Adlay & Lentils

Adlay - so gluten-free and so loaded with nutrition. This large grain is known throughout the world, but as it is not mass produced, it's known in smaller circles ... as food mostly, but also in art circles for it's beadable shape. Other names of adlay around the world are:

Job's tears, according to Wikipedia, are known by many different names across the world:

• Sanskrit: Vyjanti beads
• Chinese: The plants are called chuān gǔ (川谷) or yì yǐ (薏苡). The grains are called yì rén (薏仁).
• Vietnamese: bo bo, hột bo bo (hột meaning "seed"), cườm gạo, or ý dĩ (derived from the Chinese 薏苡)
• Japanese: juzudama (数珠玉 or ジュズダマ) or hatomugi (鳩麦 or ハトムギ)
• Korean: yulmu (율무) in [1]
• Malay: bali
• Thai: luk dueai (ลูกเดือย)
• English Job's tears
• Indonesian jali, hanjeli
• Filipino adlai

They are sometimes also referred to as Coix Seeds.

For centuries in China and Korea, Adlay or Job's Tears has been used for medicinal purposes like for treating arthritis and small pox. Currently, scientific research shows that adlay may treat allergies, boost the immune system, help balance the endocrine system by more effectively relieving menstrual cramps than prescription medicine, inhibit gastric cancer cells, and possible help with reversing osteoporosis. It's also been tested and found helpful in achieving weight loss, which probably appeals to people as much as adlay's supposed ability to reduce levels of total cholesterol and harmful low-density lipoprotein. Sounds impressive, huh?! However, research does show that there might be an alarming side effect to adlay and that is in rats there was an alarming high rate of spontaneous abortions and some kind of poisoning to the embryos ... but my take on this latter is that in laboratory situations EVERYONE knows that in testing extremely high amounts of a substance are used in order to get some of kind of recordable results. I rather doubt that eating adlay a couple of times a week would result in markedly high numbers of abortions ... but now I'd like to see the chemical breakdown of adlay, and then I think I can make an informed decision to eat it or not. Until I see the breakdown, I will continue to enjoy my Adlay :)

I would eat adlay a lot more than I do, but it is very expensive in Korea. To extend my diet, I buy it and probably eat it 2-3 times a month. It tosses well in salads, in mock "chicken" salad, in stir-fries, blended into a breakfast gruel, served with side dishes. It is an incredibly versatile grain, and so wonderfully non-glutinous and a bit nutty in flavor :)



Haha - reminds me of the Yin and Yang symbol, rather appropriate for this Asian grain!

Adlay with spiced lentils flavored with home sun-dried tomatoes!