Paleo Foods

On the other hand though, there are several studies which indicate that grains might be good for you.

One of these studies (conducted by the National Institutes of Health and AARP) included ~388,000 adults who had to fill out out a questionnaire in 1995-1996 about their eating habits (they were asked to estimate how often they ate 124 food items).

According to Dr. Yikyung Park (National Cancer Institute), the people who ate the highest amount of fiber were 22% less likely to die from any cause compared to those who ate the lowest amount. And that's not all, the strongest overall benefits are associated with diets high in fiber from grains.

Trying to figure out what's good for you and what isn't is pretty frustrating because there's a lot of contradictory (or at the very least seemingly contradictory) information out there. That's why (in my opinion) making decisions such as eliminating grains from your diet altogether is risky unless we're talking about overwhelming evidence.

I've always been passionate about nutrition/healthy lifestyles and based on my research/experience, there are a few fundamental guidelines that everyone needs to keep in mind such as:

1) the less processed food you eat, the better
2) if you can buy meat from farmers who don't use hormones and shit, buy meat from farmers who don't use hormones and shit
3) if you can buy fruits and vegetables from people who don't use shitloads of chemicals, buy fruits and vegetables from people who don't use shitloads of chemicals
4) moderate physical activity on a regular basis = good for you
5) excessive physical activity = bad for you
6) pay attention to what you DRINK as well
7) don't forget about sleep

... and so on.

If you keep these guidelines in mind and act accordingly, I'm pretty sure that you can consider yourself a member of the "I'm not ignorant when it comes to health-related aspects" crowd and the long-term results will make everything worth it.

As far as drastic decisions such as eliminating grains altogether are concerned, I'd recommend thinking twice before implementing such changes unless we're talking about overwhelming evidence. For example, pretty much everyone agrees that smoking is bad for you but the same thing can't be said about the "are grains bad for you?" question because there are compelling arguments both for and against eliminating them from your diet.

Remember that most national institutions are backed by large food companies. For example, the american dietetic association is backed by a ton of large food corporations.

The American Dietetic Association has received funding from numerous companies and receives underwriting for "fact sheets" on topics related to the companies' products. Major ($100,000+) donors include: Kellogg, Kraft Foods, Weight Watchers International, Campbell Soup, National Dairy Council, Nestlé USA, Ross Products Division of Abbott Labs., Sandoz, Coca-Cola, Florida Department of Citrus, General Mills, Monsanto, Nabisco, Procter & Gamble, Uncle Ben's, Wyeth-Ayerst Labs. (Nov-Dec 1996 ADA Courier)

From The American Dietetic Association

So I take anything any "national "organization says with a grain of salt. Or more like an entire salt shaker. It's corrupt from the fucking top down.

To respond directly to what you said, there's absolutely no way you can conclude from that information that grains are now good for you. Fiber is most definitely good for you. What exactly are the "Strongest overall benefits" that the study is referring to? Also, the study was based on a questionnaire...I question it's accuracy. It's so easy to twist statistics into saying what you want them to say.

Also, a few more things - firstly, grains weren't introduced into the human diet until about 10,000 years ago. Which on an evolutionary scale, is a very, very short period of time. So we haven't quite developed the ability to digest grains (yet?). Along with that, those grains that we ate 10,000 years ago bare almost no resemblance to the mutant grains that we eat today. If you want to read more about that specifically you can see my boy Sean's post here:

These Ain’t the Same Grains! | Underground Wellness

Also, it's more about gluten than grains - it's just that most grains now have a lot of gluten in them.

Anyway, the real point I want to make here is that studies done by national, corporate backed companies are almost always designed to promote those corporations products.

And finally, eliminating anything for 30 days (aside from like, all food and water) is not risky. Our ancestors survived their entire lives without eating a single grain, I think we'll be ok.

Goddamn, I feel like Lukep in one of those political threads.
 


Remember that most national institutions are backed by large food companies. For example, the american dietetic association is backed by a ton of large food corporations.

So I take anything any "national "organization says with a grain of salt. Or more like an entire salt shaker. It's corrupt from the fucking top down.

Everyone has an agenda.

National institutions backed by large food companies have an agenda, the people (maybe not all of them but at the very least the overwhelming majority) who run websites about evil large food companies and how dangerous they are have an agenda (selling a book/product/service/whatever) and so on.

That's why I mentioned how frustrating it can be to make health-related decisions but in my opinion, a study which involves almost 400,000 people cannot and should not be ignored. Ignoring it would be just as wrong as blindly believing everything you read in the "conclusions" section.

To respond directly to what you said, there's absolutely no way you can conclude from that information that grains are now good for you. Fiber is most definitely good for you.
Direct quote:

Dietary fiber from grains, but not from other sources, was significantly inversely related to total and cause-specific death in both men and women.
As mentioned in my previous post, the strongest overall benefits (after analyzing total and cause-specific death rates) are associated with diets high in fiber from grains.

