During the time I was going a little batty trying to finish a version of the Fat Head Kids film, what I refer to as the Save The Grains Campaign was in full swing. I didn’t respond to any of the articles, but did save them for later. Let’s look at some of the horrors that will be visited upon us if we ditch bread and cereals, at least according to media shills for the Save The Grains Campaign.
Horror #1: You’ll die
No, seriously. If you don’t eat whole grains, you’ll get sick and die. That’s the warning from the opening of an article from SBS News in Australia:
Think avoiding all grains is healthier, helps you lose weight? Just like fruit and veggies, we need wholegrains to avoid disease and death.
Goodness. I stopped eating grains as anything other than a very occasional indulgence almost eight years ago. As a result, I also waved goodbye to arthritis, psoriasis, twitchy legs, frequent bellyaches, gastric reflux and a mild case of asthma. In fact, I’m pretty much never sick with anything. So now I’m wondering which disease caused by wholegrain deficiency is lurking under the surface, waiting to kill me.
To avoid dying, the article suggests eating more grains like Quinoa. But the writer offers other options as well:
But there’s no need to go fancy – brown rice, rolled oats, muesli and popcorn are wholegrains, too.
And later, after admitting that some people can’t tolerate gluten:
Those people can eat gluten-free wholegrains, such as rice, quinoa, corn and buckwheat.
Okay, then. You gluten-intolerant people still need grains to avoid dying from a grain-deficiency disease, so load up on the rice.
Horror #2: You’ll fill up with so much mercury, you’ll be able to measure the temperature outside by watching the mercury rise in your eyeballs.
I may have exaggerated it a bit, but here’s the warning against gluten-free diets from an article in Natural Blaze:
According to a new report in the journal Epidemiology, people who eat a gluten-free diet may actually be at higher risk for exposure to arsenic and mercury.
This is quite concerning considering the growing popularity of the gluten-free diet with a quarter of Americans having gone gluten-free in 2015. That was a 67% increase from 2013.
Just think when the global warming really kicks in and all that mercury starts rising. We may see gluten-free people’s heads explode in the South.
The cause for the increased risk for arsenic and mercury exposure, however, is not necessarily a result of the gluten-free diet itself.
Say what? You mean a lack of gluten in your diet doesn’t cause your body to fill with toxic metals? And here I was, thinking gluten must plug holes in our skin where mercury naturally seeps in from the atmosphere.
Instead, it appears to be due to the fact that many gluten-free products contain rice flour as a substitute for wheat. Rice has been known to bioaccumulate both arsenic and mercury, as well as other toxic heavy metals, from water, soil or fertilizers.
I see. So we need to eat grains to avoid dying, but some people can’t tolerate gluten and should get their death-preventing grains from rice … but the rice will fill them with mercury. Man, I’m starting to think maybe we’d be better off with no grains whatsoever in our diets. But that can’t be right, because …
Horror #3: You’ll develop Type 2 diabetes
Here are some quotes from a U.K. Telegraph article titled Is going gluten-free giving you diabetes?
Gluten-free diets adopted by growing numbers of health-conscious consumers enhance the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, scientists have warned.
A major study by Harvard University suggests that ingesting only small amounts of the protein, or avoiding it altogether, increases the danger of diabetes by as much as 13 per cent.
Wow. So in addition to plugging the holes in your skin where mercury seeps in, gluten somehow creates a protective shield against dangerous diabetes.
The findings are likely to horrify the rising number of people who are banishing gluten from their daily diet, encouraged by fashionable “clean eating” gurus such as Jasmine and Melissa Hemsley.
I have, in fact, noticed a lot of horrified expressions on faces in my area recently, but I figured it was because so many people are moving here from Illinois and California.
The Harvard team examined 30 years of medical data from nearly 200,000 patients. They found that most participants had a gluten intake of below 12g a day, which is roughly the equivalent to two or three slices of wholemeal bread.
Within this range, those eating the highest 20 per cent of gluten had a 13 per cent lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes compared with those eating up to 4g a day. The study showed that those who eat less gluten also tended to eat less cereal fibre, a substance known to protect against diabetes.
