GLUTEN
Malnutrition is the root cause of all disease. In today’s day and age people tend to care more about how they look and more often than not, disregarding their gut health. After all, eating refined foods on a daily basis is the norm and it doesn’t really matter since it’s all about calories in versus calories out, right? A destroyed gut microbiome is not something “normal”.
The following guide will teach you how to build muscle, lose fat and improve overall health with a gluten-free approach to bodybuilding and strength training.
Grains
Grains are seeds derived from plants. A lot of those plants together are called a crop. There are 2 main groups of food grains:
- Cereals. Cereals are a form of grass. They include wheat, rice, maize (= corn), barley and oats.
- Legumes. Legumes include beans, lentils, peas and peanuts. Peanuts are technically not a type of nut, though nutritionally there is little difference.
There are a lot of epidemiological studies showing that people that eat more whole grains are healthier and leaner. The problem in concluding anything from this is that whole grain foods are traditionally regarded as a health food, so whole grain eaters are generally very health conscious.
Are cereal grains healthy?
Even though in theory you can statistically control these factors, it’s not very reliable due to the large amount of confounders and the simple fact that you can only control what you know and measure in your dataset. Since the average person’s primary sources of energy are processed grain products and soda, it’s really not surprising that when you eat less of those and more whole grains will lead to “improved health”. An increase in protein and fiber intake will also cause greater satiety, a natural decrease in energy intake and lead to weight loss.
In other words, the average person’s diet is simply so shit and unhealthy, and whole grains are labelled and marketed as a major health food, at least when compared to all the processed foods the average person eats.
There are two major problems with most studies:
- they use processed grains as the control group of whole grain consumption, so these studies can’t tell us anything about the health effects of abstaining from grains. The only thing they can tell us is that it’s probably “healthier” to eat whole grains over processed grains,
- the funding for most, if not all studies, comes from the grain industry lobby. The studies obviously rule to their favor, using blatant selection bias and cherry-picking, in order to put a positive spin on everything related to grains. Don’t forget that grains are extremely cheap to produce and highly profitable.
Randomized controlled trials are demonstrating only mixed support of the epidemiological literature [1], therefore it cannot be said that science strongly supports the recommendation to base your diet around whole grains, especially wheat.
Anti-nutrients
Anti-nutrients are natural or synthetic compounds that interfere with the absorption of nutrients. Throughout history, humans have bred crops to reduce anti-nutrients, and cooking processes have developed to remove them from raw food materials and increase nutrient bio-availability. Many plants have evolved defense mechanisms in order to protect their seeds from being eaten by animals. One of these mechanisms is the production of anti-nutrients making the seed’s nutrients impossible or uncomfortable to digest by animals. These anti-nutrients are particularly highly concentrated in grains.
Even though some of these anti-nutrients actually have positive health effects in humans, like preventing inflammation from high iron intakes, in general it’s safe to say they are bad since they greatly reduce the digestibility of minerals. Ironically, grains are often advertised for their high mineral contents, but their absorption and micro-nutrition is extremely poor in comparison to animal foods, most vegetables or organ meat, calorie per calorie. For example, only 13% of the magnesium in bread with phytic acid is absorbed by the body and iron uptake from bread can be as low as 3.8%. Phytic acid binds not just to minerals, but also to protein. Several anti-nutrients inhibit trypsin and pepsin, enzymes that your body needs to digest protein.
Very little research has been done regarding the effect of anti-nutrients on protein balance in humans. Some things that we know include:
- Mexican diets with more anti-nutrients resulted in a 23% lower digestibility of protein, several fold lower nitrogen balance and several fold lower digestibility of minerals,
- Soybeans are loaded with anti-nutrients, which explains why soy has a poor ability to stimulate protein synthesis or inhibit protein breakdown,
- brown rice consumption results in significantly lower nitrogen balance than white rice, due to the anti-nutrients found in whole rice. Anti-nutrients reside mostly in the bran, so white rice does not have many anti-nutrients left, since they are removed along with most of the nutrients.
