Grains- Are They Friend or Foe?
The subject of grain consumption is a hot one. There is a school that says we should remove them completely and another that says they need to make up the backbone of our diet.
The no-grain school state’s that our bodies have not the machinery to process them as our bodies are still like Fred Flintstones, and their diets primarily consisted of meat and veggies. Exactly what they fail to deal with is that wild grains and seeds have been found to have been eaten by early man (Nourishing Traditions, page 474).
But grains were not consumed to the level we do today nor prepared the same as today. In our need to produce grains as quickly as feasible we failed to address their imperfection as our ancestors did. are known to consist of anti-nutrients, which if not neutralised leech the body of essential nutrients from the bones and muscles.
Exactly how did our forefathers resolve this problem?
They enabled the grains to sprout– saturating them over night destroys many of the harmful anti-nutrients that cause mayhem to the digestive system. This coincides just like legumes, which is still in fact exercised rather regularly for similar reasons.
One of the various other troubles with some grains is gluten.
Gluten and casein (milk protein) are 2 of the most difficult to digest.
The number of people are affected with gluten or casein intolerance? According to the Diary of Paediatrics (January 2000, 136: 86-90) previous researches have actually revealed that about 1 in 250 individuals in Europe had the condition.
But a later study evaluated 1200 kids aged 6 months to 20 years with blood examinations and, sometimes, little digestive tract biopsy.
The analysts stated that the prevalence of celiac disease in these patients varied from 1 in 57 to 1 in 33.
Dr Joseph Mercola (Editor of the worlds most check out natural health newsletter mercola. com) believes with his experience the number is closer to 1 in 10 people, and he goes on to say that the majority of people do not take advantage of having wheat (mercola. com, concern no 143), as it contains other unsafe indigestible compounds like gliaden.
The best test is a self test by removing all grains except wild rice, millet, buckwheat and quinoa for 2 weeks.
If you feel a visible difference then you are probably gluten-intolerant.
If you are (I am – so welcome to the club), don’t get too stressed as there are a lot of options around these days, including gluten-free breads, mueslis etc.
If you are not intolerant than I suggest you choose entire or even much better, sprouted grain products over the commercially processed grain products.
Grains- Are They Friend or Foe?