Apparently Type 2 diabetes is like a virus that attacks and invades your body unless you have some kind of protection against it – protection that can only come from cereal fiber.
Boy, if only we could test that idea by comparing the before-and-after health status of humans who didn’t eat any grains at all, then started eating grains after being conquered by grain-eating people with better weapons. I’m sure the record would show that they were riddled with Type 2 diabetes until they were forced to become “civilized” and live on grains.
Unfortunately, the humans who didn’t live on gluten-containing grains quickly became extinct. I know this because …
Horror #4: Your babies will die
Here are some quotes from a U.K. Daily Mail article with the rather long title of Malnourished seven-month-old baby dies weighing just 9lbs in Belgium after his parents fed him a gluten-free diet which included quinoa milk.
A malnourished seven-month-old baby has died weighing just 9lbs after his parents fed him a gluten-free diet which included quinoa milk.
That’s horrible and I hope the parents are prosecuted. But since we were told earlier we need to eat grains like quinoa to avoid dying, I’m trying to figure out how the gluten-free aspect of the diet caused a baby to die.
The parents, who run a natural food store in their hometown, fed their child on a special milk diet.
According to their lawyer Karine Van Meirvenne the parents thought Lucas had an eating problem. Van Meirvenne said: ‘Lucas had an eating disorder. He got cramps when he was fed with a bottle and his parents tried out alternatives. Oat milk, rice milk, buckwheat milk, semolina milk, quinoa milk. All products which they also sell in their store.’
Gluten-free was the problem? I’ll bet you dollars to donuts (and you can keep the donuts) the parents had the baby on a vegan diet. Only a shill for the Save The Grains Campaign would blame a lack of gluten without asking if the parents are also vegans.
So there you have it. Eat your grains and your gluten, or you’ll develop diabetes, fill up with mercury, then get sick and die. Oh, and your kids will die too.
This is, of course, complete nonsense. But the shills for the Save The Grains Campaign assure us there’s just scads and scads of evidence that whole grains prevent disease. We’ll look at some of that evidence in an upcoming post.
If you enjoy my posts, please consider a small donation to the Fat Head Kids GoFundMe campaign.
I had a similar reaction, Tom. We’re maybe ten years into a “no-grain” diet – although we have backslid occasionally to the tune of a slice of cake or the yummy breads good restaurants ply you with while you are still really hungry. For the past year I have resolved to avoid such episodes, and I think it’s done me good. It’s hard not to notice an extra five pounds on the scale, accompanied by indigestion, bloated feelings, and mental vagueness. But I am reasonably certain that neither of us is dead or even seriously ill. Last autumn, for instance, I walked 30 miles twice within ten days.
It’s scary world in which disinterested truth is such a scarce commodity. As science has got bigger and become a career for tens of millions, it has been taken over by the funders. Mostly with our own mo0ney – but we aren’t the ones who decide how to spend it, oh dear no.
Fortunately for the rest of us, the information gatekeepers have lost control of the gates.
Yesterday received an invite from Humana to a “Health and Wellness” (read sales) event. First one hour event is:
“Nutrition Talk: Is gluten-free for me? Find out what gluten is, who needs to avoid it and the dangers of cutting it out unnecessarily”
Now I can skip this event as Tom summarized those DANGERS so well…I’ll develop diabetes, fill up with mercury, then get sick and die. Seven years nothing has happened yet, but dangers lurk around every corner.
The dangers of cutting out gluten … yeah, that makes sense.
I had a similar reaction, Tom. We’re maybe ten years into a “no-grain” diet – although we have backslid occasionally to the tune of a slice of cake or the yummy breads good restaurants ply you with while you are still really hungry. For the past year I have resolved to avoid such episodes, and I think it’s done me good. It’s hard not to notice an extra five pounds on the scale, accompanied by indigestion, bloated feelings, and mental vagueness. But I am reasonably certain that neither of us is dead or even seriously ill. Last autumn, for instance, I walked 30 miles twice within ten days.
It’s scary world in which disinterested truth is such a scarce commodity. As science has got bigger and become a career for tens of millions, it has been taken over by the funders. Mostly with our own mo0ney – but we aren’t the ones who decide how to spend it, oh dear no.