Rice contains far fewer anti-nutrients than most other grains. Rice contains over 3 times less phytic acid than wheat, one of the anti-nutrients most well-known to make protein indigestible. Wheat is likely far more detrimental to your protein balance than rice, especially white rice.
Anti-nutrients affect not just the digestibility of the protein you eat, but they also affect the protein that’s already in the body. During digestion, a significant portion of the nitrogen and amino acids in the digestive tract originate from the own body’s constant turnover of protein to assist with digestion. Under normal conditions these amino acids are going to be reabsorbed into the body, but anti-nutrients can inhibit this process, resulting in a loss of these amino acids from the body.
There are several traditional methods however, like soaking legumes and rice, fermenting, sprouting and souring, that not only eliminate many anti-nutrients, but also degrade the gluten and FODMAPs in wheat. Since all these methods have been traditionally used for thousands of years, it’s easy to understand that many cultures learned from experience about the negative effects wheat can have on the gut.
Wheat
In addition to the anti-nutrients, there are more concerns with wheat specifically than with other grains. These concerns are:
- Wheat amylase-trypsin inhibitors
- Lectins (WGA)
- Gluten
- Low-fermentable, poorly-absorbed, short-chain carbohydrates (= FODMAPs: fermentable, oligo-, di-, mono-saccharides and polyols.)
Gluten
Gluten is a structural protein naturally found in some grains including wheat, barley, and rye. Although, strictly speaking, “gluten” pertains only to wheat proteins, in the medical literature it refers to the combination of prolamin and glutelin proteins naturally occurring in all grains that have been demonstrated capable of triggering celiac disease. These include any species of wheat (such as common wheat, durum, spelt, khorasan, emmer and einkorn), barley, rye and some oat cultivars, as well as any cross hybrids of these grains (such as triticale). Gluten comprises 75–85% of the total protein in bread wheat.
Glutens, especially Triticeae glutens, have unique viscoelastic and adhesive properties, which give dough its elasticity, helping it rise and keep its shape and often leaving the final product with a chewy texture. These properties, and its relatively low cost, make gluten valuable to both food and non-food industries.
Wheat gluten is composed of mainly two types of proteins: the glutenins and the gliadins, which in turn can be divided into high molecular and low molecular glutenins and α/β, γ and Ω gliadins. Its homologous seed storage proteins in barley, are referred to as hordeins; in rye, secalins; and in oats, avenins. These protein classes are collectively referred to as “gluten”. The storage proteins in other grains, such as maize and rice, are sometimes called gluten, but they do not cause harmful effects in people with celiac disease.
Bread produced from wheat grains contains gluten. Gluten can trigger adverse inflammatory, immunological and autoimmune reactions in some people. The spectrum of gluten related disorders includes celiac disease in 1–2% of the general population, non-celiac gluten sensitivity in 0.5–13% of the general population, as well as dermatitis herpetiformis, gluten ataxia and other neurological disorders.[1, 2, 3]. These disorders are treated by a gluten-free diet.
Celiac Disease
Many “evidence-based” nutritionists (without clients) argue that gluten is perfectly fine if you don’t have celiac disease.
When suffering from celiac, feeding with gluten will break down the lining of the small intestine, leading to cramping, diarrhea, and yellow-colored stools that float in the toilet bowl because of undigested fats. If this is allowed to progress over years, the celiac sufferer becomes unable to absorb nutrients, loses weight and develops nutritional deficiencies, such as deficiencies of protein, fatty acids, vitamins B12 , D, E, K, folate, iron, and zinc.
The broken-down intestinal lining allows various components of wheat to gain entry to places that they don’t belong, such as the bloodstream, a phenomenon that is used to diagnose the condition. Antibodies against wheat gliadin, one of the components of gluten, can be found in the blood. It also causes the body to generate antibodies against components of the disrupted intestinal lining itself, such as transglutaminase and endomysium, two proteins of intestinal muscle that also provide the basis for the two other antibody tests for diagnosis of celiac, transglutaminase and endomysium antibodies. Additionally, otherwise “friendly” bacteria that normally inhabit the intestinal tract are also permitted to send their products into the bloodstream, initiating another range of abnormal inflammatory and immune responses.
