What's wrong with grains? (Besides the obvious)
 

I've noticed in many threads here that many people are strongly opposed to grains. Of course they have loads of carbs, but apart from that what is it people are objecting to? For example, some people who carb-up for CKD will use sugar but won't touch grains. What's the deal?

Um.. they make you fat. :D

More so than sugar?

Some people have allergic reactions to wheat/gluten - some it makes them feel bloated - and still some people with recurrent yeast infections have to stay away from it.

Refined grains have an more immediate effect on your blood sugar - they have a higher glycemic index. Here are links to a few good peices of reading material:

Atkins - Whole Grains
Atkins - Glycemic Index

On some plans such as Schwarzbein, whole grains are used because the point behind her plan is hormonal balance. She posits that once you are healthy, weight loss will occur naturally.

On Atkins, grains are avoided in the initial stages because they create a rise in insulin leading to fat storage which is what you are trying to avoid.

Then there is Protein Power, which is a little more moderate but still low on the grains.

Many people have developed an intolerance from the overuse of grains, especially wheat which they don't find out about until they stop using them.

An interesting thing to look at is the Glycemic Index.

This is from the introduction...

What is the Glycemic Index (GI)?
The glycemic index ranks foods on how they affect our blood sugar levels. This index measures how much your blood sugar increases in the two or three hours after eating.

The glycemic index is about foods high in carbohydrates. Foods high in fat or protein don't cause your blood sugar level to rise much.

A lot of people still think that it is plain table sugar that people with diabetes need to avoid. The experts used to say that, but the glycemic index shows that even complex carbohydrates, like baked potatoes, can be even worse.

Reading over the page will give you a good overview and you will find out that grain products have an even higher glycemic index than sugar.

The problem is that the studies are done by eating a certain food with nothing else - such as protein and fat - and that is rarely done. So, the other things that you eat with high glycemic foods will probably lessen the impact, but not enough to make it "safe" for many low-carbers. As with everything low-carb, it's always a "your mileage may vary" thing and a learning curve.

You may want to ask your question about carb-loading in the CKD forum. I can't even pretend to know or fake the answer! :D

Karen

From a paleo-perspective, humans were not designed to eat grains. We cannot digest them unless they've been processed and refined in some way ... including threshing, drying, grinding and ultimately ... cooking. Creatures that ARE designed to eat grains usually have extra stomachs and/or longer colons (large intestines) with a high bacterial flora content, necessary for breaking down the cellulose fibers and deriving nutrients from them.

It's worth noting that even when cooked, the bran and the outer coating of whole grains contain a substance called phytate, which inhibits digestion and interferes with the absorption of important minerals such as calcium and iron. Wheat especially has a high phytate content, although refined white flour has much of this removed.

Doreen

I don't know whether or not I would be considered "wheat intolerant", but when I go a significant amount of time without wheat, flatulence ceases to be a part of my existance. :D Try it: you'll be amazed. *chuckle* :lol: When I go on a pizza cheat, don't light a match near me the next day.

I don't really miss the wheat.

Thanks for the replies. That link to the GI page is loaded with interesting stuff. All of this contradicts what doctors have told me my entire life (in dealing with reactive hypoglycemia), yet it fits better with my own experience. Loading up on complex carbohydrates never helped at all.

Doreen, your explanation of digestive tracts and the need to refine grains makes a lot of sense.

I don't know if Doreen was saying grains should be refined, but keep in mind that refining grains removes much of its nutrient value and raises its glycemic index by quite a bit. You will notice on that GI link that the more processed a food is, the higher the impact on blood sugar.

IMO, refined food aren't worth the nutrients and energy your body expends to process them.

I cannot really buy this paleo perspective. Humans did not evolve glying airplanes, reading books, or using fire to cook meat. And where would Atkins be without cooked meat? Fruit is also pretty much banned on Atkins, but surely there was fruit growing on trees as our anscestors were in their hunter/gatherer stage--so the paleo perspective breaks down again.

To a great extent, grains are bad for humans who are basically sedentary. I once heard a group of elite athlettes asked whether they follow any kind of special diet. They all laughed and said no. When you're living in hotel rooms, they said, it's hard to follow any diet, and when you're running a hundred miles per week (and only 25) it really doesn't matter what you ingest.

Yes, but Atkins is not a paleo way of eating. Here are summaries of Neanderthin and The Stone Age Diet

And the fruit eaten by our ancestors was eaten on a seasonal basis. It wasn't available every single day of the year. In fact everything was eaten on a seasonal basis.

One of the reasons we have the ability to overeat nutritionally dubious foods is that everything is available 24-7, 365 days a year.

Karen

Oh, I must have been unclear. I just meant that grains need to be highly processed before they are edible for humans at all. :)

I agree. This is definitely a problem; it's not just refined carbohydrates alone. And even with the abundance/availability of food I think I have an innate (paleo?) desire to hoard and eat like it won't still be there tomorrow.

Also, the fruits we eat today have been cultivated for thousands of years. They are undoubtedly bigger and sweeter than native species.

I'm not interested in dwelling too much on the paleo perspective, though. It seems to me that whatever our ancestors ate was intended to give maximum energy. I don't need to get the maximum amount of energy out of my diet. I need to burn some stored energy off and to stop storing it.

I once heard a talk by Jean Mayer, nutritionist and former president of Tufts. He contrasted the 19th century sedentary life with today's sendentary life. In the 19th century, a clerk in an office might chop wood for a half hour, walk three miles to work, work standing at a desk all day, walk three miles home and then chop wood for another half hour as well as do other physically demanding chores. Remember this was a "sedentary" worker. Compare that to today's office worker. And these people also had both a high fat and high carb diet.

I grew up in New York City and my subjective observation unbacked by any research is that New Yorkers who are less dependent on autos than most other urban dwellers and do a lot more walking are also less overweight that others.

And let's not forget that those evil anscestors who first refined grain also worked hard all day at very physically demanding tasks.

I think we have to judge a diet against the level of physical activity. I think that if we were lumberjacks--who typically burn 4000_plus calories per day--we could pretty much eat whatever we wanted.

Brian Robinson, the first person to walk the Pacific Coast Trail, the Appalachian Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail in the same year. Consumed about 5,000 to 6,000 miles per day. His diet? Snickers, Milky Ways, and cream pies--and not an ounce of fat on the guy.

You can become insulin resistant and not be obese, but you will have high triglycerides. high ldl cholesterol, high blood pressure, and an abundance of other health problems if you live on a diet of refined carbohydrates. Take a look at what happens to the athlete with that kind of diet as they age. Atkins is not for weight loss only, but health too.