White Poppy Seeds

White Poppy Seeds come from the Papaver somniferum plant (bread poppy). They are less sweet that Blue Poppy Seeds, but you can use then in exactly the same way. You’ll find them on breads, muffins and biscuits and many more bakery goods. They’ll add flavour and texture to foods, and mixing with the blue seeds will look great too! A popular ingredient in India and Asian cookery, they can act as a thickening agent, as well as flavour booster. If you’re going to grind them, ideally give them a light roast to make the process easier – they can be fairly tough!

There was a time when all Poppy Seeds came from the same flower that produced opium. These days, there are many varieties where the opium producing parts are bred out and so the plant cannot make it. This is great for global farmers as the legal implications of growing lots of poppy plants could be very risky, even with the purest of intentions. The growing of opium poppies could then be regulated for the production of alkaloids (opiates) including morphine and codeine, separately from the seeds bound for food markets. Finishing up talking about morphine seems a bit odd, so we’ll say that poppy seed bagels are one of our favourite uses for these tiny seeds!

As with all herbs and spices, add a little at a time to get the flavour you want. You can always add more, but taking it out again can be impossible!

Nutritional Information/ 100g

• Energy/kcal – 525
• Energy/kJ – 2196
• Protein (g) – 17.99
• Fat (g) – 41.56
• of which Saturates (g) – 4.52
• Carbohydrate (g) – 28.13
• of which sugars (g) – 2.99
• Fibre (g) – 19.5
• Sodium (mg) – No data
• Salt (g) – 0.065