Until a few years ago, celiac was believed to be rare, affecting only one per several thousand people. As the means to diagnose the disease have improved, the number of people with it has expanded to 1 per 133. Immediate relatives of people with celiac disease have a 4.5% likelihood of also developing it. Those with suggestive intestinal symptoms have as high as 17% likelihood.
Not only has more celiac disease been uncovered by better diagnostic testing, but the incidence of the disease itself has increased. Nonetheless, celiac disease is a well-kept secret. In the United States, 1 in 133 equates to just over two million people who have celiac disease, yet less than 10% of them even know it.
While 50% will experience the classic cramping, diarrhea, and weight loss over time, the other half show anemia, migraine headaches, arthritis, neurological symptoms, infertility, short stature (in children), depression, chronic fatigue, or a variety of other symptoms and disorders that, at first glance, seem to have nothing to do with celiac disease. In others, it may cause no symptoms whatsoever but shows up later in life as neurological impairment, incontinence, dementia, or gastrointestinal cancer.
The ways that celiac disease shows itself are also changing. Until the mid-80s, children were usually diagnosed with symptoms of ”failure to thrive” (weight loss, poor growth), diarrhea, and abdominal distention before age two. More recently, children are more likely to be diagnosed because of anemia, chronic abdominal pain, or with no symptoms at all, and not until age eight or older [1, 2].
In one large clinical study at the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta, the number of children diagnosed with celiac disease
increased eleven-fold from 1998 to 2007. Interestingly enough, 53% of children at the hospital who were diagnosed with antibody testing yet displayed no symptoms of celiac nonetheless reported feeling better with gluten elimination.
Parallel changes in celiac have been observed in adults, with fewer complaining of “classic” symptoms of diarrhea and abdominal pain, more being diagnosed with anemia, more complaining of skin rashes such as dermatitis herpetiformis and allergies, and more showing no symptoms at all.
A study performed at the Mayo Clinic provides a unique snapshot of celiac incidence in US residents from half a century ago The researchers acquired blood samples drawn fifty years ago for a streptococcal infection study, and kept frozen since. The frozen samples were collected during the period from 1948 to 1954 from more than 9,000 male recruits at Warren Air Force Base (WAFB) in Wyoming. After establishing the reliability of the long-frozen samples, they tested them for celiac markers (transglutaminase and endomysium antibodies) and compared results to samples from two modern groups. A modern “control” group was chosen that consisted of 5,500 men with similar birth years to the military recruits, with samples obtained starting in 2006 (mean age 70 years). A second modern control group consisted of 7,200 men of similar age (mean age 37 years) at the time of the blood draw of the Air Force recruits.
While abnormal celiac antibody markers were identified in 0.2% of the WAFB recruits, 0.8% of men with similar birth ages and 0.9% of modern young men had abnormal celiac markers. It suggests that the incidence of celiac increased fourfold since 1948 in men as they age, and has increased fourfold in modern young men. Recruits with positive celiac markers were also four times more likely to die, usually from cancer, over the fifty years since providing blood samples.
A similarly constructed study was conducted in Finland. 7,200 male and female Finns over age 30 provided blood samples for celiac markers from 1978 to 1980. Twenty years later, in 2000-01, another 6,700 male and female Finns, also over 30, provided blood samples. Measuring transglutaminase and endomysial antibody levels in both groups, the frequency of abnormal celiac markers increased from 1.05% in the earlier participants to 1.99%, a near doubling.
This latest increase in celiac disease has been paralleled by an increase in type 1 diabetes, autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and Crohn’s disease, and allergies.
Gluten Intolerance
Unfortunately, since people with celiac are only about 1-2% of the general population, wheat and gluten are often dismissed as something that you don’t have to worry about. Doctors will even tell you that you should eat gluten and whole grains because they’re “healthy”.
What these charlatans often fail to realize (due to biased indoctrination ever since they were studying to get their degree) is that many people – some doctors estimating up to 33% of the population – have some degree of sensitivity to wheat.
