The Dangers of Wheat

[ClaireBear777]

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[borofergie]

+1

You didn't evolve to eat grains. The dwarf-wheat is worst of all but, in my humble opinion, all grains are pretty deleterious to health - with the possible exception of white rice.

http://www.archevore.com/get-started/
http://www.archevore.com/panu-weblog/20 ... rains.html

"Healthy" whole-grains are linked to obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart-disease, celiac, IBS, etc, etc.

I'd hate to meet an "unhealthy" whole-grain.

Stephen

 

[phoenix]

The staple food here is bread,people eat a large amounts, admittedly far less than a hundred years ago but still 200-300g +a day. It's so important that I can bread buy on every day of the year. (I can buy very little else on Sundays and am restricted on Mondays)
This prefecture in France has the highest life expectation in France, hence the world. Personal observation shows that bread is a major part of the culture with ritual involved in the cutting and distribution of bread at a meal.
France as a whole are high consumers of wheat with levels slightly above that consumed in the US. In the UK they consume slightly less ( I have graphs but I won't link to my blog again!)
It isn't mainly heritage wheat in France either so little non dwarf wheat. French wheat is 'soft' and low gluten compared with the US and that used in UK, but just look next door in Italy where they use high gluten 'hard' wheat.
Rates of T1 diabetes aren't that high either, higher rates tend to be associated with more northerly climes.
If only it was so simple as one commodity or macro nutrient causing all the problems.

 

[Paul1976]

Yes,but it's good food for thought though(No pun intended) :wink:

 

[borofergie]

From Wikipedia:

Wheat is grown on more than 240 million hectares, larger than for any other crop. World trade in wheat is greater than for all other crops combined. With rice, wheat is the world's most favored staple food. Wheat provides more nourishment for humans than any other food source. It is a major diet component because of the wheat plant’s agronomic adaptability with the ability to grow from near arctic regions to equator, from sea level to plains of Tibet (4000 meters above sea level). In addition to agronomic adaptability, wheat offers ease of grain storage and ease of converting grain into flour for making edible, palatable, interesting and satisfying foods. Wheat is the most important source of carbohydrate in a majority of countries.

It's not just a single macronutrient, it contaminates almost every part of the food chain. KGH says that somewhere that 55% of world dietary energy comes from cereal crops (probably including grain raised meat). Try eating food that isn't somehow contaminated by wheat, corn, or some other cereal crop (it's not that easy, I try to do it every day). It isn't part of our ancestral diet, we didn't evolve to eat it, but all of us are forced to consume it in some manner every day.

It's not even nutritious (compared to vegetables and meat). It's single benefit is that it's robust and therefore cheap to produce. Jared Diamond calls the decision to cultivate grain products as "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race"
http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html

 

[))Denise((]

I gave up eating wheat, it just doesn't agree with my stomach. Got fed up of having to know where the nearest loo was.

I think there is a connection with metformin/wheat and stomach problems.

The upside of not eating wheat is that you eat less carbs, but the sneaky blighter is everywhere. Anyone know where I can get pork scratchings without wheat?

Whether I could eat bread made in France is another thing, but I probably wouldn't because of the carbs.

 

[WhitbyJet]

I most certainly much healthier since giving up grains. I used to get terribly bloated. We as a family mostly eat the white bread (recipe in forum from NZ site) and the multi seed loaf.
The headline of this thread reminds me of my father in law. Living in Sweden and diagnosed pre diabetic his doctor advised a low carb diet. During the consultation the doctor had nothing good to say about grains his final parting shot was 'eat the good things only and you will notice that proper nutrition doesn't leave you dirty, you won't be needing toilet paper'. LOL

 

[borofergie]

Living in Sweden and diagnosed pre diabetic his doctor advised a low carb diet. During the consultation the doctor had nothing good to say about grains his final parting shot was 'eat the good things only and you will notice that proper nutrition doesn't leave you dirty, you won't be needing toilet paper'. LOL

:shock:
Just gone off your cooking a bit WJ.

 

[WhitbyJet]

Hahaha I know what a thing to say to a patient!!

 

[SouthernGeneral6512]

Excellent thread. I have to admit it's so hard to imagine not eating wheat because as has been said it is almost everywhere

 

[lucylocket61]

I dont have all the technical thingys but i do know that it is to do with gut absorption . That is why the new dwarf high-gluten wheat used most of the time in the USA and Europe now has caused a huge rise in gluten intolerance and IBS

It may not cause spikes in bs, but the weird absorption causes a weakening of pancreatic function over time, which may be leading to diabetes and affecting overall insulin production. And also we dont know the effect this huge amount of gluten, plus the mutant yeast used to make the bread rise quickly, is having on our guts and ability to absorb nourishment. Our bodies are very delicate things with tiny amounts of chemicals needed to keep balance. If we introduce something not natural, it throws the balance out.

I cannot stress enough that the wheat our parents and grandparent ate - pre 70's at least - is very, very different to the wheat eaten since.