And finally, eliminating anything for 30 days (aside from like, all food and water) is not risky. Our ancestors survived their entire lives without eating a single grain, I think we'll be ok.
Eliminating grains for 30 days is not risky, I didn't say it was.

Eliminating grains permanently after conducting a 30-day experiment such as the one you referred to, however, can be risky IMO because your conclusions might be inaccurate (again, there are compelling arguments both for and against grains).
 
I've been grain and carb free (except for tons of veggies and nuts) for about 2.5 months. I feel better at 33 than at 16. Lost 12 pounds while eating like a pig (prior to that couldn't lose weight no matter how much I cut back on calories).

I've been doing a TON of research on this stuff lately. It's become an obsession of mine, actually. Here's a great article on cholesterol if you guys are interested:

Dr. Joseph Mercola: The Cholesterol Myth That Could Be Harming Your Health
 
Everyone has an agenda.

National institutions backed by large food companies have an agenda, the people (maybe not all of them but at the very least the overwhelming majority) who run websites about evil large food companies and how dangerous they are have an agenda (selling a book/product/service/whatever) and so on.

That's why I mentioned how frustrating it can be to make health-related decisions but in my opinion, a study which involves almost 400,000 people cannot and should not be ignored. Ignoring it would be just as wrong as blindly believing everything you read in the "conclusions" section.

Direct quote:

As mentioned in my previous post, the strongest overall benefits (after analyzing total and cause-specific death rates) are associated with diets high in fiber from grains.

Eliminating grains for 30 days is not risky, I didn't say it was.

Eliminating grains permanently after conducting a 30-day experiment such as the one you referred to, however, can be risky IMO because your conclusions might be inaccurate (again, there are compelling arguments both for and against grains).

Sure, I agree, everyone has an agenda. I think it's fair to say that some care more about health than profits, though. There are people in this world (I know, it's hard to believe, especially on a forum that has people who were promoting scam acai bullshit) who do have morals and actually do care about getting people healthy. I don't know what else to say about that, to tell you the truth.

I don't have a study to quote on this, but I'm 100% positive that you can eliminate grains from your diet without suffering health repercussions. They are most DEFINITELY not necessary to survive. And that's not just the health ad Talk to the 1000's of people who have cut them out of their life and have no health problems. It's not like they all of a sudden started getting heart disease, etc. I will let you do the research on that one, though.

Should also mention that I haven't eaten grains in the past 6 months and I feel the best I ever have in my entire life. Period. And I've been working with a doctor to make sure everything is all good - and I assure you, I am one healthy motherfucker. Though my body is definitely still recovering from the damage that was done -- to be fair, not just by grains, but by processed shitty foods and some poor sleep habits -- but right now I feel better than ever. It is almost impossible to describe in words how much better my life is now that I changed my eating habits - you would really have to try it yourself to understand.

And yes, I can ignore a study that has 400,000 people in it. Just like I can ignore Ancel Key's bullshit study that tells me that saturated fat intake is correlated with heart disease. Again, I take everything those national groups say with a huge grain of salt - and I base my decisions about what I eat on my own research and testing. And it's worked out better than I ever could have imagined.

Finally, here's a guy who can explain why grains fucking suck way, WAY better than I can. Yes, he sells supplements on his site and also has a book. If you can get past that, it's well worth a read. And Mark isn't a dude who just throws info around without researching it first, he's big on studies, etc.

Why Grains Are Unhealthy | Mark's Daily Apple

This is fun.
 
Also just wanted to say that it's awesome that there are other people here who really take their health seriously and are doing research on their own. Ultimately I think that investing in your health is far and away the best investment you can ever make -- and it most definitely translates into helping your business as well. It's hard to get quality work done when you can't fucking think during the day and can't sleep at night.
 
Megatabbers for the win. Awesome video. The study you quoted, charlie, was an observational study. Watch what the dude in the video says about observational studies @ around 7 mins.
 
I don't have a study to quote on this, but I'm 100% positive that you can eliminate grains from your diet without suffering health repercussions. They are most DEFINITELY not necessary to survive. And that's not just the health ad Talk to the 1000's of people who have cut them out of their life and have no health problems. It's not like they all of a sudden started getting heart disease, etc. I will let you do the research on that one, though.
I'm pretty sure you won't die next year if you eliminate grains from your diet but what about the long-term consequences?

If the study I referred to and other similar ones are accurate, then individuals who don't eat grains are more likely to die from [FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif] cardiovascular, infectious, and respiratory diseases[/FONT] (cancer is also mentioned but an i[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]nverse association between dietary fiber intake and cancer death was only observed in men[/FONT]).