Gluten sensitivity is often the real cause of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). IBS is basically a diagnosis-by-exclusion problem. Doctors say that a patient has IBS if the patient has digestive problems but the doctor can’t find a cause for them. IBS can often be treated by excluding certain FODMAPs from the diet, strongly suggesting that a large part of the population has an intolerance to certain FODMAPs.
Completely dismissing the relevance of the problematic substances found in wheat because only a small minority of the population has a full-blown gluten allergy is extremely idiotic, but they’d rather have you sick or sell you the idea that it’s actually healthy and that you need to eat it in large quantities, so they can make money.
The main symptoms of wheat sensitivity are bloating, gas, mild stomach cramps and fatigue.
While it is undisputable that in some cases the positive effect of gluten withdrawal can be explained by a placebo effect, this is not the case in true non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS). A double-blind randomized placebo-controlled study found that IBS-like symptoms of NCGS were more frequent in the gluten-treated group (68%) than in subjects on placebo (40%). Furthermore, another study found no significant differences between celiac disease and NCGS patients in regards to personality traits, level of somatization, quality of life, anxiety, and symptoms of depression. The somatization level was low in both diseases. Additionally, symptom increase after a gluten challenge was not related to personality in NCGS patients.
Another double-blind placebo controlled study confirms that gluten sensitivity is real and physiological, even though for some people there is undoubtedly a nocebo effect at play. The only thing that’s still debatable is if it’s gluten or the FODMAPs in wheat that mostly cause wheat sensitivity.
Researchers have also found that celiac-triggering gluten proteins were expressed to higher levels in modern wheat, while nonceliac-triggering proteins were expressed less.
This makes sense, since big agriculture and big pharma work hand in hand in order to find ways profit further.
Studies have also showed that modern wheat is not the same as the wheat of the past: “The selection of wheat varieties with higher gluten content has been a continuous process during the last 10,000 years, with changes dictated more by technological rather than nutritional reasons. Wheat varieties grown for thousands of years and mostly used for human nutrition up to the Middle Ages, such as Triticum monococcum and T. dicoccum, contain less quantities of the highly toxic 33-mer gluten peptide”, as well as that the effect of ancient vs. modern wheat on your digestion is significantly different.
How Wheat Harms Digestion
Gliadin, a component of gluten, increases intestinal permeability, more commonly known as ‘leaky gut syndrome’. Gluten’s damage to the lining of the gut is most severe in people with a deficient immune system and people with a bowel disorder, but an immune system response also occurs in healthy individuals without either disorder.
This means that gluten causes your gut to leak, whether you think you’re sensitive to gluten or not.
Leaky gut can cause chronic inflammation, not only in the gut but also in the rest of your body, particularly your joints, so wheat can make you more susceptible to injury as well as hinder muscle growth due to inflammation.
Even though some studies suggest that markers of chronic, whole-body inflammation only increase in relation to whole grain intake in individuals with poor carb tolerance, other research has directly linked gluten intake to chronic inflammation even in people without celiac disease.
A statistical significance is not reached in all studies, however processed grains in particular seem to increase chronic inflammation levels. This may be the case because the comparison is often with other dense carbohydrate sources, which are also inherently inflammatory themselves.
Compared to diets with a similar glycemic index and fiber content, whole grain based diets are less effective at reducing inflammation, suggesting that the fiber and the antioxidants in whole grains are protective against the inflammatory effect of gluten and WGA, however the overall net effect is generally neutral for whole grains, not positive like for fruit and vegetables.
But going gluten-free is bad for your gut microbiome right? Wrong. In all of these studies wheat products have been replaced by gluten-free substitutes, which are basically pure processed flour. More importantly however, this very same research shows that even when wheat has been replaced with refined flour, inflammation is decreased. Even gluten-free products from the supermarket (where most are shit to begin with) are better for your gut than actual modern wheat.
When it comes to anabolic hormone levels, gluten may have negative effects if you have some degree of intolerance. In people with celiac disease, gluten consumption increases prolactin levels. Prolactin decreases anabolic sex hormone levels and libido in both genders.
