HIERACHY: "Seed" is the most basic term, the other terms are characterizations of seeds. However, the use of any given term in a culinary settings may have little to do with the term's strict botanical definition. For culinary purposes there are no definite rules for which things are called nuts, pits, beans, grains, etc.
For example, the term beans used to be exclusively used for broad beans (fava beans), but today we use the term to describe plants as biologically and geographically disparate as soy, garbanzo, coffee, legumes, castor, and cocoa. Kernel does not only refer to the center part of a nut. It is also regularly used to refer to the individual seeds of corn/maize, wheat, buckwheat, and barley. Grains used to refer specifically to the seeds of grass food crops like wheat, barley, oats, and corn/maize. Today it is also a catch-all term which is used for similar food crops that are not grass seeds such as amaranth, millet, quinoa, rice, buckwheat, and even soy. As a culinary term, "nut" has also undergone an expansion of meaning from, as you put it, "a fruit composed of a hard shell and a seed, which is generally edible" to include basically any relatively large, oily kernels found within a shell and used in food. In fact, the majority of the "nuts" we commonly eat are not true nuts. http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/60015/what-is-the-difference-between-seed-grain-nut-kernel-pit-bean
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Millet is not just for the birds. When you find out all the benefits of millet nutrition, you'll want to include this ancient prized grain-like seed in your own diet!
Most people have not even heard of millet, much less understand the benefits of millet nutrition. And yet, millet is one of the best-kept secrets of our ancient ancestors. Traced back to its origin in China, millet has been used throughout the ages and across many countries. For centuries millet has been a prized crop in China, India, Greece, Egypt and Africa, used in everything from bread to couscous, and as cereal grain. Millet is even mentioned as a treasured crop in the Bible. This tiny "grain" is gluten-free and packed with vitamins and minerals. In fact, while it's often called a grain because of it's grain-like consistency, millet is actually a seed. It's often used in birdseed mixture, but if you think it's just for the birds, you're missing out on important benefits of millet nutrition for yourself! Millet Nutrition Millet is one of the four gluten-free grain-like seeds on the Body Ecology program. Some of the key reasons millet is healthy:
____________________________________________________________________________ 1. A seed is an ovule containing an embryo while a grain is a fusion of the seed coat and the fruit. 2. Typically, seeds are planted to grow plants while grains are harvested for food. 3. Grains provide food from the fruit part while seeds mainly provide food from embryo parts. Grains provide food mainly from the fruit part, for instance, food from wheat grain is derived from the ground fruit, which is a part of the grain. In crops like millet, it is actually the seed that has properties very similar to those of the fruit part of the grains, and that is why it is handled as a grain in culinary terms. Read more: Difference Between Seeds and Grains | Difference Between http://www.differencebetween.net/science/difference-between-seeds-and-grains/#ixzz4JWLgi8hN Millet, quinoa, amaranth and buckwheat are described as grains, but while they are indeed granular, they are in fact seeds. The difference? I consulted my friendly agronomist, who explained that very broadly, grains contain a food source as well as the necessaries for germination. Seeds are embryonic plants. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/9025503/What-to-cook-instead-of-refined-grains.html |
Debra Lapatina
Creator of Queen Bee Flour. Archives
January 2018
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