Bran – Just for old people?

Bran has an image problem. Bran is like … prunes. It’s what the elderly eat when they have to deal with the gurgling issues of their gastrointestinal netherworld.

But what is bran?

It’s not just muffins that weigh as much as a brick. It’s basically the part of rice and wheat and oats that is on the outside of the seed. Historically, it was eaten along with every other part of the stalk, but when we invented roller mills, we took that part of it out to make the bread softer.

Unfortunately, we also removed the healthiest part of the plant!! The processing strips away more than half of wheat’s B vitamins, 90 percent of the vitamin E, and almost all of the fiber. Plus, when you just leave the bran where it was meant to be, and eat normal oats, normal wheat, and normal rice, cholesterol lowers, triglycerides drop, incidents of heart disease decrease, the chance of diabetes plummets, along with colorectal cancer and all inflammation-related conditions.

This doesn’t mean you have to eat bran bricks, because you don’t. All you need to do is eat normal bread with whole grains, normal oats, normal rice. The stuff that is stripped of its nutrients and natural bran may look smooth and white, but it is not the plant that has grown in synergy with us as we have adapted together for optimal health.