Why no grains?

[rokazulu]

I saw a few topics awhile back, telling people to avoid grains as they did not really belong in a diet. I glossed over them briefly but didn't take it seriously because grains are basically the whole of my diet.

But, now that I am more open to a diet change I can come back here and actually learn why some people are saying to avoid grains. Right now I just eat whole grain pasta noodles, bread and brown rice.

Why is grain bad? Please elaborate in great detail if possible or throw down a couple links.

[plam]

Why do you need all the scientific proof?
You know very well that one scientist
can prove absolutely convincingly that grains are bad for you
and another disprove him with the same level of conviction.

You will just get more confused.
Why don't you just try it instead?
I did and I noticed a positive difference
especially on the waistline.

Or just employ logic, like asking a simple question:
Why does a food that is meant for consumption need
so much processing before it becomes edible?

[blp02]

I haven't looked at this yet but there may be good info there http://www.primalbody-primalmind.com/

I listened to the Red Ice Radio interview with the woman who wrote the book. One fact I remember from it is out of protein, fat carbohydrates, water etc the one thing we don't need is carbs, the body will make it's own glucose if you have the others.

Also, wheat has some addictive opiate compounds in it, or the body breaks it down to make it addictive (can't remember exactly)

[yingandyang]

Can't be any worse than refined white flower though, right?

I try to replace any "white" breads in my diet with whole grain ones.

[plam]

Originally Posted by yingandyang

Can't be any worse than refined white flower though, right?

I try to replace any "white" breads in my diet with whole grain ones.

White floWer could be good for you
But neither white nor brown flour is good.
Wholegrain is even worse when it comes to the teeth.

[lu__]

Originally Posted by rokazulu

I saw a few topics awhile back, telling people to avoid grains as they did not really belong in a diet. I glossed over them briefly but didn't take it seriously because grains are basically the whole of my diet.

But, now that I am more open to a diet change I can come back here and actually learn why some people are saying to avoid grains. Right now I just eat whole grain pasta noodles, bread and brown rice.

Why is grain bad? Please elaborate in great detail if possible or throw down a couple links.

"Cereal grains: the unhealthiest “health food” on the planet?

The major cereal grains – wheat, corn, rice, barley, sorghum, oats, rye and millet – have become the staple crops of the modern human diet. They’ve also become the “poster children” of the low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet promoted by organizations like the American Heart Association (AHA) and American Diabetes Association (ADA). If you say the phrase “whole grains” to most people, the first word that probably comes to their mind is “healthy”.

But the fact is that most animals, including our closest relative (the chimpanzee) aren’t adapted to eating cereal grains and don’t eat them in large quantities. And humans have only been eating them for the past 10,000 years (a tiny blip of time on the scale of evolution). Why?

Because plants like cereal grains are always competing against predators (like us) for survival. Unlike animals, plants can’t run away from us when we decide to eat them. They had to evolve other mechanisms for protecting themselves. These include:

producing toxins that damage the lining of the gut;
producing toxins that bind essential minerals, making them unavailable to the body; and,
producing toxins that inhibit digestion and absorption of other essential nutrients, including protein.

One of these toxic compounds is the protein gluten, which is present in wheat and many of the other most commonly eaten cereal grains. In short, gluten damages the intestine and makes it leaky. And researchers now believe that a leaky gut is one of the major predisposing factors for conditions like obesity, diabetes and autoimmune disease.

Celiac disease (CD) – a condition of severe gluten intolerance – has been well known for decades. Celiacs have a dramatic and, in some cases, potentially fatal immune response to even the smallest amounts of gluten.

