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If you ask people, what is kama, you will often be faced with confusion.
Kama is a very healthy food and one of the secrets which helps it unleash it’s “healthiness” is the fact that the ingredients have been soaked and ground to help the body take in all the goodness in the ingredients.
It’s not known why people started to soak the grains and legumes to make kama. Instructions written in 1931, start with the words: “Put the grains to soak with cold water the night before, preferably each sort separately”…
Many sources say to soak grains and legumes before eating to reduce the effect of the so-called anti-nutrients.
By anti-nutrients they mean:
- Phytic acid which can bind some minerals and vitamin B3 in the digestive system and can prevent them being absorbed by the body.
- Lactic acids which can irritate your digestion and be partially responsible for food intolerance and allergic reactions.
- Enzyme inhibitors which can disturb the work of enzymes which are needed for healthy digestion.
- Polyhenols which bind minerals and can stop the body from making the most of them.
These ingredients, which might not be so great for the eater are there to protect the plant seeds from spoiling and to prevent early sprouting. This applies to both nuts, seeds, grains and legumes. Soaking can be useful in the case when a person’s main sources of protein comes from plants, and dairy is replaced with nut or grain milks on a regular basis.
More effective is to soak the grains and legumes and then roast them – meaning the exact process that is applied in making kama flour.
Therefore, kama can be considered healthy, and, for vegetarians, an essential food.