The Malaysian Insider :: Food

Posted: 13 May 2014 08:34 PM PDT

BY EU HOOI KHAW
May 14, 2014

Freekeh Salad, with roasted and fresh vegetables, sun dried tomatoes, pickled olives and pine nuts. – May 14, 2014.Freekeh is a green wheat which has been part of the Middle Eastern diet for the past 4,300 years. This ancient grain, packed with nutritional and health benefits, is now available in Malaysia.

There's a story about how in 2,300 BC a country in the region expected its enemy to lay siege to its walled city. Its people picked the green heads of their wheat and stored them to avoid starvation. The green wheat caught fire in the store, but when the heads of wheat were rubbed together, delicious green grains were exposed which they called "freekeh", which means "the rubbed one".

Freekeh would have remained in the Middle East if not for the efforts of Tony Lufti, managing director of Greenwheat Freekeh Pty in Adelaide, Australia, to produce it. Months before Lufti arrived in Kuala Lumpur to explain what freekeh was all about, I was given a packet of it to try. I found it easy to cook, simmering in more water than you would cook rice in, for 30 minutes. It also helped that it had a nice, toasty aroma and a nutty bite.

You could add anything to the cooked grain, as in a salad, or treat it like fried rice, combining sautéed ingredients like meat, prawns, herbs or spices and chopped vegetables with it. Best of all just a little freekeh goes a long way, as it keeps you full for several hours.

At a cooking demonstration in Jaya Grocer at Intermark, Kuala Lumpur, Lufti showed how easily two types of freekeh could be cooked – the cracked one with chicken stock, and the whole freekeh with water.

Lufti showing how freekeh can be combined with roasted and fresh vegetables, dried fruits and nuts in a salad. – May 14, 2014.He had prepared roasted eggplant and pumpkin, sundried tomatoes, chopped onions, pickled olives, capsicum, dried apricots, dates and fresh coriander to combine with the whole freekeh, in a tasty and wholesome salad.

You can cook freekeh with rice, making it more nutritious, or it can be a replacement for rice to eat with curry or any dishes.

Lufti, an American mechanical and petroleum engineer, came across freekeh by chance when he worked in the oil and gas industry in the Gulf. Then he started working for USAID (US Agency for International Development), helping in technology transfer from the US to developing countries.

It was while working for the agency in Jordan that he met Prince Hassan, the then Crown Prince, who invited him to lunch at his house. "A main dish was served, in the form of a huge platter heaped with what looked like rice, with lots of pine nuts, raisins, almonds and chicken, with salad at the side. It tasted wonderful," said Lufti. It was freekeh.

"When it was in season, the Jordanians would eat freekeh in a dish called Mansaf, or as a rice substitute, in soups, or as stuffing especially for poultry.

"The prince said I was lucky to eat it in his house because if I had eaten freeken elsewhere I would have broken a tooth. The grains are full of stones and they have to remove them before cooking. He joked that during the freekeh season, dentists would rub their hands in glee."

Jordanians had tried to develop technology to produce freekeh but had failed. Then in 1990 Kuwait was invaded by Iraq. Lufti went to Australia where he was asked by the government to help it gain access into difficult markets for a range of projects, from IT to communications, food processing and animal feed. Then, at the home of the director of the communications project he was involved in, invited him to lunch, and freekeh was served!

Lufti found out that the director who is Armenian, had got the grain which was imported from the Middle East, in Australia.

Lufti was determined to investigate the production of freekeh in Australia. "It's one of the biggest wheat producing countries in the world". He applied to the Australian Agribusiness Development Programme for A$100,000. He got it.

Lufti went to see how they produced freekeh in the Middle East. Then he designed and built a machine for this. Freekeh production started in Australia in 1997, to supply the markets in the Middle East. Business was booming till the US invasion of Iraq.

Before this, Lufti had ploughed his profits back to research the properties of freekeh. The findings were astounding, he said.

Freekeh is very nutritious and helps with weight loss, controlling sugar levels and bowel health. – May 14, 2014."Medical researchers discovered that eating freekeh would help manage Type 2 diabetes due to its high level of resistant starch and high fibre. It also helps diminish the risk of colorectal cancer.

"These two basic indicators increased the production of short chain fatty acids called butyrates. These findings were by CSiro (Commonwealth Scientific Investigation Research Organisation) which is part of the Australian Federal Government. "

The second research was done by Flinders Medical Centre in South Australia, a world leading institute in cancer research. They found that consumption of freekeh produced an apoptotic effect, which means freekeh sweeps out of the body damaged DNA cells which could mutate and turn cancerous.

In both findings freekeh showed positive for all cases of bowel health, including constipation and Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).

Freekeh began to be sold in the US and Japan in 2005, but it was too early to engage the interest of consumers. However, demand picked up dramatically in 2009. "In the US there was the Ancient Grain Movement which started to make headway into the benefits of whole grain following the election of President Obama. Michelle Obama started campaigning for Americans to eat healthy and lose weight."

Freekeh is not just confined to wheat. "We catch the grain when it is still young, so it can be made from barley, oats, triticale (a hybrid of wheat and rye) and even rice. We are looking into the possibility of producing freekeh from rice."

"Freekeh is not gluten-free. However, when we started selling in Australian supermarkets we had calls from customers who were allergic to wheat and gluten and yet had no reaction when consuming freekeh. Among them were those who were celiac or mid-range celiac.

"We found out from CSiro that as we were harvesting the grain early the gluten had not fully developed. The intolerance to gluten was not there because it did not combine with glyadin to trigger it off."

Freekeh is available in wholegrain and cracked, freekeh noodles, and freekeh flour. – May 14, 2014.Then Trader's Joe, a supermarket chain in the US, started using a woman called Bonnie Mathews to do cooking demonstrations of freekeh. She was 44 years old then and weighed 248 lbs, wearing a size 20. She suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure. She noticed when she started to eat freekeh, she began to lose weight.

She sent a letter to Oprah and told her about this product and what it was doing for her. Oprah contacted Dr Oz and asked him to investigate Bonnie for a year. Bonnie was monitored and measured, and her diet modified. A year later, in January 2011, she was interviewed by Oprah on her show. The demand for freekeh peaked in US, Canada, UK and Brazil.

Freekeh is available in Kuala Lumpur at BIG Publika, Jaya Grocer Intermark, Hock Choon, Village Grocer Bangsar and Mont Kiara and Sogo. There are also freekeh (high-protein) noodles which are so good to eat. – May 14, 2014.

Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

Selasa, 13 Mei 2014

The Malaysian Insider :: Food

The Malaysian Insider :: Food

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