But celiac disease is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to intolerance to wheat and other gluten containing grains. Celiac disease is characterized by antibodies to two components of the gluten compound: alpha-gliadin, and transglutaminase. But we now know that people can and do react to several other components of wheat and gluten. The diagram below shows how wheat and gluten are broken down in the body:



Current laboratory testing for gluten intolerance only tests for alpha-gliadin and transglutaminase, the two components of gluten implicated in celiac disease (highlighted in red in the diagram). But as you can see, wheat contains several other components including lectins like wheat germ agglutinin (WGA), other epitopes of the gliadin protein like beta-gliadin, gamma-gliadin and omega-gliadin, another protein called glutenin, an opioid peptide called gluteomorphin, and a compound called daminated gliadin produced by the industrial processing or digestion of gluten.

So here’s the thing. Studies now clearly show that people can react negatively to all of these components of wheat – not just the alpha-gliadin and transglutaminase that celiacs react to. And the worst part of this is that up until about 2 weeks ago, no commercial labs were testing for sensitivity to these other subfractions of wheat.

This means, of course, that it’s extremely likely that far more people are intolerant to wheat and gluten than conventional wisdom would tell us. In fact, that’s exactly what the latest research shows. Dr. Kenneth Fine, a pioneer in gluten intolerance research, has demonstrated that 1 in 3 Americans are gluten intolerant, and that 8 in 10 have the genes that predispose them to developing gluten intolerance.

This is nothing short of a public health catastrophe in a nation where the #1 source of calories is refined flour. But while most are at least aware of the dangers of sugar, trans-fat and other unhealthy foods, fewer than 1 in 8 people with celiac disease are aware of their condition. 2 A 1999 paper in the British Medical Journal illustrated this well: 3

Patients with clinically obvious celiac disease (observable inflammation and destruction of the gut tissue) comprise only 12.5% of the total population of people with CD. 87.5% of those with celiac have no obvious gut symptoms. For every symptomatic patient with CD, there are 8 patients with CD and no gastrointestinal symptoms.

But does that mean patients with CD without gut symptoms are healthy? Not at all. It was long believed that the pathological manifestations of CD were limited to the gastrointestinal tract. But research over the past few decades has revealed that gluten intolerance can affect almost every other tissue and system in the body, including:

brain;
endocrine system;
stomach and liver;
nucleus of cells;
blood vessels; and,
smooth muscle,

just to name a few!

This explains why CD and gluten intolerance are associated with several different diseases, including type 1 diabetes, thyroid disorders, osteoporosis, neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and dementia, psychiatric illness, ADHD, rheumatoid arthritis, migraine, obesity and more. The table below from the same 1999 BMJ paper depicts the increased incidence of other diseases in patients with CD: 4" ......

Source and rest of article and linked references-> http://chriskresser.com/beyond-paleo-2

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog...diet-solution/


http://www.direct-ms.org/pdf/Evoluti...al%20Sword.pdf
http://www.ajcn.org/content/79/3/418.abstract
http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs...ournalCode=gas
http://gut.bmj.com/content/56/6/889.extract
http://journals.lww.com/jpgn/Fulltex...nulin.232.aspx
http://www.springerlink.com/content/h7628r66r0552222/
http://journals.cambridge.org/abstra...07114500000271
http://journals.cambridge.org/abstra...33291700043312
http://journals.cambridge.org/abstra...22172400016624
http://content.karger.com/produktedb...file=000220416
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?t...orrectspelling
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12409286?ordinalpos=&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.P ubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.SmartSearch&linkpos=1&lo g$=citationsensor
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/3/1/39
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16423158
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/133/9/2973S.long
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...6/?tool=pubmed
http://www.jimmunol.org/content/176/4/2512.long
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...0/?tool=pubmed
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...7/?tool=pubmed
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21852815
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...3/?tool=pubmed
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...1/?tool=pubmed
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...3/?tool=pubmed
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19332085
http://disweb.dis.unimelb.edu.au/sta...riculture.html
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:...l.pone.0015213
http://www.fao.org/docrep/x2184e/x2184e05.htm#ant
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...9C101DE.d03t01
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20136989
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/116/11/2270.full.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...tool=pmcentrez
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21508840

Probably enough to get started, Rob Wolf's "Paleolithic Solution" is an excellent book on the subject.

