The Trouble with Grains

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Grains like wheat, rye, barley, oats, corn, and rice all have three main problems:

1. High carbohydrate levels - these grains are mostly starch, which if eaten in large amounts, raises insulin, leading to a host of problems including obesity, diabetes & heart disease.
   
   
2. Anti-nutrients - the grains we eat are the seeds of grasses. The seed has a starchy core and a hard exterior, the bran. This exterior coating contains fiber (which is not as necessary as you might believe - you get plenty of it from vegetables). The bran is designed to protect the seed from being digested by an animal who might eat it and transfer it to a new location - the seeds "wants" to live and grow anew. Your body also fights to digest these compounds, which also bind to vitamins and then pass through your system undigested - they rob you of the nutrients you have eaten with them.
   
   
3. Lectins & gluten - these are proteins that your digestive system does not know how to process well. They can pass through the intestine wall into the bloodstream undigested, where they appear to the immune system as foreign invaders. Your immune system fights against these proteins, and will often develop an immunity against them. The problem is that these lectins are structurally very similar to the proteins that are the building blocks of many of your internal organs. Chronic continued exposure to these lectins can result in developing an immune response that attacks your own tissues, resulting in inflammation and auto-immune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis.... Eating grains has also been linked to schizophrenia, depression, infertility and cancer - PDF link.

While sprouting grains can reduce the levels of anti-nutrients in grains and make them slightly more healthy, they are typically not quite the nutritional powerhouse we might think they are: PDF link (see table 4). They lack Vitamin A, C and B12, and the (admittedly inexpensive) calories they provide will offset more nutrient dense foods like non-starchy vegetables and meats. It's all enough to make one wonder if they should be the foundation of the food pyramid.

While toast in the morning is delicious and chocolate cookies can be nearly impossible to resist, the problems above are serious enough for me to at least avoid them on a trial basis - it's really not all that difficult.