ChufaNetherlands

Organic, what makes a product organic?

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Most of the products in ChufaNederland's range are certified organic. What does this mean?

Recently, non-organic products have been added to the range that, however, look exactly the same but are cheaper. Hence a blog article on the difference and when a product can be called organic.

Most people are familiar with this logo:

Biologisch gecertificeerd
Certified organic

This logo may not be used indiscriminately. Requirements: a Skal certificate.

Skal is the body that oversees the use of this logo. How does this work in practice?

Actually, the core of an organic logo is the traceability of the product. You actually want your product to be grown without pesticides with respect for the environment and nature. But how can you be sure of this? The grower must also register with the body that applies to them. This looks at the soil, does tests, looks at records and yields. They have determined that this grower has harvested and certain amount from the right land and gets a certificate for this. In our case, the farmer in Africa.

Our supplier wants to buy this crop and be able to sell it again as organic. This supplier must also be certified and register. First, they need the grower's certificate, to establish the origin as organic. Now they need to show that procedures are in place in terms of storage and entry. Products also go out (sales) and then you get an aggregate:

Purchase - sale = stock

This is called the quadratic equation and must be substantiated with documents such as invoices and packing slips. As you can imagine, one should not sell more organic than purchased, otherwise non-organic is sold as organic and that is a red flag!

Now we are buying from this supplier again and the same conditions apply to us. We have to be able to show the same summation, also supported by documents. Is this correct, along with all other conditions, then we will get our certificate!

Provided we pay the bills, of course 🙂

You can look us up in the register of Skal with the Skal number 103376.

Hopefully, you now have an idea of what such an organic logo means! The core is the control of the whole chain.

Chufa Shavings Chocolate Granola

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Chufa Schaafsel Granola

Chufa Shavings is made from the shelled chufas. It has the same health properties and is ideal as a basic ingredient! In this case for a granola:

  • Let 50 grams of chocolate bar (ours was 75%) melt and then add to it:
    • 100 grams Chufa Shavings
    • 25 g grated coconut
    • 25 g Kasha (roasted buckwheat)
    • 20 grams of hulled hemp seeds
    • 15 grams of currants
    • and 10 g coconut sugar or maple syrup
  • mix very well, it remains a loose whole.
  • Let the mixture firm up again in the fridge.
  • ready!

You can very easily add variations to the recipe, nuts and seeds would also go well with it.

The effect of soluble fibre in chufa

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De oplosbare vezels komen in je dikke darm

In the RTL Z doc "Superfoods: What's It Really Like?", it featured chufa and the fibre in chufa. As you may know, chufa is rich in fibre, but does it benefit you when you make the milk drink horchata from it?

Geen vezels in hochata?

The answer is yes! The fibre in chufa is mainly soluble fibre. If you make it into horchata, these fibres will get into your horchata. Dr Perez, microbiologist has done research on the effects of chufa on digestion.

When you drink horchata (or eat chufas), they are digested by your saliva, stomach and small intestine. Except for the soluble fibre, which ends up in the colon. The bacteria there feed on the fibres and produce lactic acid. Dr Perze demonstrated this by adding soluble fibre from horchata to a purple liquid containing intestinal bacteria. When lactic acid is present, the purple liquid should turn yellow.

Why is that a good thing?

These gut bacteria also produce butyric acid, butyrates. These butyrates nourish the cells of the gut. They make the intestines stronger, make the intestines absorb more nutrients and ensure an optimal pH in the gut.

Jesse van der Velde adds, "butyrates are short-chain fatty acids that possess infection-inhibiting properties, inhibit nf-kappa-beta (inflammatory responses) and protect our digestive system from chronic inflammation, such as ulcerative colitis (e.g. Scheppach, 1992) and Crohn's disease (Di Sabatino et al., 2005). The gut bacteria in our body can produce butyrate themselves when in contact with fibre (which is why eating enough fibre is so important!)."

Here whole the piece of film.

Chufas make your gut happy!

Raspberry-chufa brownies

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Brownie chocolade-framboos

For 4 hefty brownies.

Leave 150g of ghee (or cream butter and can probably also be made with coconut oil, haven't tried), and then add a chocolate bar (72% from Vivani, for example). Turn off the heat, the chocolate will melt on its own.

Beat 3 eggs with 30g of coconut sugar until frothy.

Make a bowl with 100g chufa flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp baking soda and 25g arrowroot.

Spoon the melted chocolate through the egg mixture, then add the flour mixture and finally 100 grams of frozen raspberries. Mix briefly and pour into a baking dish of about 14x18cm (with baking paper).

Bake the brownie for about 18 minutes at 170c. The aim is for it to come out of the oven still quite soft, only then will it remain creamy. So don't bake too long!