Another problematic protein found in wheat is wheat germ agglutinin (WGA). WGA is a lectin. “Lectins are present in a variety of plants, especially in seeds, where they serve as defense mechanisms against other plants and fungi. Because of their ability to bind to virtually all cell types and cause damage to several organs, lectins are widely recognized as anti-nutrients within food“. Most lectins are resistant to heat and the effects of digestive enzymes, and are able to bind to several tissues and organs.
WGA in particular causes inflammation in human gut and immune cells and humans produce antibodies against WGA. The result is that WGA increases intestinal permeability creating a ‘leaky gut’.
There is also limited evidence speculating that lectins cause leptin resistance. Since leptin is “the satiety hormone”, this suggests that grain consumption will over time increase your appetite. Lectin activity can almost entirely be disabled by cooking or boiling food. As such, lectins have not been shown to affect relevant health markers in human trials. However, lectins in bread may still be harmful.
Additionally to lectins and gluten, wheat also contains wheat amylase-trypsin inhibitors (ATIs). ATIs interact with gliadin causing an immune response and creating inflammation in the gut.
A whole grain diet has been found to be no more effective for fat loss than a processed grain diet [1, 2]. It seems that whole grains may indeed cause a slight disadvantage to fat loss, enough to cancel out the benefits of fiber and protein. Any small metabolic effect is likely related to the inflammatory effect of wheat on the digestive system, which can significantly impact energy expenditure, energy loss in stool, and nutrient partitioning [1].
During resistance training, the detrimental effect of wheat may be even more severe, since the decreased protein digestion and the inflammatory blunting of muscle growth can worsen nutrient partitioning as well as energy expenditure much further.
How Wheat & Gluten Destroy Your Health
The archaeological record and observations of modern hunter-gatherer societies suggest that humans almost never developed diabetes nor died of diabetic complications before grains were present in the diet.[1] The adoption of grains into the human diet was followed by archaeological evidence of increased infections, bone diseases such as osteoporosis, increased infant mortality, and reduction in life span, as well as diabetes. Additionally, some diabetic children show evidence for celiac disease when diabetes is first diagnosed, more will show celiac signs over the ensuing years.
Wheat is among the most potent sources of sulfuric acid, yielding more sulfuric acid per gram than any meat. (Wheat is surpassed only by oats in quantity of sulfuric acid produced.) Even in a diet limited to 35% of calories from animal products, adding wheat shifts the diet from net alkaline to strongly net acid.
When wheat is removed from the modern diet and the lost calories are replaced with other plant foods such as vegetables, fruits, beans, and nuts, the pH balance shifts back into the alkaline range, mimicking the hunter-gatherer pH experience.
In one study, 12% of people with osteoporosis tested positive for the gliadin antibody but didn’t show any symptoms or signs of celiac disease, wheat intolerance or “silent” celiac disease.
A different study also showed that removing gluten from the diet improves signs of arthritis in 40% of the participants suffering with rheumatoid arthritis, as well as reduces gliadin antibody levels.
Wheat products also cause LDL particles to shrink to 23 or 24 nm. Small LDL particles have more time to cause atherosclerotic plaque, lasting an average of five days compared to the three days of large LDL. When exposed to an oxidizing environment, small LDL particles are 25 percent more likely to oxidize than large LDL particles. When oxidized, LDL particles are more likely to cause atherosclerosis. Compared to large particles, small LDL particles are also eightfold more susceptible to endogenous glycation; glycated small LDL particles, like oxidized LDL, are more potent contributors to atherosclerotic plaque.
The antigliadin antibodies triggered by gluten can bind to Purkinje cells of the brain, cells unique to the cerebellum. Brain tissue such as Purkinje cells do not have the capacity to regenerate. Once damaged, they are gone forever. In addition to loss of balance and coordination, wheat-induced cerebellar ataxia can show such odd phenomena as, in the arcane language of neurology, nystagmus (lateral involuntary twitching of the eyeballs), myoclonus (involuntary muscle twitching), and chorea (chaotic involuntary jerking motions of the limbs).
