Comparing oat and wheat bran

For a long time, the hard seed coat was con­sid­ered only a husk and was thrown away as garbage. Only at the end of the last cen­tu­ry did bran become an inte­gral part of the diet of those who care about the state of their gas­troin­testi­nal tract. The whole world has learned that this prod­uct has nutri­tion­al val­ue. As a rule, two types are used: oat­meal and wheat. Is there a dif­fer­ence between them and what is it? Our experts fig­ured it out.

About the benefits and composition of bran

Good health is shaped by sev­er­al fac­tors, some of which can­not be influ­enced. But there are some that you can con­trol your­self. And one of them is food. Thanks to a bal­anced diet, you can ensure the smooth func­tion­ing of the diges­tive tract. But the abun­dance in the diet of refined cere­als, ther­mal­ly processed foods, arti­fi­cial addi­tives with a min­i­mum amount of veg­etable fiber leads to mal­func­tions in the intestines.

Cere­al bran helps to cor­rect the sit­u­a­tion and suc­cess­ful­ly, and, most impor­tant­ly, with­out dis­com­fort, make up for the short­com­ings of the diet. What are they? This is dietary fiber (hemi­cel­lu­lose, cel­lu­lose) with the addi­tion of pectins, lignins, vit­a­mins (espe­cial­ly group B). Bran is resis­tant to the action of the gas­tric enzyme, there­fore, it calm­ly pass­es through the diges­tive tract, being sat­u­rat­ed with intesti­nal juices and grad­u­al­ly swelling (the vol­ume of the mass eat­en increas­es by about 10 times).

As a result, a pow­er­ful cleans­ing effect: bran per­fect­ly removes the rem­nants of putre­fac­tive food, med­i­cines, excess mucus, cho­les­terol, food dyes, etc. from the intesti­nal walls. Lignins in the com­po­si­tion of food bran remove a large amount of accu­mu­lat­ed tox­ins. Pectins act very selec­tive­ly, remov­ing salts of heavy met­als, car­cino­gens and also tox­ins from the body.

So what are the ben­e­fits of bran (regard­less of whether they are oat or wheat)? They are help­ing:

1. Remove cho­les­terol and accu­mu­lat­ed fats — there­by pre­vent­ing the devel­op­ment of ath­er­o­scle­ro­sis and obe­si­ty;

2. Reduce appetite — when it enters the stom­ach, food bran swells sev­er­al times, fill­ing almost its entire cav­i­ty — there­by cre­at­ing a feel­ing of sati­ety;

3. Remove bile acids — their irri­tat­ing effect on the intestines is elim­i­nat­ed (the devel­op­ment of the inflam­ma­to­ry process is pre­vent­ed). It also stim­u­lates the pro­duc­tion of pro­tec­tive mucus.

4. Bind and remove glu­cose — with mod­er­ate use, bran removes excess sug­ars, pre­vent­ing their con­ver­sion into fats and the devel­op­ment of dia­betes;

5. Remove heavy met­als — the prod­uct, as it moves through the intestines, cap­tures all radionu­clide deposits (lead, cad­mi­um, etc.);

6. Remove car­cino­gens — the devel­op­ment of bow­el can­cer is pre­vent­ed;

7. Pre­vent dys­bac­te­rio­sis — the prod­uct is a breed­ing ground for ben­e­fi­cial bac­te­ria, stim­u­lat­ing their “life activ­i­ty”;

8. Improve diges­tion — intesti­nal motil­i­ty accel­er­ates, diges­tion of food slows down;

9. Strength­en the immune sys­tem — thanks to the restora­tion of the nor­mal func­tion­ing of the gas­troin­testi­nal tract, the body’s defens­es are acti­vat­ed.

The difference between oat and wheat bran

Both oat and wheat bran prac­ti­cal­ly do not dif­fer in their com­po­si­tion, but there is one thing between them — the main dif­fer­ence: the type of fiber. Oats con­tain sol­u­ble fiber, while wheat con­tains insol­u­ble fiber. What does it give? Let’s try to fig­ure this out.

In the first case, the prod­uct swells and turns into a jel­ly-like mass. Pass­ing through the gas­troin­testi­nal tract, this mass slows down the process of absorp­tion of sug­ar from car­bo­hy­drates ingest­ed with food. This pro­tects the blood ves­sels and pre­vents the accu­mu­la­tion of unnec­es­sary fats in the body. The abil­i­ty of sol­u­ble fiber to con­trol the accu­mu­la­tion of glu­cose in the body is an impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion for peo­ple with vas­cu­lar dis­ease, dia­bet­ics, and dieters.

Sol­u­ble oat bran con­tains beta-glu­can, which can remove a sig­nif­i­cant amount of bad cho­les­terol and stim­u­late the pro­tec­tive prop­er­ties of the body. This is due to the fact that the sub­stance pen­e­trates into the deep lay­ers of the intesti­nal mucosa, stim­u­lat­ing the pro­duc­tion of immune cells that pro­tect the body from fun­gi, infec­tions, car­cino­gens, etc.

Wheat con­tains basi­cal­ly coarse fibers — cel­lu­lose, which is insol­u­ble in water. Such fiber per­fect­ly absorbs mois­ture and con­tains few calo­ries. Insol­u­ble fiber has one great prop­er­ty — it low­ers the glycemic index. This means that the impact of dietary car­bo­hy­drates on glu­cose lev­els is min­i­mized. Wheat bran is an excel­lent and, most impor­tant­ly, inex­pen­sive solu­tion for those who want to lose weight.

In addi­tion, coarse fiber per­fect­ly cleans­es the large intes­tine, expelling stag­nant mass­es. Thus, the devel­op­ment of tox­ic process­es is pre­vent­ed, the excre­tion of feces is facil­i­tat­ed. This is an excel­lent pre­ven­tion of proc­to­log­i­cal dis­eases. In addi­tion, wheat bran, as it moves into the diges­tive tract, stim­u­lates the out­flow of bile.

Rules of use

In order not to harm your own body, using bran, you must fol­low a few sim­ple but valu­able rules:

1. If you are just start­ing to use bran, you should not imme­di­ate­ly take the max­i­mum por­tion — start small: 1 tea­spoon filled with a small amount of boil­ing water will be enough (oth­er­wise bloat­ing, col­ic, etc. is pos­si­ble). The result­ing mass is enough for 3 dos­es (dai­ly rate).

2. It is advis­able to increase the amount of bran in the diet no more than every 3 days (each time increas­ing the amount of the prod­uct by 2 times).

3. In the event that the intestines, after eat­ing bran, begin to “naughty”, often mak­ing grum­bling sounds, it is bet­ter to stop tak­ing the prod­uct for a while or pur­chase bifi­dobac­te­ria at the phar­ma­cy and drink them for a week.

Summary

So, we came to the con­clu­sion that oat and wheat bran have one main dif­fer­ence — the type of fiber. Based on this, the dif­fer­ence between bran is their effect on the body.

Oat func­tions:

1. Low­er­ing sug­ar and cho­les­terol lev­els;

2. Bow­el cleans­ing (gen­tle);

3. Immu­ni­ty boost.

Func­tions of wheat:

1. Choleretic effect;

2. Stim­u­la­tion of peri­stal­sis;

3. Cleans­ing the intestines from path­o­gen­ic flo­ra, tox­ins, etc.

When choos­ing the appro­pri­ate option, con­sid­er the state of your own stom­ach, peri­stal­sis and, of course, the main goal of intro­duc­ing the prod­uct into the diet. Remem­ber the sim­ple rule: less is bet­ter.