[peaceloveunity]

Originally Posted by lu__

Rob Wolf's "Paleolithic Solution" is an excellent book on the subject.

Id also recommend this book.
Even if you are vegan/vegetarian I think you will still benefit from reading the grain section atleast. It helped me a lot!

[chickpea]

Originally Posted by plam

Wholegrain is even worse when it comes to the teeth.

how do you know?

[rokazulu]

Originally Posted by lu__

Probably enough to get started, Rob Wolf's "Paleolithic Solution" is an excellent book on the subject.

Thanks for the info bro, but hold on

I checked that Paleolithic diet and they said to avoid "legumes"
What's wrong with legumes?

Why do you need all the scientific proof?

Yeah you're right.

Don't really need it, but it just gives me an explanation.

I only ask because I did a 3 day fast with just juice, and afterwards I immediately craved some pasta and then some bread. I felt bad the day after and it wasn't digesting right. So I remembered people talking about grains on here and wanted to see why they quit grains.

[hunkahunka]

fantastic posts in this thread, thanks everyone

I myself have cut out all grains in pursuit of a paleolithic diet.
No more bread, rice , oats etc. That means no pizza , no sandwiches,
no toast, no bagels, no English muffins, no breakfast muffins, granola, pancakes,
french toast etc. As a result my waist is shrinking.
I don't miss it at all.

The basis of the paleolithic diet is to try to eat as close a diet natural to the diet of the human animal as possible. The human animal ate a paleolithic diet for most of its existence.
Taking this animal and switching it to a domesticated, agricultural-based diet is the equivalent of trying to ween a dog off of meat and feed it vegetables and salads .
Grain has no place in the paleolithic diet because it did not exist in our species' diet until we began cultivating and processing grain. Therefore its not a natural food for the human to consume.

Another part of the paleolithic trip is getting rid of milk and eggs.
The theory goes that the average person living in the woods had NO domesticated food about 10,000 years ago. So, why did we begin drinking milk and how in hell would drinking milk even be possible when surrounded by wild forest creatures? At what point did we decide that this was desirable or even healthy for humans to consume this? Not long ago.

The same goes for eggs. Birds in the wild do not go around negligently leaving their eggs around on the ground for our consumption, or docilely waiting for us to scoop up their offspring with which to make a convenient omelette whenever we so desire. The egg-producing chickens of today did not exist a few thousand years ago. They are a domesticated breed.
Today its too easy to load ones diet with eggs, which were likely a relative rarity in the natural diet of man. The occasional egg each month is fine, but I don't overdo the eggs anymore.

So , basically its no grains (no wheat, rice or oats) , no milk or dairy, and no eggs.
The occasional bit of sour cream or egg or yogurt etc. for flora is not going to kill you, but generally avoid them.

[lizzy]

I only see GM grains as harmful, along with vile treatment of animals. I will only eat organic and free range now.

[careg]

GM is harmful but I think.... gluten is bad (or not good kinda the rub) for everybody but because humans are tough the body fights the non food in wheat (the actual rub).

Breaks the hole when you take a shat.

[careg]

White Bread / White Sugar / Salt = Not Organic

Brown Bread / Brown Sugar / Sea Salt = Organic

The first 3 will take you apat.

[hunkahunka]

Originally Posted by careg

GM is harmful but I think.... gluten is bad (or not good kinda the rub) for everybody but because humans are tough the body fights the non food in wheat (the actual rub).

Breaks the hole when you take a shat.

I think wheat started out as one of those 'we barely survived on this stuff' foods.
According to one expert , its completely incompatible for humans to eat it.

