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Why Is Sorghum One of My New Favorite Grains?

The AHA! Team — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 20:01:21 +0000

Michael Greger M.D. FACLM via Nutrition Facts – Learn why sorghum is one of my favorite new grains. “Despite playing a significant role in Africa and Asia as a staple grain, sorghum has only recently emerged as a potential human food source in the developed world.” And it isn’t just a principal grain in many parts of the world, but it’s “critical in folk medicine” traditions, too. What might its health benefits be? There are some in vitro data from test tubes and petri dishes, as well as in vivo data, meaning “within the living” in laboratory animals, but only in the last decade have we started seeing human trials. In one study, participants were asked to eat sorghum pancakes or corn pancakes for supper every day for three weeks. Both groups saw significant, 20 to 30 percent drops in their cholesterol, but all participants were also “requested not to consume eggs and other cholesterol-boosting foodstuff,” so that may very well have played a role. Another study used biscuits. Those eating sorghum biscuits said they felt more satiated than when they ate wheat biscuits, but that “did not translate to differences in intake at the subsequent ad-libitum [all-you-can-eat] meal.” So, does it matter that they subjectively felt more satiated if that did not cause them to eat any less? Unsurprisingly, when put to the test, those eating sorghum versus wheat biscuits didn’t lose any weight, though the data are a bit mixed. A recent study concluded that “sorghum can be an important strategy for weight loss in humans.” However, those in the sorghum group didn’t actually lose more weight. They did eat hundreds more calories a day, though, and they still lost more body fat, as you can see below and at 1:41 in my video The Health Benefits of Sorghum. This may be because of their greater fiber consumption or intake of other goodies, like the resistant starch in sorghum. The vehicle the researchers used was an artificially flavored, colored, and sweetened powdered drink mixture of water, milk powder, and either sorghum or wheat flour. That may be good for a study since you can make a blinded control, but it leaves you wondering what would happen if you actually ate the whole food. The resistant starch is exciting, though. Most of the starch in sorghum is either slow-starch—that is, slowly digestible—or fully resistant to digestion in the small intestine, which offers a banquet bounty of prebiotics for our good gut flora down in our colon. Evidently, it isn’t the sorghum starch itself, but interactions with the proteins and other compounds that effectively act as starch blockers, inhibiting our starch-munching enzymes. Sorghum ends up with “the lowest starch digestibility” among grains, which is why, traditionally, it was considered to be an “inferior” grain—but inferior in the sense of not providing as many calories. (That’s a good thing in the age of epidemic obesity.) When study participants were given either a whole-wheat muffin (the control) or a sorghum muffin, with both containing the same amount of starch, researchers saw significantly higher blood sugars 45 minutes to two hours after subjects ate the wheat muffin, as shown below and at 2:58 in my video. They also saw a higher insulin spike, starting almost immediately after consuming the wheat muffin, as seen below, and at 3:03. Overall, after consumption of the sorghum muffin, researchers found a 25 percent lower blood sugar response, and the participants’ bodies had to release less than half the insulin to deal with it, as seen here and at 3:11 in my video. The same type of results were found with people with diabetes. Researchers saw a lower blood sugar spike with sorghum porridge compared to grits, and the participants’ bodies could deal with it with a fraction of the insulin. So, we need to educate people on how healthy sorghum is—and, some suggest, “develop products that are…healthy, convenient to use, and tasty.” No need! Sorghum is already healthy, convenient, and tasty just the way it is. I just press a single button on my electric pressure cooker with two parts water and one part sorghum, and it’s ready in 20 minutes. You can make a big batch and use it all week just like you would rice. Of course, there isn’t big money for the food industry when people eat the intact, whole grain. Instead, the industry is looking at sorghum for its “enormous potential for exploitation” in creating “functional foods and food additives.” (Did you know that adding sorghum to pork or turkey patties can decrease their “cardboardy ﬂavor”? Why eat sorghum when you can instead use it to make gluten-free beer?) It’s funny. When I wrote in How Not to Diet about taxpayer subsidies going to the sugar, corn syrup, oil, and livestock industries to subsidize cheap animal feed to help make Dollar Menu meat, I jokingly asked, “When was the last time you sat down to some sorghum?” Now that we know how good it is for us, maybe we should be taking advantage of the quarter billion dollars the United States is spending to prop up the sorghum industry and sit down to some sorghum after all. If you missed the previous video, check out Is Sorghum a Healthy Grain? My How Not to Diet Cookbook is full of delicious and healthful grain recipes. Check it out here. “Resistant starch”? Learn more about Resistant Starch and Colon Cancer and Getting Starch to Take the Path of Most Resistance. For more on the benefits of different grains, see related posts below. Key Takeaways Sorghum, widely used as a staple in Africa and Asia, is now being studied for its health benefits, with emerging human trials on its potential for cholesterol and blood sugar regulation. Studies show that sorghum may aid in lowering cholesterol and can increase feelings of satiety. However, this satiety hasn’t consistently led to reduced food intake. Sorghum’s resistant starch content results in lower blood sugar spikes and requires less insulin after consumption compared to other grains like wheat, making it promising for blood sugar management, especially in people with diabetes. Sorghum’s unique starch composition, largely resistant to digestion, offers prebiotic benefits for gut health and may act as a natural starch blocker. Despite sorghum’s potential health benefits as a whole grain, the food industry is more focused on its use in functional foods and additives. However, the grain can be easily prepared and enjoyed whole, offering a healthy, cost-effective option for any diet. To read the original article click here.

