Buckwheat

Food · Grains & Legumes · Grains

Connected to · 1

food source · 1

Magnesium
Despite its name, buckwheat is not a grass grain; dry buckwheat has about 230 mg of magnesium per 100 g, among the highest of grain-type staples.
Mechanism · 2
Mechanism · Not wheat, yet rich in magnesium
Despite its name, buckwheat is not a grass grain at all but the fruit of a plant in the knotweed family, cooked as a grain. Magnesium is still the ion that lets enzymes recognize ATP. Buckwheat is naturally gluten-free, which gives people with celiac disease another staple, provided it is not mixed with wheat flour or contaminated with wheat in processing; that is a separate matter from its magnesium.
Numbers · Dry weight and a cooked bowl
Dry buckwheat has about 230 mg of magnesium per 100 g. That figure is by dry weight; cooking adds water and thins it out gram for gram, but a bowl still delivers a useful amount. Buckwheat noodles are often mixed with wheat flour, and the less buckwheat they contain, the less magnesium they carry.

Read full story

Stop 1/8

Buckwheat is not really wheat

EVIDENCEGUIDE 1

READ THE ORIGINAL

The most important thing about buckwheat is where it comes from. It is not a grass, so its seed was never built to make the proteins that form gluten, which is why it contains no gluten; it also stores protein differently from grains and carries more lysine than most of them. The chapter on why it is naturally Gluten-Free explains how these fit together.

Despite the name, buckwheat is not wheat, and not even a cereal grain. It belongs to the knotweed family, related to sorrel and rhubarb, and what we eat is its fruit (an achene), which is why it is called a pseudocereal, alongside quinoa and amaranth. In China it shows up mostly as buckwheat noodles in the north and southwest (cold buckwheat noodles, pressed hele noodles) and as buckwheat groats and porridge.

Because it has no gluten, it is a common staple on Gluten-Free diets. For people with celiac disease, though, that holds only if no wheat flour was blended in and no wheat was picked up during processing (and Gluten-Free does not mean healthier; see Gluten-Free).

A few people are allergic to buckwheat, and the reaction can be severe. If your lips or throat swell, you have trouble breathing, or you feel dizzy and cannot stay standing after eating it, call emergency services right away.

Dark-brown triangular buckwheat fruits with paler hulled groats in front. — A CLOSER LOOK
Triangular fruit with wheat in its name
Buckwheat is a Polygonaceae plant eaten as an achene, making it a pseudocereal. Its appearance cannot certify that a product is free of added wheat or cross-contact.

Educational content, not medical advice — consult a clinician.

Back