One study of 104 people with cerebellar ataxia also revealed impaired memory and verbal abilities, suggesting that wheat-induced destruction may involve cerebral tissue, the seat of higher thought and memory. Only limited recovery of neurological function occurs with wheat gluten elimination due to the poor capacity of brain tissue to regenerate. Most people simply stop getting worse once the flow of gluten stops. In one study of thirty-five gluten-sensitive patients with peripheral neuropathy who were positive for the antigliadin antibody, the 25 participants on a wheat and gluten-free diet improved over 1 year, while the 10 control participants who did not remove wheat and gluten deteriorated.
The effect of wheat on the brain is more than just influence over mood, energy, and sleep. Actual brain damage is possible, as seen in cerebellar ataxia. But the cerebral cortex, the center of memory and higher thinking, the storehouse of you and your unique personality and memories, the brain’s “gray matter,” can also be pulled into the immune battle with wheat, resulting in encephalopathy, or brain disease. Gluten encephalopathy shows itself as migraine headaches and stroke-like symptoms, such as loss of control over one arm or leg, difficulty speaking, or visual difficulties.
One British research group has diagnosed 61 cases of encephalopathy, including dementia, due to wheat gluten.
When it comes to other neurological disorders, 1 to 5.5% of celiac sufferers can be expected to be diagnosed with seizures [1]. Temporal lobe seizures triggered by wheat gluten are improved after gluten elimination [1]. Epileptics who experience the much more serious generalized (grand mal) seizures are twice as likely to have gluten sensitivity in the form of increased levels of antigliadin antibodies without celiac disease.
Cultures without acne consume little to no wheat, sugar, or dairy products. Cultures that rely only on foods provided by their unique location and climate allow us to observe the effects of foods added or subtracted to the diet. Acne-free populations such as the Kitavans of New Guinea exist on a hunter-gatherer diet of vegetables, fruits, tubers, coconuts, and fish. The Paraguayan Aché huntergatherers follow a similar diet, along with adding land animals and cultivated manioc, peanuts, rice, and maize, and are also spared completely from acne.
Japanese Okinawans, probably the most long-lived group on planet earth, until the 1980s consumed a diet rich in an incredible array of vegetables, sweet potatoes, soy, pork, and fish. Acne was virtually unknown among them.
The diets of African Bantus and Zulus differ according to season and terrain, but are rich in indigenous wild plants such as guava, mangoes, and tomatoes, in addition to the fish and wild game they catch. Once again, acne is absent.
As Western influence introduced processed starches such as wheat and sugars into groups such as the Okinawans, Inuits, and Zulus, acne promptly followed.
Weston A. Price, a Canadian dentist that published Nutrition and Physical Degeneration in 1939, detailed his global travels studying the diets and nutrition of various cultures. The book concluded that aspects of a modern Western diet (particularly flour, sugar, and modern processed vegetable fats) cause nutritional deficiencies that are a cause of many dental issues and health problems. The dental issues he observed include the proper development of the facial structure (to avoid overcrowding of the teeth) in addition to dental caries.
As a side note, a badly designed and misinterpreted study compared the effects of a chocolate bar versus a “placebo” candy bar, concluding that there was no difference in acne observed among the sixty-five participants regardless of which bar they consumed—except that the placebo bar was virtually the same as the chocolate bar in calories, sugar, and fat content, just minus the cocoa. This gave birth to the myth that chocolate promotes acne.
Dermatitis herpetiformis is yet another way that an immune reaction to wheat gluten can show itself outside of the intestinal tract. Most DH sufferers do not experience intestinal symptoms of celiac disease, but most still show intestinal inflammation and destruction characteristic of celiac. People with DH are therefore subject to all the potential complications shared by people with typical celiac disease if they continue to consume wheat gluten, including intestinal lymphoma, autoimmune inflammatory diseases, and diabetes. An incredible range of conditions beyond DH, like oral ulcers, cutaneous vasculitis, acanthosis nigricans, erythema nodosum, psoriasis, vitiligo, Behçet’s disease, dermatomyositis, Icthyosiform dermatoses and Pyoderma gangrenosum, are also triggered by wheat gluten, some associated with increased levels of celiac antibodies, others not.
