Triticum spelta Facts For Kids

A 100-gram serving of spelt gives about 340 kilocalories and many nutrients. It is a good source of protein and dietary fiber, plus B vitamins and minerals. For example, spelt is high in manganese, which helps your body use energy, and has notable amounts of phosphorus and niacin (a B vitamin).

Most of the calories come from carbohydrates — about 70 percent — and roughly 11 percent is fiber. Spelt is low in fat. It contains gluten, a group of proteins that help dough stretch and rise, so it works well in baking. Because it has gluten, people with celiac disease or gluten sensitivity should not eat spelt.

Spelt grows as a tall, sturdy grass that looks a lot like bread wheat, but a few things are different. Its flowering head, called a spike, is slender and can bend over when the grain is ripe. The spike has a four-sided look and the stem inside is brittle, so it breaks into pieces when the seeds are ready.

Each spelt seed stays wrapped inside its husk after harvesting, like a tiny package. This is unlike modern bread wheat, where the seeds come free. Because of the husk, spelt often needs extra work to remove the covering before it becomes flour.

Spelt is a kind of wheat people have eaten for thousands of years. It is also called dinkel wheat and is most popular in Central Europe and parts of northern Spain. Long ago, from the Neolithic era onward, farmers grew spelt instead of wild grains, and it was an important food through the Bronze Age and the Middle Ages. Today people like spelt because it is high in protein and often called a healthy grain. You can find spelt in breads, pastas, crackers, and even some beers, where it gives a nutty taste.

In Germany and Austria you can find many breads and rolls made from spelt, often called Dinkelbrot in shops. Farmers sometimes harvest partly ripe spelt and dry it; this dried grain is called Grünkern, and people cook it like rice or add it to soups.

Spelt also appears in special foods and drinks: some distillers use it to make Dutch jenever, breweries in Bavaria and Belgium brew spelt beer, and bakers make artisanal bread, pasta, and flakes with spelt flour. Because it often grows well with fewer chemicals, many people enjoy spelt products from organic farms. Which spelt food would you like to try first?

Spelt is a special wheat because it is hexaploid, which means it has six sets of chromosomes. You can think of chromosomes as instruction cards for a plant. Spelt got its six sets when two different wheats mixed long ago: a domesticated wheat with four sets and a wild grass called goat-grass with two sets. This mixing is called hybridisation.

In Europe, spelt may have formed again when bread wheat and emmer crossed. Its mixed genes give spelt useful traits — bigger grains, more shoots that make grain, and longer seed heads. Scientists also find helpful genes in spelt, like one called Pm5 that helps protect plants from a common fungus disease.

People have farmed spelt for a very long time. Archaeologists find spelt grains and tools from about 5000 BCE in places like northern Iraq, parts of Europe, and the Caucasus. By the Iron Age, spelt was a main crop in areas such as southern Germany, Switzerland, and Britain, where its tough husk helped it grow in damp, heavy soils.

In the Middle Ages and after, spelt stayed important across central Europe because it stores well and tolerates cold weather. Farmers brought spelt to the United States in the 1890s, but many switched to other wheats later. Interest grew again with organic farming near the end of the 1900s, and today people in the UK, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and some U.S. states like Ohio grow it for food.

People have mixed up spelt with other old wheats for a long time. For example, names in other languages have sometimes been translated as spelt when they really meant emmer or einkorn. Words from ancient Greek and Latin, such as zéia and far, are unclear and probably referred to different wheats, not true spelt.

Because of these old name mix-ups, some stories that say spelt grew in places like ancient Egypt probably mean emmer instead. Scientists check the plants themselves, not just names, to know which wheat is which.