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Sweet Potatoes Increase Vitamin A, Fiber in Bread

AHA Publisher — Mon, 29 Mar 2021 07:00:18 +0000

South Dakota State University via Newswise – Incorporating sweet potato puree into bread not only adds vitamin A, but also changes the starch composition by increasing the fiber content. Altering the starch composition means a greater portion of the carbohydrates will take longer to digest, so consuming a serving of bread is less likely to cause an increase in blood sugar—that can be beneficial for diabetics, according to assistant professor Srinivas Janaswamy of South Dakota State University’s Department of Dairy and Food Science. In addition, the increased amount of fiber, known as resistant starch, can help improve gut health. Approximately 463 million adults worldwide are living with diabetes, according to the International Diabetes Federation. That number is expected to reach 700 million by 2045. Results from lab-scale analyses on how the starch is absorbed and the amount of vitamin A, or beta carotene, available from bread in which 10 to 50% of the wheat flour is replaced with orange-fleshed sweet potato puree were recently published in the Institute of Food Technology’s Journal of Food Science. In summer 2018, Daniel Mbogo, then a research associate at the International Potato Center, worked with Janaswamy to formulate sweet potato-enriched breads through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Borlaug Fellowship Program and CGIAR, a global agricultural research partnership. Mbogo is now a doctoral student at Greenwich University in the United Kingdom. IPC senior food scientist Tawanda Muzhingi, also an adjunct professor at North Carolina State University at Raleigh, contributed to the research. “We hope through the U.S. Agency for International Development to create a laboratory to promote sweet potato research among land grant institutions in the United States and in developing countries,” Muzhingi said. Janaswamy’s research was also supported by U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture funding through the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station. Bread containing sweet potatoes puree is already being marketed in Kenya and sweet potato-based products are also being developed in the United States, Janaswamy noted. Starch Digestibility The researchers used an established laboratory technique to understand how starch digests, determining the percentages of rapidly digestible starch, slowly digestible starch and resistant starch absorbed over time. Differences in starch absorption between traditional and sweet potato-enriched bread occurred between one and two hours of digestion. In traditional bread, 75% of the starch is rapidly digested, while only 50% is rapidly digested starch when sweet potato puree replaces 50% of the wheat flour. Slowly digested starch decreases from 16.3% in traditional to 9.4% in the sweet potato bread and resistant starch increases significantly from 9% in traditional bread to 41% in sweet potato bread. The amount of starch in sweet potato bread that digests rapidly is significantly lower than that of traditional bread, Janaswamy said. This shift in starch content makes sweet potato bread a good option for diabetics, because the glucose is released more slowly. Furthermore, the sweet potato bread contains more resistant starch, which is fermented in the large intestine where it feeds the good gut bacteria. Vitamin A Availability By simulating digestion in the lab, the researchers evaluated how much beta-carotene is released from the bread matrix and is, therefore, available for the body to absorb from a 100-gram serving of sweet potato-fortified bread. When sweet potato puree replaces 50% of the flour, the bread can provide 82% of a 1- to 3-year old’s daily beta carotene requirement and 62% of a 4- to 8-year-old’s daily requirement. About 30% of children under the age of 5 in developing countries do not consume enough vitamin A, according to the World Health Organization. Furthermore, a serving of 50% sweet potato bread can provide 33% of a pregnant or lactating woman’s daily beta carotene requirement. “By consuming three servings of bread, a woman can get 100% of her vitamin A requirement,” Janaswamy said. Vitamin A helps develop the baby’s heart, eyes and immune system. Urbanization has changed eating habits in Kenya, Mbogo explained. Families once grew the sweet potatoes they consumed. Now, processed foods account for a larger share of their diet. Incorporating the nutrients into the bread they purchase from the store can help prevent vitamin A deficiency. The Kenya Bureau of Standards recently published standards for sweet potato puree and breads, which acknowledges their commercial value and health benefits. In future work, Janaswamy hopes to look at varying the sweet potato bread’s fat content. “Adding fat not only helps the taste profile, but solubilizes the beta-carotene which should result in improved absorption.” To read the original article click here.

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