Wheat consumption also causes alopecia areata due to a celiac-like inflammation of the skin.
Practical Applications
Stop eating gluten. Wheat and gluten containing products offer no nutritional advantage. Avoid them like the plague.
The only reasons why wheat is so popular and broadly used in almost all packaged foods are because it’s so cheap to manufacture (therefore a lot of money can be made in expense of your health), and because people are extremely lazy and would rather eat whatever is cheap and convenient.
Follow an ancestral diet that’s rich in red meat protein sources, fish, low FODMAP vegetables, fermented foods like sauerkraut and goat kefir, fruits, raw honey, eggs, butter, quality raw dairy, potatoes and of course your new best friend, white rice.
Summary
Tldr; Malnutrition is the root cause of all disease. Eating refined foods on a daily basis will lead to a destroyed gut microbiome.
Grains are seeds derived from plants. Grains are divided into 2 main groups: Cereals (wheat, rice, maize/corn, barley and oats), and Legumes (beans, lentils, peas and peanuts).
The average person’s diet is so shit and unhealthy, whereas whole grains are labelled and marketed as a major health food, at least when compared to all the processed foods the average person eats.
Most studies use processed grains as the control group of whole grain consumption, so the only thing they can tell us is that it’s probably “healthier” to eat whole grains over processed grains, and since the funding for most, if not all studies, comes from the grain industry lobby, it makes sense that the studies will rule to their favor. There is use of blatant selection bias and cherry-picking, in order to put a positive spin on everything related to grains. Don’t forget that grains are extremely cheap to produce and highly profitable.
There is only mixed support of the epidemiological literature, therefore it cannot be said that science strongly supports the recommendation to base your diet around whole grains, especially wheat.
Anti-nutrients are natural or synthetic compounds that interfere with the absorption of nutrients. Many plants have evolved defense mechanisms in order to protect their seeds from being eaten by animals. One of these mechanisms is the production of anti-nutrients making the seed’s nutrients impossible or uncomfortable to digest by animals. These anti-nutrients are particularly highly concentrated in grains.
Gluten is a structural protein naturally found in some grains including wheat, barley, and rye.
Many “evidence-based” nutritionists (without clients) argue that gluten is perfectly fine if you don’t have celiac disease.
People suffering with celiac disease are only about 1-2% of the general population, so wheat and gluten are often dismissed as something that you don’t have to worry about. Doctors will even tell you that you should eat gluten and whole grains because they’re “healthy”.
Gliadin, a component of gluten, increases intestinal permeability, more commonly known as ‘leaky gut syndrome’. Gluten’s damage to the lining of the gut is most severe in people with a deficient immune system and people with a bowel disorder, but an immune system response also occurs in healthy individuals without either disorder.
This means that gluten causes your gut to leak, whether you think you’re sensitive to gluten or not. You can also become celiac or develop an intolerance at any age.
Leaky gut can cause chronic inflammation, not only in the gut but also in the rest of your body, particularly your joints, so wheat can make you more susceptible to injury as well as hinder muscle growth due to inflammation.
The archaeological record and observations of modern hunter-gatherer societies suggest that the adoption of grains into the human diet was followed by archaeological evidence of increased infections, bone diseases such as osteoporosis, increased infant mortality, and reduction in life span, as well as diabetes.
Wheat is among the most potent sources of sulfuric acid and destroys the body’s pH balance. Wheat and gluten consumption are associated with neurological disorders, acne, dental cavities and a variety of dermatological conditions. These disorders are treated by a gluten-free diet.
Wheat and gluten containing products offer no nutritional advantage. Avoid them like the plague.
Follow an ancestral diet that’s rich in meat protein, healthy fats, and some low FODMAP fermented foods, fruits and vegetables.
If you’re tired of getting no results in the weight room and you’re ready to level up your life you can work directly with me. For any questions shoot me a DM on Telegram or via the contact page.
