To Grain or not to grain?????

Bread is getting such a bad rap in most of the nutritional programs I reearch. My friend Dr. Sebi says Spelt, and Quinoa are alright but check this article I bumped ito out and you be the judge.

10 Reasons to Ditch Grains from Your Diet
By Karen Lirio, Registered Personal Trainer

1. They are Making You Fat
Our bodies are designed to use slow burning fuel for energy, such as our stored body fat. Grains provide a fast burning fuel source. While that fast burning fuel source is being consumed by us in abundance our stored body fat remains just that, stored!

2. They are Toxic to Human Beings
Grains (especially wheat and wheat germ but also quinoa, rice, buckwheat, oats, rye, barley, millet and corn), legumes (all dried beans, including soy and peanuts), dairy (from grain fed cows), and nightshade (including potato, tomato, eggplant and pepper), all contain high levels of lectins. Lectins are toxic to the human body and have been linked to arthritis, allergy, asthma, high cholesterol, congestive heart failure, high blood pressure, diabetes, low blood sugar, chronic fatigue, IBS, Crohn’s, colitis, celiac, chronic Candida, repeated gut pathogen infections, malabsorption syndromes, autoimmune diseases, dementia, Alzheimer’s, autism, ADD/ADHD, Schizophrenia, osteoporosis, cancer, adrenal insufficiency, obesity, and hormonal imbalances; just to name a few.

3. They are an Allergen
One of our most common allergies is to gluten. Gluten is a mixture of proteins found in wheat and other grains such as rye, oats and barley. Gluten is responsible for the porous, spongy texture of bread. Maladies range from a runny nose to severe gas and chronic dermatitis herpetiformis. And if the gluten doesn’t get you then there is always corn wreaking its own havoc in the form of skin rashes, a runny nose and itchy eyes, and asthma.

4. Human Beings Were never Meant to Eat Them
For 150,000 humans roamed the earth hunting and foraging for meats, nuts, leafy greens, regional veggies, some tubers and roots, the occasional berries or seasonal fruits and seeds. We ate what nature served up. Around 10,000 years ago however, the tide turned with the Agricultural Revolution and grains became a dominant part of our diet. Sadly people became smaller and frailer as a result of a deathly allergy to them, or limited capacity to take in their poor nutrient value. It takes a lot more than 10,000 years, in the context of evolution, to drastically change our digestive systems and so we continue to suffer the repercussions of our new ill-suited diet.

5. They Were Never Meant to be Eaten by Human Beings
Grains are plant seeds (plant embryos), housed in a hard or semi-hard shell to help them survive until germination. Their shell helps them, in particular, to weather the journey through an animal’s intestines should they be inadvertadely eaten. They don’t even taste good, to discourage ingestion in the first place. Have you never wondered why we insist on eating something that we have to smash and/or cook to death and drown in flavouring for it to be palatable!

6. They Cause an Abnormal Insulin Response
Grains, once you strip off the hard shell, grind down the inside and then cook them, have an extremely high glycemic index. This basically means that as soon as they are digested they quickly spike blood sugar levels and send the body into panic mode. To mop up these toxic levels of sugar the pancreas sends out huge amounts of insulin to process the excess sugar, storing it in the muscle, liver and then fat cells. Unfortunately this rapid removal of excess blood sugar then sends you reeling into a lightheaded sugar crash. It is this sugar-insulin-sugar cycle that often leads to Type II Diabetes.

7. They are Nutritionally Devoid and a Poor Source of Fibre
Unfortunately grains aren’t quite the complete nutritional source we’ve been lead to believe and have in fact been associated with minerals deficiencies. Whatever nutrients you can get from whole grains you can get in equal or greater amounts in other food. If the label says otherwise, look closely because the product has probably been fortified. As for fibre, vegetables have 8-10 times the fibre of grains!

8. They’re Cheap As Well As Nasty
Why is something so nutritionally marginal so dominant in our diets? As I’ve already mentioned our lives and diets radically changed 10000 years ago with the Agricultural Revolution. Humans learned how to farm, process, cook and eat grains which suddenly provided us with a cheap and easily accessible supply of calories. Grains are still a cheap and easily accessible supply of calories and pop up in almost everything processed that we eat. They are literally a cheap and nasty filler that we end up paying top dollar for.

9. They’re Not Satiating
Foods that are satiating (ie. fill you up and keep you feeling full) are rich in protein or fiber. You now know that neither of these are characteristics of grains; which are relatively low in protein and fibre when compared to lean meats and vegetables. Red meats, fish and chicken are a great source of satiating protein but are often accompanied by unhealthy saturated fats and need to be limited. Vegetables on the other hand are fat free and very low in calories. Did you know that you can reduce the calorie content of a casserole by 30 percent simply by adding bulky vegetables!

10. They Don’t Leave any Room for the Good Stuff
The reason that the Government and health experts have us eating 2 Fruits & 5 Veg a day; a glass of milk, a tub of yogurt and two slices of cheese a day; lean red meat 3-4 times a week; and fish 1-2 times a week; is because we are filling up on cheap and readily available grains and becoming malnutritioned. The very society that gave us grains in the first place has gone into major damage control. What more can I say.

If you are interested in learning more about living without grains, log on to http://www.marksdailyapple.com for an introduction to The Primal Blueprint. Learn how the author, a former Hawaiian Ironman, relieved his bowel and arthritis symptoms by ditching grains for a thoroughly modern diet of lean grass fed meat, truly gourmet salads and vegetable dishes, fresh fruit and the occasional cheese platter, glass of red wine and block of rich dark chocolate.