Cooking It Up with the Power of Whole Grains

 Tara Sanders, dietitian at Oregon State University for campus housing, cooking recipes with organic natural whole grain ingredients at OSU lunch and learn seminar at west dining hall in large east conference room on Friday, April 15th at noon. Sanders created and adapted all recipes demonstrated at the lecture.

Three simple rules for food: Eat, eat food, and eat mostly plants.

Organic food eaters follow these guidelines to healthy eating. It means you should eat, eat food that hasn't been genetically modified (GM), and eat fresh green food coming from the ground. Last week at Oregon State University, a pair of speakers set out to raise awareness while urging audience members to try whole grains in their homes. 

At Oregon State University, a lunch and learn seminar took place at west dining hall in the large east conference room on Friday April 15^th at noon. Learn and eat three simple recipes that are gluten free and organic whole grains.


The lunch-and-learn seminar took place at noon Friday, April 29, in large east conference room of West Dining Hall. Those who attended learned about three simple recipes that are gluten-free and include organic whole grains. 

Ann Marchant, dietitian and nutrition consultant for Student Health Service at OSU, and Tara Sanders, dietitian  for University Housing and Dining Service, demonstrated how to prepare, cook, and enjoy cooking whole grain foods.

The types of whole grains featured were amaranth, cumin, quinoa, and buckwheat.

“All the grains we're featuring have eight amino acids, protein, and are gluten-free,” Marchant told the audience while cooking the grains.

The audience learned how the human body digests. Vitamin K, vitamin B, and fiber all produce fatty acids called probiotics. Probiotic are microorganisms that live on fibers. So if you eat good fiber, then you are digesting good fatty acids.

One of the organic recipes they suggested helps keep you full longer. Amaranth fruit bar is a good snack to eat when you’re not hungry, but still looking through the refrigerator for something to eat. The bar is so chewy that it makes you work to eat it.

Another healthy recipe is the black bean quinoa salad. This salad provides vitamin C and iron; vitamin C helps us adsorb iron. Men and women should always eat vitamin C to reduce cardiovascular disease. Vitamin C can be found in tomatoes, kiwi, oranges, and many other fruits and vegetables.


The third organic recipe they talked about was buckwheat tabouli, which is full of garlic, parsley, dried fruit, onions, garbanzo beans, lemon juice, and olive oil. Oil is another good substance to absorb nutrients. Oil is a fat, but fat is a host that absorbs all the nutrients from fruits and vegetables.

Buckwheat tabouli is an organic recipe created by Sanders and taste tested by the audience.

Those in the United States are accustomed to high sweets, sugar, and salt, they noted. If you have high sodium levels, it only takes two weeks to get rid of the high salt taste from food.

Organic food can help your immune system. For example, research shows that quercetin in onions helps with seasonal allergies.

Marchant and Saners collaborated for the seminar and lunch. They said they started to provide more whole grains in the dining hall, but students didn't know unless they looked at the menu. There also are 20 different kinds of fresh fruit at West Dining Hall. 


Over the last three years, they added, big changes have occurred in students' desire to eat whole grains

"It was really helpful to taste what they were making," said Andrea Coryell, audience participant. "I'm not familiar with grains so knowing how to cook them is important. Black bean salad is my favorite because I'm always looking for different ways to eat a salad besides using greens."

At A Glance: 

Who: Tara Sanders

What: 3 organic recipes

Email:  tara.sanders@oregonstate.edu

Phone: 541-737-3915
Future Event: Spring lunch and learn seminar. Contact for details.