That's why I can't agree with the "I'm 100% positive that you can eliminate grains from your diet without suffering health repercussions" statement you made. Maybe none of the studies which recommend grains are accurate, maybe there are no long-term health repercussions associated with eliminating them but there are enough arguments for each approach (pro grains vs. against grains) to make it clear that being 100% positive is impossible at this point.

Oh well, I guess that as far as the "can you be 100% positive that you can eliminate grains from your diet without suffering long-term health repercussions?" topic is concerned, we'll have to agree to disagree.


There you have it, another reason why making health-related choices is frustrating to say the least because you are literally overwhelmed by contradictory information even if we're talking about the same website!

Here's what I mean: megatabbers linked to an article published on The Huffington Post and the person who wrote it recommends eliminating grains from our diet (direct quote - Reduce, with the plan of eliminating, grains and sugars in your daily diet):

Dr. Joseph Mercola: The Cholesterol Myth That Could Be Harming Your Health

Ok, great.

Now here's another article published (guess where?) on The Huffington Post which recommends eating grains (it's an article based on the study I referred to previously):

Eat More Fiber, Live Longer, Large Gov't Study Shows

Also just wanted to say that it's awesome that there are other people here who really take their health seriously and are doing research on their own. Ultimately I think that investing in your health is far and away the best investment you can ever make -- and it most definitely translates into helping your business as well. It's hard to get quality work done when you can't fucking think during the day and can't sleep at night.
Agreed!

I love WF because we're anything but sheeple. Let's not forget that while we're here analyzing studies and trying to make informed decisions, the average Joe is ordering shitty food from a shitty fast food joint and doesn't give a fuck.

Seiux takes his health seriously, I take mine seriously and the same thing can be said about pretty much everyone who posted in this thread. That's fucking awesome IMO and this thread deserves a "gay group hug" moment :anon.sml:
 
I guess we'll find out if I get sick from some cardiovascular disease or something. I think I've got it covered though - eating healthy is not the only thing I do to make sure I live forever.

To break it down -- partly to brag, haha, can't turn off my ego; but also because I think a lot of people on this board could get a ton of benefit from it...


1. Lower Toxic Load
I have water filters on every tap in the house, and I actually double filter my drinking water. I don't think these filters get rid of flouride, which is bullshit, but at least there's minimal chlorine. Also, I don't use shampoo (and my hair is fucking better than ever -- dandruff is GONE), or deodorant. Though for some reason my left armpit smells on occasion when I work out (and not my right - still figuring this one out) so I actually will use milk of magnesia as deodorant. it works exceptionally well. I also don't use soap in the shower. And my shower water is filtered for chlorine. Fuck breathing in chlorine fumes, I'm good on that.

I know after reading that you guys are probably thinking I'm one stinky, nasty motherfucker, but if you met me I assure you you would see the opposite is true.

2. Sleep
In bed by 11 at the latest, up by 7. This has been HUGE. Probably the biggest factor aside from better food in my health recovery. I def. need to get some blackout curtains, though, as there is a little light shining into my room at night.

3. Nutrition
I eat well. No grains, no pasteurized dairy (really, no dairy at all cause I don't care enough to get raw milk), no processed foods. The most processed food I eat is probably the almond milk that I get from whole foods - though I'll probably start making that on my own soon. I eat a ton of fruit and vegetables (though I will say I'm lacking in the green vegetable department).

I don't eat a ton of meat - I usually try to stick to one meat meal a day and it's almost always organic grass fed. Sometimes they don't have it at whole foods and I'll buy lamb from new zealand -- I'm told they have stricter regulations there and their shit is antibiotic free, so ideally it wont cause any problems.

BTW - on the nutrition topic, one of the ways you guys can see how well your digestive system is working is how often you poop. If you are only pooping once a day or once every other day, your shit is not quite working properly. (turbopuns!)

4. Supplements
My supplement routine is a little ridiculous and probably not necessary for most people. It's based around a couple of main things - antioxidants (oxidative stress is bad), anti-inflammation (kind of ties into oxidative stress), collagen/skin/joint health (mostly because I'm doing some physical therapy right now, and it helps), digestive support, insulin regulation, and a ton of other shit. I take:
Jarrow Dophilus: Probiotic
Vitamin D Liquid: bone health, anti cancer, immune support, reduction in inflammation
Green Tea: antioxidant
Rosemary: anti inflammatory
Cod Liver Oil: DHA/EPA - help with brain function, anti inflammatory
Zinc: TESTOSTERONE. FUCK YEA.
Glycine: helps with collagen, liver
CoQ 10: antioxidant
Taurine: slows down hyperproliferation in skin cells (helps prevent acne, etc.)
B6: helps absorb taurine
Methionine: precursor to glutathione (which is a badass anti-oxidant) and also helps your liver
DMAE: antioxidant
Fish Oil: dha/EPA again
Borage Oil: omega 6 fats
Cinnamon: lowers insulin response - i have this before every meal except post workout. if all you did was have 1g cinnamon (REAL CINNAMON, NOT BULLSHIT FAKE RANCID CINNAMON) before you eat whatever you're going to eat, minus post workout, you would most definitely lose some extra fat. it's legit.
Grapeseed Extract: skin health, antioxidants, anti inflammatory
Enzymes: help with digestion - i was low in stomach acid (which is very common)
HCL: same as above
Glutamine: intestinal repair, muscle building, anabolic amino acid
BCAA: anabolic in this bitch
MSM: liver, joint health
Vitamin C: antioxidant
N-A-C: antioxidant, precursor to glutathione again
R-ALA: antioxidant, increases insulin sensitivity (GET HUGE SON)
Protandim: this one you guys will see as controversial because it's run by a network marketing company, but its fucking awesome. super antioxidant. this alone can dramatically improve your health.
ZMA: sleep, muscle recovery, promotes anabolism

