Sorghum: Are You Eating This Alkalizing Bone-Healthy Grain?

Today you'll learn everything you need to know about an underappreciated grain that offers significant benefits to your bones and your overall health. Unlike many other popular grains, this one is alkalizing.

This ancient grain is bursting with bone-building vitamins and minerals as well as protein and fiber. We'll review all of the important nutrients this grain offers and explain how they translate into specific health benefits.

Then you'll get a delicious recipe featuring this powerful ingredient.

All About Sorghum

Sorghum is the fifth most-produced cereal grain in the world. Yet many people in the United States are not familiar with it. Sorghum comes in many different varieties and in addition to being a food crop, it's used for non-food purposes such as fuel and livestock feed.

There are four types of sorghum used in cooking: whole grain, pearled, popped, and syrup.

• Whole grain sorghum contains all the parts of the grain. You can boil it or steam it before adding it to a salad, serving it as a side dish, or subbing it in for a different grain in a recipe.
• Pearled sorghum has been stripped of its outer layers, making it slightly softer and sweeter. Pearled sorghum is often added to soups.
• Flaked sorghum can be used just like oats in cereal and baked goods.
• Popped sorghum is like a smaller version of popcorn, except it contains less fat, less calories, and more nutrients.
• Sorghum flour is a gluten-free substitute for regular flour.
• Sorghum syrup is a sweetener made from the stalk of a sorghum plant, used in baking.

Sorghum is an excellent source of fiber and protein, and contains the following nutrients:

• Vitamin B1* (thiamin)
• Vitamin B6
• Copper*
• Iron*
• Magnesium*
• Phosphorus
• Potassium
• Selenium
• Zinc*

*Foundation Supplements

Synopsis

Sorghum is a versatile grain available in many familiar forms (such as whole grain, flour, or popped) and contains a variety of important bone-building vitamins and minerals. It's also an excellent source of fiber and protein.

Health Benefits Of Sorghum

Given the variety of vitamins, minerals, and important nutrients that sorghum contains– it's no wonder that making it a regular part of your diet can garner significant health benefits. Here are a few of the most notable ones:

• Improves Digestion – One cup of sorghum offers 48% of the daily recommended amount of fiber. A high-fiber diet can relieve gastrointestinal problems like gas, bloating, and cramping. Additionally high fiber intake provides heart health benefits– it can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke.¹
• Regulates Blood Sugar – Studies have shown that sorghum increases insulin sensitivity, which helps your body to regulate your blood sugar levels. High blood sugar is bad for your bones and for your overall health, and this regulatory effect also helps prevent and manage diabetes.²
• Prevents Anemia – Iron, copper, and magnesium all increase iron absorption, and sorghum provides all three. Therefore, sorghum consumption is is effective at preventing anemia.³
• Increases Energy – One cup of sorghum provides 28% of the daily recommended value of Vitamin B6. In addition to other health benefits, maintaining your Vitamin B6 levels provides you with lasting energy.
• Reduces Inflammation – Sorghum is rich in phenolic compounds and other antioxidants that have an anti-inflammatory effect. Reducing inflammation helps to prevent a variety of conditions– including bone loss.⁴

Synopsis

The benefits of eating sorghum include improved digestion, blood sugar regulation, preventing anemia, increased energy, and reduced inflammation.

How Sorghum Can Help Improve Your Bone Health

In addition to and partly because of the benefits listed above, sorghum helps improve bone health. Sorghum is alkalizing, unlike many other grains, and is full of Foundation Supplements, as you read above.

Sorghum's high magnesium content makes it a particularly good food for maintaining healthy bones. Magnesium plays a major role in calcium absorption as well as the growth of new bone tissue. In fact, if you are suffering from a magnesium deficiency, your body pulls the mineral out of your bones– causing bone loss.

The antioxidant powers of sorghum are also a boon to bone health. Free radicals damage bone and the cells that build bone through oxidation. Antioxidants prevent this damage, protecting bone and the bone remodeling process.

Sorghum's anti-inflammatory action also benefits bones. That's because inflammation has a negative impact on them and can disrupt the body's ability to produce new bone tissue. Studies have directly linked inflammation to bone loss and increased fracture risk. ⁴

Synopsis

Sorghum has a variety of bone health benefits. It's alkalizing, contains magnesium, is a great source of antioxidants, and helps to reduce inflammation.

A Delicious Recipe Featuring Sorghum

Clearly, sorghum is a powerful addition to a bone-healthy diet. If you've never used sorghum as an ingredient before, start with this easy recipe for an excellent breakfast and anytime snack.

What This Means To You

Make sorghum a part of your 80/20 pH-balanced diet. Unlike many other kinds of cereal, it falls into the 80% alkalizing portion of the bone-healthy diet explained in the Osteoporosis Reversal Program, leaving more space on your plate for acidifying foods that offer other important vitamins and minerals.

Variety is a hallmark of a healthy diet. That's why the Save Institute created Bone Appétit. Bone Appétit is a cookbook and meal planner that makes it easy to expand your culinary world with hundreds of pH-balanced recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even snacks. And it includes two specialty recipe collections: Blender Magic for smoothie recipes and Calcilicious for calcium-rich dishes.

Keep eating bone-healthy foods (and trying new ones!) like sorghum. They offer complex and powerful benefits to your body, your energy, your bones, and your life.

References

¹ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10429748/

² https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3439576/

³ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17306481/

⁴ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22392817