I consider myself a normal guy, eating fairly healthy foods and watching my weight, exercising, drinking plenty of water and just generally being mindful of my body and what goes into it. I am not obsessed with it and don't mind if I put on a few pounds every now and again.
Now that I am getting a little older I find it more difficult to keep the weight off if I stray from a 'healthy' diet, and healthy for me is wholemeal bread instead of white bread, more vegetables, more fruit, and more water. I am a huge advocate of drinking more water which you can read about in How to Lose 10 Pounds in Ten Days .
The trouble is, I love pasta, I love my wholemeal bread sandwiches, I love dunking a digestive biscuit in my coffee. Well, over the last year or so I started to notice that I would sneeze every time I ate a bread roll, or ate a digestive biscuit, but really thought nothing of it, until I started doing a little experiment. For 1 month I would cut out pasta, bread and biscuits from my diet. Sure enough I would lose a few pounds and feel a lot healthier, no more bloated feeling, no more feeling sluggish, or tired. Then when I started eating them again, I would feel bloated, put on weight, feel mentally sluggish and tired. So I decided I need to stop eating those types of food, my body was telling me to, but why?
Then after doing more research I found out why.
in a word 'Wheat'
Here is what I found, which is backed up by research, and I mean a lot of research, not just a few reports, but by thousands of studies across 5 decades.
10 Devastating Effects of Eating Wheat Based Foods
Here are 10 Reasons not to eat wheat taken from Dr William Davis Blog WheatBellyBlog :
There are plenty of reasons to never allow your lips to meet a wheat bagel, sandwich, or pretzels again. But here are the top 10 most compelling, powerful reasons to tell the USDA and other providers of dietary advice to bug off with their "healthy whole grains" advice.
- Gliadin derived opiates (from partial digestion to 4- and 5-amino acid long fragments) increase appetitesubstantially"“as do related proteins from rye, barley, and corn. This is a big part of the reason grains make you gain weight.
- Gliadin derived opiates are mind active drugsthat trigger behavioral outbursts in kids with ADHD and autism, mania in bipolar illness, paranoia in schizophrenics, 24 hour a day food obsessions in people prone to bulimia and binge eating disorder.
- Gliadin, when intact, initiates the processes of autoimmunityleading to rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, and 200 other conditions.
- Amylopectin A raises blood sugarto high levels, higher, ounce for ounce, than table sugar.
- Wheat germ agglutinin is a potent bowel toxin.
- Wheat germ agglutinin blocks gallbladder and pancreatic function(via blocking the receptor for cholecystokinin).
- Phytates block absorption of all positively-charged minerals"“such as iron, zinc, and magnesium
- Multiple allergensare present"“such as trypsin inhibitors, thioreductases, alpha amylase inhibitors, and gamma gliadins, responsible for asthma, skin rashes, and gastrointestinal distress.
- Grains are potent endocrine disruptersexplaining why women with polycystic ovarian syndrome, PCOS, are much worse with grain consumption, why men grow man breasts, why male levels of testosterone drop and estrogen increases, why pituitary prolactin levels are higher, why cortisol action is blocked, and why thyroid health is disrupted by autoimmune inflammation.
- Big Food and agribusiness use wheat and grains to control human buying behavior, putting the addictive appetite-stimulating effects to use to increase food consumption and keep you coming back for more.
What the hell does all of the above mean?
Well, eating wheat and grains is just not healthy despite what we've been told by our governments about a healthy eating plan. We are perhaps at epidemic levels of obesity around the world and the problem is getting worse, and one of the worst culprits of this epidemic is wheat.
Consider this list of potential side effects of eating wheat:
- Various cancers including: pancreatic, colon, stomach and lymphoma
- Autoimmune diseases like Hashimoto's Thyroiditis
- Infertility
- Diabetes
- Obesity
- Arthritis
- Autism
- Depression, Anxiety and Schizophrenia
- Allergies
You mean I have to stop eating pasta, bread, pastries, desserts, rolls, crackers, and other grain based foods?
You don't have to, the better way to think about it is to experiment. We are told every day what foods are bad for us, and it seems as if there's no foods that we can actually eat that are good for us. So what I would do is a 30 day wheat and grain food fast and see how you feel. If you see and feel noticable results then you'll know, first hand, that the research is true. If you don't see and feel any difference then go back to what you were doing before and eating what you want.
Research is all well and good, but without experiencing first hand how this affects you, then it doesn't really mean anything.
Here is a great video by Dr. William Davis, Author of : Wheat Belly
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