had no adverse reaction. Perhaps it only causes photosensitivity in some people.

It's looking like I'm one of those people! About two weeks after I started eating homegrown sunflower & buckwheat greens, I noticed that my lower lip had a sort of "pins & needles" feeling. This tingling (and itching) gradually spread to the rest of my face, and also my hands (just the backs) and forearms.

After thinking for about six weeks that I had a pinched nerve (but not getting any relief from chiropractic adjustments), I noticed the time correlation between the symptoms and eating the homegrown greens. At this point, I figured maybe I was using deficient soil in my growing trays, thus leading to a nutritional deficiency in the greens and then in me. In fact, this may (also) be true. I will definitely get better soil before growing more sunflower greens. In any case, I went back to store-bought organic greens.

Driving/riding in a car and/or walking seemed to aggravate the symptoms, so I've been staying in. Today, since I was starting to feel better, I decided it would be OK to drive, just to the PO & back. I was wearing shorts, and the sun was shining on my legs through the windshield, and by the time I got home, my legs were all red & itchy. So I Googled on photosensitivity and found a reference to buckwheat causing it in horses, so I Googled some more and found this thread.

Although I stopped eating the buckwheat greens eleven days ago, I have still been eating sprouted-buckwheat crackers. I think I will stop that too, at least for the time being. The horse reference said that the mature grain does NOT contain the substance that causes photosensitivity -- but at what point does a buckwheat sprout stop being a grain and start being a plant? I'll also stop taking my beloved St. Johnswort (since that was one recommendation for affected horses).

If you've also had this problem with buckwheat greens, please post your experiences here. Thank you ever so much!

[Carol the Dabbler]

P. S. Here's a link to a marvelously-detailled article about one family's experience with photosensitivity due to drinking a good bit of buckwheat juice. All of my symptoms are there! http://www.gillesarbour.com/buckwheatArticle.php

[Stina]

P. S. Here's a link to a marvelously-detailled article about one family's experience with photosensitivity due to drinking a good bit of buckwheat juice. All of my symptoms are there! http://www.gillesarbour.com/buckwheatArticle.php

I get the impression that this lady was consuming a lot of buckwheat by juicing it. I just want to include buckwheat in small amounts along with a large variety of other greens, so I'm not concerned. Apparently, anything can be problematic in large amounts.

[Carol the Dabbler]

I wasn't juicing the buckwheat greens, I was using them in green smoothies, but you're right, I was using a significant amount of them, averaging about half a pound per day.

You're also right that anything can cause a problem if you get too much of it. However, "too much" is a relative term, and some types of greens seem more likely to cause trouble than others. I suspect that quite a few people could eat half a pound of lettuce per day for their entire lives with no apparent side effects. Buckwheat greens, on the other hand, are a notorious trouble-maker. That daily half-pound gave me symptoms after only two weeks.

This is not to say that nobody should eat buckwheat greens. Apparently some people tolerate them far better than I do. And presumably just about anyone can eat them in small amounts and/or infrequently without problems, especially if they're relying on their teeth to break down the greens. Juicing or blending makes everything easier to assimilate, including some things one might prefer not to assimilate.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Is it really gluten-free?

To answer the original question (at long last!), yes, buckwheat (groats, sprouts, greens, whatever) is totally gluten-free. It's not a type of wheat at all. It's not even in the grass family. It's actually the seed of an annual plant in the buckwheat family. So we gluten-sensitive individuals are free to enjoy it -- just as long as we're not sensitive to fagopyrin!

By the way, buckwheat has nothing to do with male deer or dollar bills either. The word actually means "beech wheat," because the seeds are shaped like the triangular nuts of the beech tree and are small like grains of wheat.

[flower lady]

In 1988-89 I worked at the Wigmore Institute for Education and research. After about 2 months on the a diet based heavily on Buckwheat lettuce & sunflower sprouts. I was asked by a fellow volunter how I was felling anything unusal happening? Yes, I can not stay in the sun as long as I used too and when I dive into the water it feels as though I were diving through an electrical field. They called it the TINGLES. I felt some how as tho I was now apart of the "club". As time passed I noticed that my usual high pain threshold was dropping radically. I addressed this issue with Ann Wigmore and she told me if you want to heal you have to put up with some discomfort.
Time passed and I was feeling more and more that this was not just "discomfort" so I wrote a letter to Gabrial Cousens and he wrote back immediately. "Too alkaline" he wrote. Eat some acid forming foods, even if you have to eat meat!" The diet at Ann's clinics are not for long term they are for quick adjustment of the acid/alkaline status to bring about healing" "She needs to address her volunteers diet provide guilelines for long term raw food for healthy people." Hope that helps the flower lady

[Carol the Dabbler]

Thanks for sharing your experience, flower lady! I agree, the Wigmore Institute's diet (particularly the very strict regimen recommended for those with serious health problems) may not be appropriate for the long term. (As for what IS appropriate, that seems to vary a good deal from person to person, so finding it may require a certain amount of trial and error.)

