Milk-Seed for humans

[GregH]

I came across and interesting article with a recipe for Freekeh - it is essentially dried milk-seed for human consumption made from durum wheat - a tetraploid relative of the conventional hexaploid bread-wheat and is usually used to make pasta. The author claims it's a miracle-food but could we use it for finches more economically than frozen green millet? According to Coles On-Line it currently sells for $1.24/100g. Given that this is all grain and no husk and is a dried product it is likely to be considerably cheaper than than the fresh-frozen millet on offer but if finches won't eat it (presumably after soaking) then it's not economic at all. Has anyone tried it or willing to give it a go?

[Tiaris]

If its dried, I wonder does it possess any of the "milky" properties of fresh or frozen green seed at all or is it just harvested at half-ripe stage? IMO the best attribute of fresh or frozen soft green seed is its palatability to finches. If the coles product is just dried durum wheat which has been harvested earlier than usual I think feeding it soaked may be ok but most likely less appealing to finches than say soaked green dry barnyard grass seed. May be worth a try for larger PFs, Munias & small grass parrots.

[GregH]

It's not clear in the article the only clue is the passage "He squeezes a grain and out pops its still-milky insides. "Normally we let the wheat ripen and harden before harvest," he says. "But this is going to be harvested beautifully soft and green and roasted to make freekeh." It is a dried product so it would need to be soaked to be reconstiuted to the milky state but how palatable it is, is the question.

[Craig52]

It's not clear in the article the only clue is the passage "He squeezes a grain and out pops its still-milky insides. "Normally we let the wheat ripen and harden before harvest," he says. "But this is going to be harvested beautifully soft and green and roasted to make freekeh." It is a dried product so it would need to be soaked to be reconstiuted to the milky state but how palatable it is, is the question.

Imo,i really don't understand their logic.If the wheat is being roasted at the green stage,would that just be speeding up the mature stage of normal ripening in the field.
The boiling of wheat/oats etc at the ripe stage produces the same texture but it also doesn't have to be boiled as such but soaked like our soaked/sprouted seed for our birds.
Our GREEN white french millet is harvested and snap frozen usually in the same day and contains all the nutrients in a "nut shell",no need to boil/soak but defrost and feed out to our birds.In other words,this roasted seed would have bugger all goodness left in it but unground flour. IMHO someone is trying to make a quick buck from all the health guro's out there. Craig

[GregH]

I'm not sure that it is trendy healthfood in the middle east where Freekeh is traditionally produced and eaten. As the story of it's origin implies it was discovered as either an accident or away of preserving a lodged crop in a time of famine. If it is made at the milky stage then not all the carbohydrate has been moved into the grain and converted into starch then you'd expect a larger proportion of the dry matter to be protein. That said you'd have to have the same variety and the same growing conditions to compare and the easily sourced nutritional tables, below, sourced from Wiki and Google don't show this. Another compounding factor is that even within within a crop not all the plants display the same maturity and even on one plant side tillers are less mature than primaries and within a panicle flowering commences at the apex and moved down over about a week. In wheat the full compliment of protein enters the developing grain in the first week but the crop doesn't mature until a month after peak flowering.

Freekeh
Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
Energy 1,471 kJ (352 kcal)
Carbohydrates 72 g
- Dietary fiber up to 16.5
Fat 2.7 g
Protein up to 12.6
Calcium 53 mg (5%)
Iron 4.5 mg (35%)
Potassium 440 mg (9%)
Sodium 6 mg (0%)

Durum Wheat
Amount Per 100 grams
Calories 339
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 2.5 g 3%
Saturated fat 0.5 g 2%
Polyunsaturated fat 1 g
Monounsaturated fat 0.3 g
Cholesterol 0 mg 0%
Sodium 2 mg 0%
Potassium 431 mg 12%
Total Carbohydrate 71 g 23%
Protein 14 g 28%
Vitamin A 0% Vitamin C 0%
Calcium 3% Iron 19%
Vitamin D 0% Vitamin B-6 20%
Vitamin B-12 0% Magnesium 36%