WHEAT and GRAINS

Let me lay out why and how wheat and grains never belonged in the human diet in the first place and we how thrived without them for millions of years. It will make sense to you.

As covered in Part 3, anthropologists and archeologists tell us we were hunter-gatherers for at least 99.9% of mankind’s existence on earth, and only started developing agricultural societies that grew crops and raised livestock about 10,000 years ago. That’s what we call a New York Minute in the eons of time.

(I won’t get into the discussion amongst archeologists about the actual length of time but suffice to say they all agree it is in the millions of years.)

Their diet consisted of what they could catch, kill and eat, along with what they could pick off a tree, a vine or an above-ground veggie. There were NO CARBS, other than the small amount found in veggies and the occasional fruit when in season.

All were lean and fit with BMIs about 20. No obesity or modern diseases like heart disease and cancer. Little to no tooth decay.

They didn’t die of disease. They died because that particular day they weren’t fast enough to dodge the snake lunging at them, didn’t make it up the tree far enough to get beyond the reach of the saber-toothed tiger, or literally fell off a cliff.

Here's a fellow from approximately 100,000 years ago. Notice his full set of intact teeth.

Think he had dental floss? Tooth brush? Orthodontist?

Bodies unearthed BEFORE about 10,000 years ago had little to no tooth decay, no heart disease, diabetes, cancer nor other modern diseases we are familiar with, at least as far as we can detect with modern technology.

When excavating humans from AFTER 10,000 years ago (towards the present), they discovered up to 50% tooth decay, lots of missing teeth and other new diseases.

Men shrunk 5 inches and women shrunk 3 inches.

What changed? This is when humans first started to eat the seeds of grasses. All wheat and grains are the seeds of grasses.

Clever humans discovered that although they couldn’t eat the leaves, stalk and stems of grains that they saw many ruminant animals eating, if they pulverized the seeds of these grains/grasses, added water and put it over fire (like they did with their meat at this point), they could make something like a porridge.

Anthropologists tell us that wheat/grains were a starvation food for desperate and hungry humans. When humans began eating these seeds of grasses it allowed them to live another day, another week, another month, but paid a very substantial health price.

That’s because humans have completely different digestive systems than ruminants who also have multiple stomachs, which we do not.

Different species have unique nutritional needs developed over millions of years of evolutionary history. Cows, horses, goats and other grazing herbivores are not carnivores like we have been for millennia. If offered a rib eye steak they wouldn’t recognise it as food.

Over millions of years, the human DNA was adapted to eat as hunter-gatherers, not as ruminants.

Hunter = meat, fish, game, poultry, etc.
Gatherer = veggies, the occasional seasonal fruit, nuts & seeds.

We didn’t bat an eye over intake of cholesterol, saturated fat, or calories but ate to our stomach’s content. We didn’t eat “superfoods”, nobody was obese, no one had diabetes, and we were much taller and stronger.

But it gets worse

While grains have been wreaking havoc for the 10,000 years or so that we have consumed them, the effects have gotten a lot worse as geneticists and big agribusiness began to genetically alter them about 60 years ago - especially wheat and corn, the two most widely grown and consumed grains in the world.

Wheat has been genetically changed using a method called mutagenesis. Specifically, chemical mutagenesis and radiation mutagenesis. Instead of our wheat growing to shoulder height as we have known it over the centuries, it is now only about 18 inches tall due to this genetic mutation. It’s called semi-dwarf wheat.

This was done to attain much higher yields from the crop because although it was a lot shorter, it made the seeds a lot bigger, which is what all grains are made from – seeds of grasses. But this chemically induced mutagenesis is far more damaging to human physiology.

The food of hungry, desperate humans from long ago has been held up as a solution to dietary health and source of nutrients from government agencies and the Big Food industry. Remember the food pyramid that tells us we all should have 6 to 11 servings of grains each day?

Examples of food products that contain wheat / grains:

Bread, pasta, cereal, crackers, biscuits, waffles, pancakes, chips, pretzels, rolls, bagels, pizza, tortillas, pastries, cookies, croutons, sauces & gravies, soy sauce, salad dressings, meat substitutes, and the list goes on.

Have you ever heard anyone say “WOW! I followed the USDA food pyramid, loaded up on grain carbs and I lost 40 pounds, my arthritis went away and so did my heart disease!”

If you did that you are guaranteed NOT to lose 40 pounds, but more like gain 40 pounds, keep your arthritis and for absolutely sure, you will accelerate your heart disease.

As Cardiologist William Davis puts it, “If you think this (not eating wheat/grains) is extreme, it is modern day eating habits that are the extreme: extremely counter to our evolutionary past, extremely adrift from the realities of human physiology, extremely illogical, extremely unhealthy.

He continues, “Like a cat returning to its carnivorous needs or an oyster happily filtering plankton or a human pushing aside the oat meal and toast, when we revert to the foods which humans have adapted for as long as we have walked the earth upright, we also rid ourselves of all the diseases acquired from the mistakes made by our species. It’s as simple as that.”

We return to the style of eating that humans followed for millions of years before civilization got it wrong.

But don’t despair – there are many healthy delicious ways to make pizza, bread, pastries, granola and other things you and your family may be addicted to, but without using wheat or grains of any kind.

Here’s a photo of an easy-to-make, grain-free and wheat-free cheese pizza I recently made with mushrooms, olives and peperoni.