In response to Gabriel Cousens' recommendation, I will just say that the only dietary change I made was to switch from home-grown buckwheat and sunflower greens to store-bought organic greens, and my "tingles" cleared up -- though some of the symptoms took several months to go away completely. At that time, I did not make any attempt to eat a more acidifying diet.

It's my personal opinion that any individual or organization (such as the Wigmore Institute) that encourages people to eat buckwheat greens should include a warning on the potential danger to sensitive individuals -- something like, buckwheat greens can bother some people, so if you start having such-and-such symptoms, you should stop eating them for at least a few months.

Perhaps they fear that such a warning would deter people from trying their diet. However, NOT warning them will all-too-often lead to the scenario where a gung-ho raw newbie starts growing and eating buckwheat greens, quickly develops "the tingles," realizes that the symptoms started shortly after they went raw, decides "well, that just didn't work for me," and abandons raw foods completely, perhaps forever -- never realizing that all they really needed to do was cut out the buckwheat greens.

Fortunately, I had already been raw for almost a year before I got around to growing buckwheat greens, so I didn't confuse the baby with the bath water.

[MysticTree]

HHI I believe do not promote buckwheat greens anymore or at least they are used with caution. I read about it online somewhere recently. I'll dig out the link if I can find it.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Thanks for the heads-up, MysticTree! I assume you're referring to Brian Clement's Hippocrates Health Institute in Florida. I went looking and found this:

http://www.myspace.com/naddinasrawfoodfriends/blog/531744793

The Gilles Arbour article that Naddina mentions in her first paragraph, the article that raised the question in the first place, is the article that I linked to above, in post #9. It describes in great detail one family's experience with eating buckwheat greens on a regular basis:

http://www.gillesarbour.com/buckwheat.php

I cannot find the Clement quote anywhere on the Hippocrates web site, and can only surmise that Naddina transcribed it from a video. (We have a dial-up connection, so I can't watch it to be sure.) Other than that, the Hippocrates site is still full of praise for buckwheat greens.

I'm glad to see evidence that the raw-food community is finally recognizing the potential problems with buckwheat greens.

[Rooby]

Hey guys,

I just called the hippocratesinst and the woman that answered said they still use buckwheat sprouts as they always have and nothing has changed.

Here is the contact page (http://www.hippocratesinst.org/contact ) is someone would like to call and see if they get a different answer.

[P. Sean Peterson]

HHI I believe do not promote buckwheat greens anymore or at least they are used with caution. I read about it online somewhere recently. I'll dig out the link if I can find it. I just got back from their 3 week program and they served buckwheat lettuce on the buffet at every meal. However they no longer put it in the green juice, which is sunflower, pea, celery and cucumber. They do talk of it causing photosensitivity and other adverse reactions in some people.

[Juicerguy]

I am glad I stumbled upon this thread. With all of the other awesome greens and sprouts that one could eat and/or juice. I don't even think I will take the chance with the buckwheat now. That is a trip... The post that mentioned jumping into water felt like jumping into an electrical field. So interesting that the body could be in such an alkaline state that it becomes a battery almost eh? Shocking yourself just by touching water...yikes. lol.

[The Sproutarian (Mr Raw)]

In 1988-89 I worked at the Wigmore Institute for Education and research. After about 2 months on the a diet based heavily on Buckwheat lettuce & sunflower sprouts. I was asked by a fellow volunter how I was felling anything unusal happening? Yes, I can not stay in the sun as long as I used too and when I dive into the water it feels as though I were diving through an electrical field. They called it the TINGLES. I felt some how as tho I was now apart of the "club". As time passed I noticed that my usual high pain threshold was dropping radically. I addressed this issue with Ann Wigmore and she told me if you want to heal you have to put up with some discomfort.
Time passed and I was feeling more and more that this was not just "discomfort" so I wrote a letter to Gabrial Cousens and he wrote back immediately. "Too alkaline" he wrote. Eat some acid forming foods, even if you have to eat meat!" The diet at Ann's clinics are not for long term they are for quick adjustment of the acid/alkaline status to bring about healing" "She needs to address her volunteers diet provide guilelines for long term raw food for healthy people." Hope that helps the flower lady

l find the explanation of being too alkaline hard to believe because other really alkaline foods don't cause problems in large amounts. But what we now know is that Buckwheat is toxic and should only be eaten sparingly. The poster `Mystic Tree' actually made me first aware of the problem and many of the leading sproutarians have recently become aware of the problem with buckwheat lettuce also.

Why isn't Dr Ann's diet at the institute a long term diet? lt is similar to the Hippocrates diet in that it includes various sprouts and sea vegetables, no? Dr Ann lived on the diet, Dr Clement lives on a similar diet, l live on a sproutarian/sea vegie/algae diet. The food at Dr Ann's institute is high in amino acids, sunlight, enzymes, nutrients and electromagnetic vibrations...so why such a conclusion?

http://www.myspace.com/naddinasrawfoodfriends/blog/531744793

[MysticTree]

I still eat just sprouted buckwheat but haven't eaten much buckwheat greens.