Grains, seeds, cereals, pseudo-cereals, gluten-free or not… If you’re also very curious, you must be testing many flours and grains.
What’s the difference between them?
The seed is the embryo of the plant. Once grown it gives a fruit we call grain. Harvesting pumpkin seeds means the pumpkin grew thanks to those seeds, whereas rice (grains) were not there in the first place.
Cereals come from grasses that grow and give grains we are consuming. Most common cereals are rice, corn or wheat.
We talk about pseudo-cereals when they’re seeds we consume in the same way. Most popular pseudo-cereals: quinoa, buckwheat and amaranth.
Seeds are whole, so contain many nutrients but are not easy to ingest in big quantity. That’s why pseudo-cereals are so interesting! Quinoa is a seed that can easily replace rice, when chia seeds would not make a whole meal! Cereals and pseudo-cereals are the primary source of carbs for the human population, and pseudo-cereals are also high in protein!