Grain is the type of food that humans may have first consumed only in a crisis to avert outright starvation and which, over time, we relied upon more and more
to avert famine. We probably first nibbled grasses and grains as a last resort, finding that the ones who nibbled the grains lasted a bit longer than the others who didn't . Ancient man may have felt that processing grain and augmenting it/combining it with other foods would help round out their diets. The 'give us this day our daily bread' prayer is not based on nutrition, but possibly more based on a desire by the PTB/clergy that people humble themselves and learn to subsist on the bare minimum of nutrition, as obedient serfs should do.
Grains may have served the purposes of an aristocracy wishing to feed large populations of slave labor as cheaply as possible. Did the classic Oliver Twist porridge (poor-age) become a cheap means of feeding the human cattle, regardless of whether it held any nutritional value whatsoever? Could it be that poor-age and 'daily bread' made the slaves nicely dull-witted, slow, malnourished and docile as a bonus?
At a guess, we were never intended to eat grasses and grains, as we are not equipped to digest them properly.
Celiac disease is just one of the diseases caused by this shift in diet, and it took doctors a thousand years to find out that eating wheat caused celiac disease.

Exactly how many more of our modern ills are caused by force-feeding ourselves wheat and other grains has yet to be discovered.

I say force-feeding because I realize to what lengths we must go just to enable ourselves to eat the stuff. Take bread for example. Even after all of the elaborate harvesting and milling and sheathing and grinding and rising and kneading, cooking of these grains, we are left with something that few people can even choke down without aid of butter, mayo, honey, nut butters or jam etc. and even then, even with all of that assistance, we usually must wash down the gummy mess with a glass of milk just to get it all the way down. For the same reason, most people have cookies with milk, donuts with coffee, breakfast cereal with cream/milk/fruit, chocolate cake with icing and of course icecream or washed down also with a large glass of milk or mug of coffee. Tea and crumpets. Pancakes with butter & syrup, waffles with whipped cream and sliced frozen strawberries, and to the rescue the ever-present large glass of orange juice just in case none of the aforementioned work in greasing that breakfast bolus down. Hotdog with a coke.
Hamburger with tomato, lettuce , mayo, and a big wash of iced tea to make the ingestion of bun possible if not probable. I find oatmeal porridge
almost impossible to swallow unless its drowned in milk or cream.

Consider this too; if it is that difficult to even swallow the stuff, imagine your delicate innards then tasked with taking over from there.
Lets' face it, our prayers for daily bread are answered with plenty of accompanying indigestion, constipation, gas, skin eruptions, body odor,
obesity, etc.

[careg]

Yea rice bread.

[peaceloveunity]

Originally Posted by hunkahunka

The same goes for eggs. Birds in the wild do not go around negligently leaving their eggs around on the ground for our consumption, or docilely waiting for us to scoop up their offspring with which to make a convenient omelette whenever we so desire. The egg-producing chickens of today did not exist a few thousand years ago. They are a domesticated breed.
Today its too easy to load ones diet with eggs, which were likely a relative rarity in the natural diet of man. The occasional egg each month is fine, but I don't overdo the eggs anymore.

I agree with pretty much everything you say except for the egg part. Not that its a nice thing to do but we could easily chase birds away from their nests then grab the eggs. Here in Australia the Aborigines (hunter-gatherers) have consumed wild eggs (from birds and reptiles) for 1000s of years. If we can collect eggs from a crocodile I dont think a bird will be much hassle . Any thoughts?

To sort of stay on topic, I dont think eating eggs from caged grain fed hens is a wise choice.

[lu__]

Originally Posted by peaceloveunity

I agree with pretty much everything you say except for the egg part. Not that its a nice thing to do but we could easily chase birds away from their nests then grab the eggs. Here in Australia the Aborigines (hunter-gatherers) have consumed wild eggs (from birds and reptiles) for 1000s of years. If we can collect eggs from a crocodile I dont think a bird will be much hassle . Any thoughts?

To sort of stay on topic, I dont think eating eggs from caged grain fed hens is a wise choice.