Fortunately for the rest of us, the information gatekeepers have lost control of the gates.
I never knew real milk (human or otherwise) was high in gluten. Nor that quinoa has teats.
The teats are very, very small.
I posted this before. Worth a repost. Not safe for work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8_JxdE8aHE
Hilarious! Thanks for starting my day with mirth!
Thanks for reading.
Yesterday received an invite from Humana to a “Health and Wellness” (read sales) event. First one hour event is:
“Nutrition Talk: Is gluten-free for me? Find out what gluten is, who needs to avoid it and the dangers of cutting it out unnecessarily”
Now I can skip this event as Tom summarized those DANGERS so well…I’ll develop diabetes, fill up with mercury, then get sick and die. Seven years nothing has happened yet, but dangers lurk around every corner.
The dangers of cutting out gluten … yeah, that makes sense.
Gee, I haven’t eaten grains for about 3-4 years now; I wonder why my diabetes has gotten better instead of worse? What sort of fantasy world do these people live in?
Maybe I should also worry about my sugar deficiency? 😉
You must be getting some unknown source of gluten if your diabetes is improving.
I have some serious dietary deficiencies. A deficiency of statins, BP meds, PPIs, antidepressants and the “at least two or three diabetes medications” my doctor said she “expected me to be on by now”.
Twelve years and counting. My epitaph is already written
“See? We told him fifteen years ago that dangerous low carb diet would kill him!”
Hmmmmm — according to the characters issuing these dire warnings about the danger if not the impossibility of living without grains, the human race should never have evolved at all, since we only started eating grains about an eye blink ago in our history.
Exactly.
I haven’t eaten grains for five years, and I haven’t died once.
I thought I’d died and gone to hell once, but it turned out I was just accidentally watching “Keeping Up With The Kardashians.”
I eat a lot of protein. I use to supplement with creatine. Doctors have been telling me for years that my kidneys are in trouble, because my creatinine levels are elevated, yet tests keep coming back that my kidney function is healthy. Makes me think they don’t know as much about kidney health as they think they do. My GI suggested that the next time I get blood work done to skip caffeinated drinks the day before and just drink water. Caffeine acts as a diuretic. He said, “Just drink water and knock those levels down.” Finally some common sense.
Funny thing is, I drink a lot of fluids throughout the day yet they keep telling me I am dehydrated.
“The Harvard team examined 30 years of medical data from nearly 200,000 patients. They found that most participants had a gluten intake of below 12g a day, which is roughly the equivalent to two or three slices of wholemeal bread.
“Within this range, those eating the highest 20 per cent of gluten had a 13 per cent lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes compared with those eating up to 4g a day. The study showed that those who eat less gluten also tended to eat less cereal fibre, a substance known to protect against diabetes.”
So the hypothesis they were testing was that people who ate the highest amount of the lowest amount of gluten had a slightly lower risk (not incidence) of developing diabetes? What’s the incidence, or even risk, of gluten-eaters of different levels? Sounds like p-hacking to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dredging
That’s the polite way of putting it.
Not to mention, if this is based on self-report data or food diaries, like much of nutrition research cited in the media, the data used aren’t reliable enough to be worthy of statistical analysis in the first place. Useless data combined with agenda-driven correlational analyses and the conclusion is gluten will save your life. Isn’t nutrition “science” grand?
I never knew real milk (human or otherwise) was high in gluten. Nor that quinoa has teats.
The teats are very, very small.
Speaking of teats, I noticed lately a large number of men with breasts so large they should wear a bra.
I posted this before. Worth a repost. Not safe for work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8_JxdE8aHE
Hilarious! Thanks for starting my day with mirth!
Thanks for reading.
Thank goodness they didn’t say anything about a lack of grains causing global warming.
Naw, they just try to tell us eating meat causing global warming.
And strangely they never figure rice cultivation as a source of global warming. Those rice paddies have dead vegetation under water, perfect conditions for the formation of methane.
Beef production is however always targeted. I blame the vegan putsch.
Ironically, history has shown that when the CO2 is elevated, plants grow.
Well, they do call it a greenhouse effect.