Its like comparing sugar made from sugar beet with saccarine. Similar chemical construction and taste and apparent effect, but very different.

Just a starter on my research into this: I dont have all the technical thing...w.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-h ... 74872.html[/url]

 

[Defren]

Another grain avoider, I feel so much better since I stopped eating them. Since reading things Stephen has put up about grains and the Paleo diet, I won't eat them again. Most are so GM'd you have to wonder what they really are doing to people, apart from what I have read thus far. I have saved loads of links that I have found, one article leading to several others, that explain the dangers of grains to human beings. Yes, many of the authors are classed as fanatical, but there again, so was Robert Atkins! Now his diet is being used by millions with Doctors prescribing it to patients. So the once fanatical, has become to a degree the accepted. I am not prepared to wait until we are told to reduce or cut out grains, I have done it now!

 

[clearviews]

Yet another grain avoider.
Pork scratchings without wheat? I make this, sort of, myself. I buy slabs of pork skin from the butchers whenever I see it. It is usually scored by the butcher but not hard to do oneself with a stanley knife or a good sharp kitchen knife. I sprinkle sea salt over it, rub it in and sometimes sprinkle caraway seed over it as well. I then put the skin fat side down first into a dry, very hot pan (about 350f) or electric frypan for about 15 mins then turn it over to skin side down for another 15 mins. Much of the fat renders down and the skin crisps up nicely. That is it and you can break it up into strips or squares of crunchy, delicious crackling or as they call it in Australia, crackle.
Husband and I snack on it throughout the day as we pass by the kitchen bench. Dogs know what it is and hang around looking pathetic hoping for their share.
I have also eliminated grains from our dog's diet now and they are totally raw fed bones, meat (including organ meat), vegetables, cheese, yoghurt plus a little fruit like pears and apples. According to the raw food experts they don't need the veg or fruit but in times of starvation in the wild would have survived on what they found to supplement the meat. Grains just don't figure.
Has anyone ever seen an overweight grass fed only animal?
Alison

 

[borofergie]

Has anyone ever seen an overweight grass fed only animal?

Alison, I do hope you're not suggesting that "healthy whole grains" make you fat?!?!?!? :shock:

That can't be true, because they're like healthy and whole and stuff.

 

[lucylocket61]

Alison, I do hope you're not suggesting that "healthy whole grains" make you fat?!?!?!? :shock:

That can't be true, because they're like healthy and whole and stuff.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[lucylocket61]

Alloxan

read and weep http://health-arena.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/beware-of-white-processed-foods.html

and more http://www.diabeticshandbook.com/cause_of_diabetes.html

 

[Scardoc]

I suppose what we should be considering too is how lucky we are that we have the choice not to eat wheat - it that's your fancy. We may not have evolved to specifically eat wheat but then we didn't exactly evolve to drink alcohol, live sedantry lifestyles or pollute our lungs with nicotine. Or did we? If you want to break us down then we are just another living organism but it just so happens that we are the most sophisticated and intelligent living organism that has ever existed. What our brain allows us to do is to manipulate whatever resources we have for our own gain. Once upon a time the aim was simply to survive, to eat and procreate. Times have changed. What instincts do we need to use now?

So, we can use the knowledge we are given to choose what we put in our mouth. Millions can't, for millions of people on this planet wheat is life. Yes it is robust and yes it is cheap to produce. The more we evolve the more we can increase the life expectancy of people in the poorest parts of the planet. The more we do that, the more food we need to find for an over populated world. Hence, wheat and hence why we will see GM wheat become more widespread when it's declared safe. Or when it's declared necessary.

It isn't as simple as a single commodity, what you put in your mouth is just one part of the puzzle. How much and what you do with it could be just as important.

 

[borofergie]

I suppose what we should be considering too is how lucky we are that we have the choice not to eat wheat - it that's your fancy. We may not have evolved to specifically eat wheat but then we didn't exactly evolve to drink alcohol, live sedantry lifestyles or pollute our lungs with nicotine.

No, but then I choose not to do any of those things. The Government spends a great deal of effort and money telling us how bad nicotine, alcohol and a sedentary lifestyle is. On the other hand it also spends time, effort and money telling us how healthy grains are for us.

So, we can use the knowledge we are given to choose what we put in our mouth. Millions can't, for millions of people on this planet wheat is life. Yes it is robust and yes it is cheap to produce. The more we evolve the more we can increase the life expectancy of people in the poorest parts of the planet. The more we do that, the more food we need to find for an over populated world. Hence, wheat and hence why we will see GM wheat become more widespread when it's declared safe. Or when it's declared necessary.

That's a non-sequitur. The grain is fuelling the population growth, not the other way around. Are you suggesting we keep developing more and more genetically modified grains so that we can keep growing the world population? Don't you see a problem with that?

 

[Sid Bonkers]

Wheat can be a real killer especially if a bale of hay/straw falls on your head :thumbup:

 

[noblehead]

:thumbup: ...for grains