The deal with eggs is that they have similar proteins and antinutrients to grains, when grains destroy the gut lining parts of the contents of the stomach get through the barrier into the body that shouldn't and non-problem foods can cause a reaction. For somebody with gut or autoimmune problems then it's advised to remove things like eggs until the conditions are in remission, then, with a healed gut, eggs are unlikely to be a problem for most people. The elimination diet removes eggs and dairy along with grains and legumes and modern chemicals, autoimmune protocol is more restrictive removing nightshades, nuts and seeds, cacao , coffee, sugar, alcohol, nsaids and maybe a few others. All can be reintroduced to see if there is a reaction, except grains and legumes.

Someone asked about Legumes.
http://www.paleoplan.com/2011/03-30/...s-and-legumes/

" Their lectins promote gut permeability.
Their lectins promote bad gut flora.

Scary article from Cordain on Legume lectins:

Because dietary lectins are able to cross the gastrointestinal barrier rapidly and enter the circulation intact (Pusztai et al. 1989), they may also be able to interact directly with synovial tissues. Although not a characteristic model of RA with all of its symptoms, a rabbit model of arthritis has shown that the direct injection of legume-derived dietary lectins into the knee joint induces the development of severe arthritis. Specifically, single injections of Lens culinaris lectin (derived from lentils), Pisum sativum lectin (derived from peas), or the lectin concanavalin A derived from the jack bean (Canavalia ensiformis) were able to induce severe arthritis characterized by an amplification of the initial inflammatory response due to T-lymphocyte stimulation (Brauer et al. 1985). Source: "Modulation of immune function by dietary lectins in rheumatoid arthritis,"


For more Paleo Diet hacks: Why are Legumes not Paleo? - PaleoHacks.com http://paleohacks.com/questions/11278/why-are-legumes-not-paleo#ixzz22TSevGWy"

[peaceloveunity]

Thanks for the info lu__!

[getmeout]

Out
No
mm mm mm mm mm my head
mm mm mm mm mm bread
mm mm mm mm mm my head
mm mm mm mm mm bread
Do you see that?
I will run

mm mm mm mm mm head
Must've had some wheat bread

mm mm mm mm mm head
mm mm mm mm bad bread
mm mm mm mm I will run
mm mm mm It makes you want to mm

Can't you feel the cold hand mm?
I see mm mm mm mm mm
I can hear the sound of mm
I fell in the roach bed ??

Bad bread

http://www.metrolyrics.com/ergot-lyrics-big-black.html

e.r.go.t

[blue2]

I have an Opiate allergy to breads because of the gluten/yeast and i suspect synthetic chemicals used as raising agents. I had urine tested back in the nineties via Sunderland University's Autism Research, google Paul Shattock -not that i have Autism but they were interested with ME and Gulf War Syndrome and findings were High Opiod Peptides..the effects for me is rapid sleepiness and muscle weakness to point of comatose state which means i cannot eat out, although a specific multi enzyme was formulated by Klaire Lab in California, namely Serinaid.

Also allergies have an effect on the Thyroid gland as well as brain like this. I notice Supermarket wrapped breads have E numbers and other crap in them and so will so called fresh breads which are often frozen and when arriving at shop like Coop is then Microwaved, poison

I buy Organic Spelt Stoneground which is in brown paper bags and see some supermarkets like Morrison's are doing it as well as Booths and maybe Sainsbury, Doves organic is ok ish but flour is from more than one country hence it's cheapness and quality of other seems more wholesome. For 1.5kg bag i pay around £3.25. It is the only flour that doesn't make me ill. Spelt is original Ancient grain and much healthier.

I make lovely rustic nutty pastry for home made quiches absolutely delicious and full of goodness. But i do not use every week even just once in a while.

I am ok with dark ryvitas once in a while or rice cakes but i rather eat raw foods and juice veges and some fruits.
Have lost 3/4 stone in last five years. Only once in a while i eat brown organic long grain rice and not keen on black rice. Also no refined sugars and no table salt only Himalayan i find is best for me.