Gee, I haven’t eaten grains for about 3-4 years now; I wonder why my diabetes has gotten better instead of worse? What sort of fantasy world do these people live in?
Maybe I should also worry about my sugar deficiency? 😉
You must be getting some unknown source of gluten if your diabetes is improving.
I have some serious dietary deficiencies. A deficiency of statins, BP meds, PPIs, antidepressants and the “at least two or three diabetes medications” my doctor said she “expected me to be on by now”.
Twelve years and counting. My epitaph is already written
“See? We told him fifteen years ago that dangerous low carb diet would kill him!”
Hmmmmm — according to the characters issuing these dire warnings about the danger if not the impossibility of living without grains, the human race should never have evolved at all, since we only started eating grains about an eye blink ago in our history.
Exactly.
I haven’t eaten grains for five years, and I haven’t died once.
I thought I’d died and gone to hell once, but it turned out I was just accidentally watching “Keeping Up With The Kardashians.”
I eat a lot of protein. I use to supplement with creatine. Doctors have been telling me for years that my kidneys are in trouble, because my creatinine levels are elevated, yet tests keep coming back that my kidney function is healthy. Makes me think they don’t know as much about kidney health as they think they do. My GI suggested that the next time I get blood work done to skip caffeinated drinks the day before and just drink water. Caffeine acts as a diuretic. He said, “Just drink water and knock those levels down.” Finally some common sense.
Funny thing is, I drink a lot of fluids throughout the day yet they keep telling me I am dehydrated.
“The Harvard team examined 30 years of medical data from nearly 200,000 patients. They found that most participants had a gluten intake of below 12g a day, which is roughly the equivalent to two or three slices of wholemeal bread.
“Within this range, those eating the highest 20 per cent of gluten had a 13 per cent lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes compared with those eating up to 4g a day. The study showed that those who eat less gluten also tended to eat less cereal fibre, a substance known to protect against diabetes.”
So the hypothesis they were testing was that people who ate the highest amount of the lowest amount of gluten had a slightly lower risk (not incidence) of developing diabetes? What’s the incidence, or even risk, of gluten-eaters of different levels? Sounds like p-hacking to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dredging
That’s the polite way of putting it.
Not to mention, if this is based on self-report data or food diaries, like much of nutrition research cited in the media, the data used aren’t reliable enough to be worthy of statistical analysis in the first place. Useless data combined with agenda-driven correlational analyses and the conclusion is gluten will save your life. Isn’t nutrition “science” grand?
“Not worth the paper it was wiped on” is my usual retort
Thank goodness they didn’t say anything about a lack of grains causing global warming.
Naw, they just try to tell us eating meat causing global warming.
And strangely they never figure rice cultivation as a source of global warming. Those rice paddies have dead vegetation under water, perfect conditions for the formation of methane.
Beef production is however always targeted. I blame the vegan putsch.
Ironically, history has shown that when the CO2 is elevated, plants grow.
Well, they do call it a greenhouse effect.
” the parents had the baby on a vegan diet”
It was the case and they were vegetarians
“They chose to feed their baby exclusively with vegetable milk from 3 to 7 months. For four months, they alternated milk from corn, rice, oats, quinoa or buckwheat in baby bottles. These milk drinks are alternatives to cow’s milk, but not to infant milk.”
http://www.francetvinfo.fr/sante/alimentation/belgique-un-bebe-est-mort-apres-avoir-ete-nourri-au-lait-vegetal_2194899.html
You can see the other side of the problem when you look out the back of my house. Acres and acres of grains, mostly wheat, and the margarine to spread on it (oilseed rape). Also in starring roles, sugar beet and potatoes. Peas (for the freezer factory) I don’t mind so much because at least I can eat some without my glucometer exploding.
The contractor who just combined my neighbour’s barley had a moderately large machine, 80 tonnes/hour. His neighbour has a smaller one, only 60 tonnes/hour. I remember the days when the first 10 tonnes/hour machines came on the market, now the top machines do almost 100 tonnes/hour average, and spot rates up to 150.
