A versatile and nutrition-rich food source, triticale has a diverse and dense blend of nutrients. It has the potential to boost your energy levels quickly. It is used in crackers, cereals, flakes, and bread. It provides a wide range of health benefits to your diet.
Triticale offers a wide range of health benefits such as supporting pregnancy, strengthening bones, treating asthma, supporting digestive health, is an excellent source of protein, ideal for obesity, helpful in diabetes, supports a healthy scalp, boosts circulation, controls cholesterol levels, and enhances the skin.
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First produced during the 19th century, triticale was harvested with an intent to produce high-quality wheat which had exceptional nutritive composition and disease tolerance potentials of rye. Apart from its dense nutrient-packed nature and excellent health benefits, triticale(1) is grown in 29 nations across the globe – with a total harvest yield of 15mn tons.
Triticale’s breeding procedure is a bit more complicated, making the early cultivation marginally expensive, however, once a seamless line comes into play, it generally ends up being around the same cost than any other mainstream grain crop.
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Triticale is a hybrid cereal that is a classic example of scientific achievements in farming. It contains a higher quantity of dietary fiber, minerals, and protein as compared to both wheat and rye, making triticale a nutrition-rich and veritable “super cereal.”
Triticale is an excellent source of manganese, phosphorous, calcium(2), iron, copper, zinc, magnesium, and potassium, as well as several essential vitamins such as the entire B-complex vitamins, vitamin E, etc. in significant quantities. Triticale provides the following nutritional value per 100 gram of serving:
Foods rich in calcium, manganese, and potassium help build and maintain strong bones. Also, they help keep the right bone mineral density to avoid several bone disorders such as osteoporosis. Thanks to the right combination of all these minerals, regular intake of triticale helps prevent age-related bone disorders as well as bone deterioration.
Triticale helps in promoting the health and overall well-being of expectant mothers during their pregnancy. The right combination of proteins, vitamins, and minerals in triticale with essential nutrients such as magnesium and iron help safeguard the well-being of the fetus against neural tube defects. Triticale also helps in ensuring proper growth and development of the fetus(3).
Triticale is extremely rich in dietary fiber that helps add bulk to the stools, relieves constipation, reduces inflammation of digestive tract, and aids in ensuring regular bowel movement. Also, fiber-rich triticale helps relieve the symptoms of various digestive disorders such as diarrhea, cramps, bloating, constipation, and other gastrointestinal symptoms.
[Also Read: Home Remedies for Indigestion]
Triticale provides a lot of manganese, a vital mineral that plays a leading role in alleviating bacteria responsible for causing asthmatic attacks.
[Also Read: Natural Remedies to Treat Asthma]
Triticale is an excellent source of protein that helps enhance your metabolism, energy production, muscle building, as well as the synthesis of healthy cells in our body.
Consequently, your enzymatic processes and metabolism are enhanced, thus helping your body strengthen muscles and tissues along with preventing any damage.
Triticale contains a high amount of dietary fiber that aids in sustaining sugar in your blood. Imbalanced glucose levels in your bloodstream can impact your health and lead to severe symptoms in people with diabetes.
Also, the manganese in triticale helps your body turn glucose or sugar into fuel. Both these nutrients tend to play a vital role when it comes to promoting the health of diabetics.
[Read: Best Foods for Diabetes]
Triticale doesn’t contain fat or calorie content and is a rich source of dietary fiber that keeps you satiated, thus helping you avoid overeating. All these factors combine to help you manage and regulate your weight and help fight obesity.
High cholesterol levels may lead to cardiovascular problems such as stroke or cardiac arrest. You can avoid these health issues by consuming triticale regularly.
It is an excellent source of dietary fiber that absorbs excess cholesterol from your arteries along with preventing the buildup of “bad” cholesterol in your blood vessels.
Triticale is a nutrient-dense grain that helps maintain a healthy scalp. It offers a rich combination of magnesium, copper, manganese, potassium, and protein. These nutrients help strengthen your hair follicles to give you a healthy scalp and thick, shiny hair.
[Read: Home Remedies for Dry Scalp]
A face pack prepared by mixing triticale with honey can be applied twice a week for removing dirt and blackheads from your face. The nutrients such as vitamin E present in triticale help lighten marks and enhance your skin luster.
Wheat has several demerits as compared to triticale and rye, such as a preference for a very particular type of soils and weak disease resistance. On the other hand, rye is more nutritious as compared to wheat.
And since triticale carries the nutrition-rich properties as well as several other characteristics of rye that the wheat doesn’t have, along with the most useful features of wheat, triticale certainly makes a better choice as a crop than wheat. However, the wheat should be your preferred crop for grain.
Also, triticale has considerably less gluten as compared to the wheat. It consists of heirloom wheat as well as the entirely unhybridized einkorn.
Also, triticale consists of far more essential amino acid lysine as compared to wheat. Since it is mainly grown as animal fodder, it contains higher lysine content that is exceptionally beneficial.
Triticale has some of the significant benefits of both rye and wheat blended together. It contains far more folate as compared to wheat or rye, more protein than the flour of rye, and considerably more manganese than both rye and wheat.
However, each of these three crops has its own merits as well as demerits – for instance, choose rye for timely pasture; triticale for later grazing, silage, and hay; and wheat for grain plus grazing. You should consider these factors along with various local aspects to choose the right crop for your unique needs.
One of the essential things to remember regarding triticale is that it is a scientifically-developed, i.e., “man-made” cereal grain, in other words, it is not a product of nature. Also, it is neither a result of a human-assisted nor non-toxic hybridization in a conventional agricultural environment.
Instead, triticale is produced by “chemicalizing” the reproductive procedure of a plant. While it is not generally regarded as a genetically-engineered grain, triticale is a precursor to the modern-day GMO crops.
There is no doubt that the “man-made super crop” triticale exhibits a wide range of minerals and nutritional value that are exceptionally vital for maintaining your health and general well-being. However, you must largely avoid treating your health conditions with triticale. It is advised that you consult a registered medical practitioner before adding triticale to your diet for its health benefits.
As a crop, each of these products, i.e. rye, wheat, and triticale has its own merits and demerits and you may choose depending upon your exact requirements.