How Grains Are Killing You Slowly

http://wellnessmama.com/575/how-grains-are-killing-you-slowly/

 

Good info... I had regular "follow-up" appointments with my cardiologist and primary-care physicians this past Thursday, who both politely reminded me of my weight.
Even though I exercise pretty regularly, I carry too much weight and at 55 they told me that my body is going to start "breaking down naturally" and the extra weight will likely cause back problems among other issues. Ughhhhhh... so I'm back on the healthy train. Avoid/limit dairy and "white" stuff in general... I suck at willpower.

 

So, people "before grains" lived to be 40 on average, and now "after grains" people are living to almost 80 on average, but grains are killing us??? Hmmmmm

This article is claiming people "before grains" were healthier than now, but they lived half as long. I guess I don't see it.

 

This is a basic idea behind paleo eating. There's a lot of sensationalism in that article though and I think he's setting up straw men with what he says doctors prescribe for people. I think moderate amounts of whole grains are fine but there is a problem with too much consumption of heavily processed grains that breakdown in our bodies too quickly and more so a problem with just too much consumption of anything in general. When something gets linked to health problems there's always this rush to label it a "bad" thing that needs to be eliminated instead of just recognizing the problem is too much consumption of almost anything is bad.

 

Ugh! I hate all the propaganda out there about food. The Atlantic recently had a great piece about the misinformation provided by various natural food groups. I notice this piece did not cite any studies.

 

If you want to read one single piece about a common sense approach to eating and how we've come to think about, market, and process foods the way we do today I highly highly recommend reading this essay by Michael Pollan:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html?pagewanted=all

Its a lengthy piece but well worth taking the time out to read it when you have a chance.

 

One of the major issues with grains these days is all the rudimentary hybrid that was done in the 60s and 70s and then the gmo stuff today. What they grow and we eat today is an entirely different item from last century and before.

 

I wanted to try the paleo diet but then I figured that they didn't have eye glasses in the paleolithic period and I wouldn't be able to read the book. So I had a burger and fries instead. The beer was organic though.

I lied about the organic beer, it was a Bluepoint Octoberfest.

 

Early humans ate grains when there wasn't anything else to eat. Cities emerged after grains could be cultivated and stored. Grains probably saved the human race and are largely responsible for the existence and continuation of civilization.

Now we have a steady supply of other things to eat, so a rationale for individuals to avoid grains could be made. However, it would seem more appropriate to base it on the modern world, not on a time when humans stood under five feet tall, barely made it through the winter, and were old by the age of thirty.

Grain is not the villain, though. Fat, salt, and sugar to excess are the major villains in our diet. Processed foods, which are so beloved in this country, contain as a rule obscene excesses of all three along with potentially harmful preservatives. If the grains you eat are full of fat, salt, and/or sugar, they are bad, especially if they are not whole grains.

It is not that hard or that expensive to free yourself from enslavement by fat, salt, and sugar. Avoiding grains won't accomplish that goal, but eating grains in the right form helps.

 

Here are the CliffsNotes of that article.

 

I am anti grain myself.

i look at it this way.

its all about advertising. If something is heavily advertised its never good for you. Breakfast cereal is heavily advertised. Now look at the amount of shelf space the item has in the store. One full row both sides for cereals. That tells me there is an huge amount of profit to be made off of it thus they push it more.

That tells me that something is skewed. Also look at the waistlines of heavy consumers of those products. Thats the real proof.

Not that i am anti- carb, I just try to choose smartly.

You will hardly ever see someone who is obese who chows down on proteins. Sure, you might say you see big guys who eat giant steaks and burgers but its all the other stuff that come with them that are killing them. The buns, chips, macaroni, you name it. The meat is usually made to be the culprit but thats done by the same people who want to sell you more grains.

I lost 130 lbs with my theory so i do have some experience.

Focus on protein first, then let the carbs come along for the ride. thats the simplest way to do it.

An example would be say you want some steak. Get the steak but pay attention to what else is on the plate. pick one starchy carb, one. not potatoes, corn, bread, tater salad. Just pick one that you want and monitor the amount just like you did the steak. You can have thise things, just have one.

now get some non starchy veggies and you are in.

breakfast in vegas is a great way to start the day.

But what happens is people get french toast, bagel, fruit, pancakes, potatoes and then one tiny piece of bacon as a guilty pleasure. you can see the fault with that thinking.

You will be better off with eggs, bacon, sausage and a little bit of fruit for the starch. The fruit should be the guilty pleasure.

 

We have reservations at Morels Friday and Sinatra for Saturday night, so I really don't care what my antecedents ate, or how my diet is killing me.

 

I only buy 100% whole wheat breat, pasta. They even have some pretty good pancake mix. Log Cabin all natural I think.

 

Those aren't the cliffs notes for the article, that's just a bad description of the eating approach. The cliffs notes to the eating approach are given in the first line - Eat food, mostly plants, not too much. "Eat food" being the key point of the essay.

The rest of the 12-page essay goes on to describe how we got to the point where people link conspicuous consumption of XYZ to being bad for you and conclude you should eliminate XYZ from your diet. The article the OP linked to and CousinEddie's post show examples of that type of thinking. Also why the choice for so many people has seemingly boiled down to eating nothing of something, or eating large quantities of a cheap heavily processed (i.e. no longer food) version of it. People pay more attention to sensational claims like "carbs are making you fat" or "saturated fat is killing you". Yet they ignore what their doctors and common sense have been telling them their entire lives; to eat clean foods and eat everything in moderation.

A lot of it has happened by design, both accidental and deliberate.

 

White flour, sugar. Cut down or out on just those and it's a very good thing. Healthy fats are good for you.

 

Absolutely. White flour is not even food. That's part of the "eat food" idea. And sugar is a whole different story, it actually shares all the characteristics of a drug with zero nutritional value which is why some in the medical community say it should be regulated by the FDA (that'll never happen of course).

As far as the "healthy fats" go, unfortunately so much of the meat and poultry has been overly modified to the point where they hardly have any of those left. So people end up taking supplements, adding fats back in, or just eating fish. Unadulterated farm-raised chicken, beef, etc. is loaded with healthy fats, and it tastes so much better too. When I lived overseas that was the only type of meat sold at the grocery stores and it was full of so much flavor, over here you usually need to go to specialty stores and pay a big premium for it.

 

Grass fed beef is your eating beef but it's not that easy to find.
Olive oil, fish oil ect is some of the good stuff.

 

I was standing in the checkout line at Sunflower Market this afternoon and saw a magazine that was touting recipes for "Paleo Desserts" with a picture of some yummy looking chocolate cupcake. Seriously folks? You think our cavemen ancestors ate chocolate cupcakes???

 

Whats killing people is eating at a surplus all the time...period.

 

All the eating and drinking at Vegas will kill ya. Oh, I will die happy.