Betcha Can't Wheat To Have Diabetes!
The Grain Foods Foundation pretends grain is healthy.
This flies not at all with Tom D. Naughton at Fat Head, blogging on the grain producers' damage control press release and blog item on cardiologist Dr. William Davis' new book "Wheat Belly", which shows grain for what it is -- a scourge of human health:
GRAIN: The Guidelines call for the average healthy American to consume six one-ounce servings of grain foods daily, half of which should come from whole grains and the other half from enriched grains.TOM: So the government agency whose mission is to sell grains is telling us to eat grains. Well, that's all the proof I need.
GRAIN: Wheat is the basis for a number of healthful whole and enriched grain foods including breads, cereal, pasta and wheat berries that provide valuable nutrients to the American diet and have been shown to help with weight maintenance.
TOM: Can't argue with that one. Wheat will definitely help you maintain your weight ... at, say, 40 pounds above where you'd like to be.
Some of Davis' excellent, evidence-based posts linked here and here and here.







The things we were designed to eat, since we just started walking upright, are fruits, nuts, bugs and things that can be cooked on a stick. Whole grains, being processed foods, are not what we were designed to eat.
Patrick at September 9, 2011 2:31 AM
Toast.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at September 9, 2011 10:27 AM
see, I think the block we are stumbling over could fall within the green revolution...
WHILE grains might not be good for us at our current lifestyle... their cultivation in the last thousands of years, are what allowed us to build the much larger societies we have. Couple that with the ways in which we are now feeding the world with grain...
It SEEMS like a good thing. Grains will certainly keep you from starving... It's just that in the long run it won't keep you healthy if you AREN'T starving.
This is why I think various people in govt. and other places turn a blind eye. "but grain is GOOD, it keeps people from starving!" Add to that the subtle change which comes from, "well if you are no longer starving you need to eat more protein and no grain." That becomes a we are different from them question...
SwissArmyD at September 9, 2011 10:30 AM
Transportation sex is a global fee-nominon.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at September 9, 2011 11:07 AM
> It's just that in the long run it won't
> keep you healthy if you AREN'T starving.
Don't lowball your argument... Not the "long" run, the LONGEST run. Leading a life of safety and comfort and productivity means dodging a thousand threats; Only then can people worry about the endgame consequences of overcarbing.
Amy's not wrong about this, but she can seem more than a little naive, as if everyone in the world should share the somatic and appearance fascinations of a single, fashionable, independent beach dweller in California.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at September 9, 2011 11:13 AM
There is plenty of real food to feed the world even at current population levels. It's not a problem of inadequate production, but distribution. Poverty and starvation are most severe in areas devastated by politics.
damaged justice at September 9, 2011 11:20 AM
You can pry peanut butter and jelly sandwiches made with soft white bread from my cold, dead fingers.
(Once again; forget grains, just stop drinking so much damn soda!)
Joe at September 9, 2011 12:05 PM
I'm skeptical of people who say that {x} is the key to being skinny. There have been SO many different people/studies saying THIS one is the right one and that X food is the "evil" thing that makes people gain weight, that it's hard to know who to believe. Most of the people I know who try Atkins or some variation thereof lose 10 lbs or so really quickly, then plateau for a while, then gain it all back when they stop the diet.
I'm definitely not going to judge a diet that works for some people. That being said, I hope that anyone doing any kind of a high-protein no-fruit no-grain diet is at least taking a multivitamin every day.
Sarah at September 9, 2011 2:06 PM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/09/betcha-cant-whe.html#comment-2468000">comment from SarahMost of the people I know who try Atkins or some variation thereof lose 10 lbs or so really quickly, then plateau for a while, then gain it all back when they stop the diet.
I don't "diet." I don't eat the things that cause the insulin secretion that puts on fat.
Sarah, you are clearly coming at this from the point of view of somebody who's read a bit about how to eat in mainstream media and has gabbed about it with a few friends. If you look at the actual evidence on what causes fat -- and a host of diseases, like diabetes -- it rather clearly and definitively traces to easily digestible carbohydrates (as opposed to green beans, which I eat swimming in butter with no calorie counting or worry that I will put on pounds).
Feel free to get "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes and pontificate on diet after you've read it. He lays out a mountain of evidence that carbs are the problem. A mountain range, even. And here's some pictorial evidence -- and the vetting of a woman with an actual scientific research background:
http://freetheanimal.com/2011/03/phd-med-school-biology-researcher-goes-paleo-racks-up-70-pound-weight-loss-gets-hot.html
Also, see my picture up there in the yellow dress. I look like that whether I exercise or not. I exercise somewhat because it seems important for your brain and bones and system. But, I used to run seven miles three times a week -- a knee-destroying, time eating waste. Dumb.
Amy Alkon
at September 9, 2011 2:51 PM
Unfortunately Patrick, we weren't designed for anything because we weren't designed. But it's just amazing the humans existed for probably around 190,000 years without the "essential" and "healthy" whole grains...
melissa at September 9, 2011 5:45 PM
I am a grain addict - pasta, bread I must have them. If I could give it up, I would. But I can't.
Elaine at September 9, 2011 8:57 PM
We were apparently designed to last 190K years, then, since we did.
I would challenge the legitimacy of a diet that would allow you to lose weight, even without exercise. If you're sitting around all day doing nothing, getting fat is supposed to happen. Because we weren't "designed" to do nothing.
Patrick at September 10, 2011 10:39 AM
Leave a comment