Despite that, the farmers I know a few years back were being paid £30 – £50 / tonne LESS than the cost of production for their wheat. That’s a lot of not-money to earn. The reason, I understand, for it becoming profitable again is increased sales to China, so prepare for them to follow us into metabolic hell (see Denise Minger’s takedown of T Colon Campbell’s China Study for details).
I have a confession. I eat oatcakes (5 – 6g carbs each) mainly because I need something to hold up the grass-fed butter and cheese and the smoked salmon. Also I sometimes have rice or quinoa in anatomically correct (very small) quantities to soak up the fatty juices from my stir-fries and curries that escape round the edge of the vegetables I may get through a kilo of each in a year. Occasionally mainly when eating out I may have some wheat. That seldom ends well, I don’t think gluten is my problem, mainly wheat germ agglutinin that affects insulin receptors, but apart from glucose spikes I tend to get bloated and have suffered everything from constipation lasting a few days to a Brown Trouser Event. Maybe I should send a dietician the laundry bill.
Without the wheat I seldom even get indigestion. Under 50g carbs/day and I seldom get anything.
oh goodie. More healthywholegrains as the cure-all!
They are negative about rice. Rice does have an affinity for arsenic.
You can see the other side of the problem when you look out the back of my house. Acres and acres of grains, mostly wheat, and the margarine to spread on it (oilseed rape). Also in starring roles, sugar beet and potatoes. Peas (for the freezer factory) I don’t mind so much because at least I can eat some without my glucometer exploding.
The contractor who just combined my neighbour’s barley had a moderately large machine, 80 tonnes/hour. His neighbour has a smaller one, only 60 tonnes/hour. I remember the days when the first 10 tonnes/hour machines came on the market, now the top machines do almost 100 tonnes/hour average, and spot rates up to 150.
Despite that, the farmers I know a few years back were being paid £30 – £50 / tonne LESS than the cost of production for their wheat. That’s a lot of not-money to earn. The reason, I understand, for it becoming profitable again is increased sales to China, so prepare for them to follow us into metabolic hell (see Denise Minger’s takedown of T Colon Campbell’s China Study for details).
I have a confession. I eat oatcakes (5 – 6g carbs each) mainly because I need something to hold up the grass-fed butter and cheese and the smoked salmon. Also I sometimes have rice or quinoa in anatomically correct (very small) quantities to soak up the fatty juices from my stir-fries and curries that escape round the edge of the vegetables I may get through a kilo of each in a year. Occasionally mainly when eating out I may have some wheat. That seldom ends well, I don’t think gluten is my problem, mainly wheat germ agglutinin that affects insulin receptors, but apart from glucose spikes I tend to get bloated and have suffered everything from constipation lasting a few days to a Brown Trouser Event. Maybe I should send a dietician the laundry bill.
Without the wheat I seldom even get indigestion. Under 50g carbs/day and I seldom get anything.
I’ve found that the occasional corn tortilla doesn’t bother me like wheat does. Same for my older daughter. She order quesadillas with corn tortillas at our local Mexican restaurant and suffers no apparently ill effects. But if she order wheat tortillas, she gets red, itchy bumps on her arms later. That pretty much convinced her to ditch wheat.
Yes it seems to be common, but known only to people who are brave enough to reject the Staff Of Life, that wheat causes all kinds of reactions, not many of them good.
Currently I have some red itchy bumps on my head, but they are midge bites. I had a big one on a finger, almost certainly a cleg bite, but even these clear up in a fraction of the time they used to take. Who knew? Well probably a lot of people who stopped eating the “essential” wheat.
It took a while but even my doctor is starting to come around to believing her patients over what she is instructed to believe by The Authorities. “Yes, quite a lot of people seem to have a problem with wheat” RESULT!!!
That’s progress.
oh goodie. More healthywholegrains as the cure-all!
” the parents had the baby on a vegan diet”
It was the case and they were vegetarians
“They chose to feed their baby exclusively with vegetable milk from 3 to 7 months. For four months, they alternated milk from corn, rice, oats, quinoa or buckwheat in baby bottles. These milk drinks are alternatives to cow’s milk, but not to infant milk.”
http://www.francetvinfo.fr/sante/alimentation/belgique-un-bebe-est-mort-apres-avoir-ete-nourri-au-lait-vegetal_2194899.html