You won’t believe the wonderful health transformation you will undergo when you go wheat and grain free.

Grains accelerate aging, so after a while of eating more ancestrally, your skin will appear more younger-looking.

Eliminating the carbs from all grains allows your hunger and cravings to disappear. Ghrelin, the hormone that controls appetite and urges the feeling that YOU MUST EAT NOW, becomes downregulated (suppressed).

The more grains carbs you eat, the more active this hormone becomes.

Refined White Flour vs Whole Grain

Some nutritionists and dieticians tell us that white flour products lead to diabetes and that whole grain products are better. But less bad does not mean good or healthy.

Would you smoke filtered cigarettes instead of non-filtered just because they were “less bad”?

White flour products not only lead to diabetes but also colon cancer, heart disease, weight gain; whole grains also lead to diabetes, colon cancer, heart disease and weight gain – just not to the degree that white flour does.

There is so much more I could cover on this topic of grains and the harmful ingredients added to this newly genetically mutated wheat by Big AG.

But I must tell you about just one of the damaging ingredients the genius scientists from Big Food and Big Agriculture made more potent in this newly genetically manipulated “food” called wheat.

Gluten is usually made out to be the culprit, and yes, it’s bad news, but doesn’t compare with a protein in gluten called GLIADIN (GLY-a-din). This is what they “amped up” and made more potent.

Why?

Gliadin proteins (Gliadin-derived peptides) have a new surprise – they enter the blood stream and then bind to the opiate receptors of the human brain – the same receptors as heroin and morphine.

But this does not produce a “high” or relieve pain. Instead its expression and main job is to stimulate your appetite to crave and consume more carbohydrates in the form of grains and sugars.

Why do you think wheat and wheat derivatives are found in most packaged foods in the grocery store?

In the ‘80s they started to add wheat to just about everything in the store to keep people wanting and eating more of their products.

It’s in everything from Campbell’s Soups to taco seasoning, from salad dressings to meatless “meats” and thousands of items down the many grocery store aisles. It’s even the 2nd ingredient in Twizzlers, the candy.

Of the 60,000 products in the average supermarket 59,000 contain wheat.

Read the labels. Beside looking for anything that has the word Wheat in the Ingredients List, beware of aliases such as modified food starch, flour, graham, cake flour, couscous, starch.

Some other names to look out for:

• Binder or binding
• Bran
• Bulgur
• Cereal
• Cereal binders / binding
• Cereal protein
• Edible starch
• Enriched flour
• Farina
• Filler
• Food starch
• Gum base
• Hydrolysed wheat protein
• Special edible starch
• Thickener or thickening

Needless to say, the current version of seeds of grasses are highly potent appetite stimulants. And we wonder why people are getting heavy?

Some researchers believe this is the cause of binge/purge eating disorders.

When you first go grain free you must prepare your shopping list and clean out your pantry and refrigerator of everything that has wheat in it.

An excellent guide for what to buy, what to eat and wonderfully delicious recipes are contained in the books by Cardiologist William Davis – “Wheat Belly” and “Wheat Belly Cookbook”.

Understand that due to the opiate effect you are used to experiencing, there will be a period of withdrawal, usually only about 3 or 4 days to a week or more depending on the individual. Make sure you drink plenty of water, take extra B complex vitamins and use salt (pink Himalayan sea salt is best) on your food.

Dr. Davis gives other advices in the books. You WILL get through it.

And you will experience a health transformation the likes of which you never expected. All good.

Don’t forget – wheat raises blood sugar higher than table sugar.
Why is that important? Let’s take another look at the very first sentence of Part 1 of this entire series of articles on LONGEVITY.

Medical scientific research on aging is showing that the #1 best predictor of your longevity is your blood glucose levels.

And

A common denominator of centenarians, those who live to 100 and beyond, is Low (Normal) Blood Glucose Levels.

The New England Journal of Medicine in September of 2013 reported a study that demonstrated that higher levels of blood glucose had a direct correlation to Alzheimer’s dementia.

The Journal of Neurology reported a perfect correlation of levels of A1C and the rate at which the brain shrinks on an annual basis. The higher the blood sugar levels the faster the brain shrank.

We want to keep our fasting blood sugar levels between 70 and 90 but no lower (hypoglycemic) and no higher (hyperglycemic).

This may be difficult to attain at first, but persistence and consistency will provide you with your hyperglycemic condition reversing.

See Part 5 on How to Reverse Your Type 2 Diabetes.

Modern biomedical research has turned traditional views upside down on everything from cholesterol to grains.

Cholesterol may be at the scene of the crime, but it is certainly not the culprit – it’s initially there as an inflammatory healing mechanism. Just like the fire fighters who show up at a burning (flaming) house.

A quote by writer Maurice Maeterlinck who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911:

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Well there you are.  A relatively short but dense overview on up-to-date medical and nutritional science that can help you get and stay well, and live a long, fit, and healthy life.  And have beautiful skin.

As there are other important topics not yet addressed here, I will continue to add Part 7, Part 8, and so on as I complete them. Please return.

In the meantime, you should definitely treat yourself to continuing education by reading one or more of the recommended books below and check out some of the YouTube Videos assembled at the bottom of Part 5. This information will keep you motivated to keep advancing to great health and well-being.

I’d be very interested in your response to what you’ve read thus far. Please let me know by sending a message through our CONTACT page.

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