ChelseaJans.com

I started this “grain free” challenge with my “raw” inspiration Jacklyn Antoinette. I am already gluten free so I figured it would be easy to simply take out brown rice from my diet, it is usually the only grain I consume. Then of course I started reading and researching and I came across some disturbing information about grains. You may want to put down the corn chips for this one.

Maybe Gluten Free is Just the Beginning

I give you:

Exhibit A:

“Are We Grain Eaters?

Grains are grass seeds. The grains of today are rather tall, but they’re huge compared to the seeds from which they’re developed. Grains have been cultivated and eaten humans for only about 8,000 years.

In nature we did not eat grains or grass seeds. We did not develop any gathering or digestive equipment for grains. Natural grain eaters must be able to efficiently gather, grind and digest grains. Humans fail on all counts. Our teeth handle grains poorly. In fact, humans refuse to chew tasteless and hard grains. Even so, humans, not being starch eaters, cannot digest more than a handful of grains, if that much. True starch eaters secrete a plethora of starch-splitting enzymes in copious amounts. Humans secrete one starch-splitting enzyme, salivary amylase (ptyalin) which is quickly exhausted. After a mouthful or two of starch, the eater palls and stops.

Nope, we’re not grain eaters. The way we do eat grains by mechanical gathering, refining, cooking, etc. makes them palatable but more pathogenic.”

Exhibit B:

“Humans are omnivores. We eat all kinds of food. We eat animals, we eat plants. And we eat the seeds of plants.

Something like 10,000 years ago, humans in various parts of the world developed an intimate relationship with grass plants. We began to cultivate them (or they began to cultivate us) for the sake of their energy-rich seeds.* In Mexico, the grass was corn (maize). In Turkey, wheat and barley. In China and India, rice.

Elaborate food cultures grew up around these grass seeds. In South India, rice is ground and fermented to make dosas and idlis. In Mexico, corn is soaked and simmered with lime or wood ash to make nixtamal for tortillas. Traditional Turkish flatbread is made with a long-fermented sourdough. Each culture revered its central grain, often as a goddess. Think of Ceres/Demeter in the Mediterranean, the Aztec Chicomecoatl. In South India, Lakshmi is associated with rice.

Sounds perfectly lovely, doesn’t it? So why are people worried about grains?

Well, first of all, we don’t seem to revere grains much these days. We used to grind them between two stones; now it’s high temperature, high speed steel roller mills (goodbye enzymes and vitamins). We used to eat whole or roughly polished grains; now our industrial machinery can remove every “extraneous” bit of fiber and color. We used to soak and ferment our grains; now we don’t have time for that sort of thing.

Complex traditional recipes have been supplanted by industrial processes. There’s a serious difference between packaged “sourdough” bread (whipped up in a matter of minutes with rapid rise yeast and a dash of vinegar) and the real thing, which needs a full day or two of fermentation before baking. There’s a serious difference between a bag of “tortilla” chips (ground up corn fried in vegetable oil) and tortillas made from real nixtamal, fried in natural lard.

Those old slow recipes weren’t backwards technology. The old processes make the food more digestible, the nutrients more accessible. (Oh, and they make the food taste better too.)

So, we eat all our grains the old-fashioned way and we’ll be fine, right?

Not quite so fast.

Grains are a high-energy (carbohydrate) food, but they don’t give us too much in the way of protein, fats, minerals and vitamins. Most of us use a lot less energy than our ancestors did. (How many of your ancestors sat around staring at an inanimate object all day?)

A diet too heavy on grains can leave us swimming in energy, but still hungry for the nutrients we’re missing. That doesn’t work out so well. Eat a high-energy, low-nutrient diet for long enough, and you’ll end up depleted and insulin-resistant. Trust me, you don’t want that.”

Just something to think about…

Philip. “Article #5: Are We Grain Eaters?” Raw Food Explained. Philip of Raw Food Explained, Jan. 2009. Web. 11 Aug. 2009. <http://www.rawfoodexplained.com>.

Herbwife. “Commonsense eating: grains of energy.” Weblog post. The Herbwife’s Kitchen. Herbwife, 22 Jan. 2008.  Web. 11 Aug. 2009. <http://crabappleherbs.com>.

Not So "Smart"