Can Buckwheat Filling Deliver the 3 Cs of Good Snooze? (Cool, Comfortable and Clean)

Sponsored By Hullo Pillow

Have you ever tried a buckwheat pillow? Popular for centuries throughout Asia, buckwheat pillows conform to your body and provide cool, comfortable support.

Created By Brownstoner

The job description for a pillow is enormous, responsible for lulling you to sleep. That’s a big job — 33 percent of your life — and not all pillows are up to the task.

The fill in many pillows — down, or memory foam — restricts airflow, trapping the moisture that collects on your skin and inside your pillow while you sleep, creating a little oven for your head.

Also, many cheaper fills collapse under the weight of your head, causing a downward bend in your neck and spine. No amount of re-fluffing seems to maintain the required loft — the height of the pillow.

The trick is finding a breathable fill type that also offers support. That’s where the hulls of buckwheat — a cover crop to prevent erosion and also used as livestock feed — come in, from Hullo Pillow.

The byproduct of milling the buckwheat plant for its nutritious groats (most commonly used to produce soba noodles), the hulls have a hollow and irregular shape that allows air to flow freely through the pillow.

By allowing you to adjust the loft by adding or removing fill through a zippered opening, a buckwheat pillow conforms to the shape of your head and neck. Once the weight of your head is evenly distributed, any undue stress on the muscles in your neck and back will be eliminated.

Since buckwheat crops benefit little from chemical fertilizers, they’re all natural and free of toxins. The hulls are also compostable, which reduces unnecessary waste in landfills.

Hullo Pillow, a company started in Duluth, Minn., by three sleep-minded friends, offers three sizes of bed pillows (small, standard and king), and will soon launch a floor pillow and a bolster pillow.

Want some more pillow talk? For more information, visit Hullo Pillow’s website.