I also take some other shit as well - oregano/thyme oil to get rid of bad bacteria/fungus in the gut (I had candida, which a surprising amount of people have), and a multivitamin from Dr. Kalish.

I won't claim that I have researched every single one of these supplements interactions with eachother, but, hey, what're you gonna do. I feel fucking great. All the time.

5. Exercise - I'm at the gym every day, but I only really lift heavy 2-3x a week at the most. The rest is for physical therapy/muscle imbalances stuff. I'm pretty limited in what I do exercise wise right now cause I'm doing physical therapy for my rotator cuff & shins.

6. Lower stress. I avoid arguments and stressful situations, and basically doing shit that I don't want to do. We only live once and it's a waste to spend your time being angry, upset, and stressed out all the time.

Goddamn, that was a lot of effort for a fuckin' forum. Hope you guys get something out of it.
 
Forgot to mention, I'm also taking Pregnenolone and DHEA. Both are precursors to testosterone. I had very low testosterone levels and I was told to take this by Dr. Kalish - basically to stimulate/jump start my testosterone/sex hormone production again. Let me tell you, taking things that increase testosterone is possibly the best fucking thing ever. Testosterone is fucking AWESOME. These are both available over the counter, as well, but I most definitely would not recommend taking either of DHEA or pregnenolone unless you talk to a Dr. first and get your levels tested. My testosterone was a 51/160. For reference, my mom's (post menopausal, 57 year old woman) level was 57. Granted, her hormones are awesome, but still. A 57 year old woman had higher testosterone than me, a 23 year old male.

Tried to make this post an edit but it wouldn't let me. Sorry for spamming my [awesome] sig everywhere.
 
I'm pretty sure you won't die next year if you eliminate grains from your diet but what about the long-term consequences?

I don't think we have long term studies on this, however, if we look at the issue from an anthropological point of view, it's safe to assume that the long term consequences are positive.

Out of our 2.5 million or so years of evolution, we weren't consuming grains until ~ 10,000 years ago. I picked this up from either Sisson's Primal Blueprint or Cordain's Paleo Diet, by the way. There's a lengthy explanation of why they could potentially be toxic to humans and/or cause immune reactions. I'll try to find the text tomorrow and post it.
 
I think in a very reductionist way, it's very hard to argue strongly a case for eating grains while simultaneously possessing a very solid background in evolutionary biology. I'm not talking about getting a degree, I'm talking about digging in and doing the necessary hours upon hours of serious research.

This is health we're talking about. THE most important factor in living, period. Do the cost/benefit analysis on that, do the research and then make your own conclusions. Conduct your own experiments and run with the results because let's face it - there is probably never going to be a study on either side that is fully controlled in every way besides diet - people's lives are too complex and the time horizon required to produce accurate data is too long for people to sacrifice such things as their lifestyle choices.

I'm very very much on the no-grains side, in fact I think that sugar and grain-based carbohydrates (along with dairy) are the two worst things you could be eating, hands down (besides legitimately poisonous items). I'd be interested to study, however, the average amount of generations that need to occur before such a serious change as a human body's adaptation to a RAPID shift in the types of food we ate.

10,000 years is 333 generations. 2 million years is 66,666 generations. I'm more willing to believe that the first 2 million years of our evolution (not including the evolution of prior species) has a much higher weighting in our genetics and biochemistry with relation to diet than the last 333 - but that's just me.
 
sweet post phoenix. and yes, i do own the store - I'm also a San Diego resident as well.
 
I use the lowest calorie unsweetened almond milk as the liquid for my protein shakes. That kind is not really suitable for "having a glass of milk" like the sweetened vanilla almond milk is but it has half the calories and those extra calories in the sweetened kind all come from sugar.

Tried making it myself like they do in the YouTube videos and it tasted like ass. Didn't even really come out to be any cheaper either so fuck all that.
 
As far as drastic decisions such as eliminating grains altogether are concerned, I'd recommend thinking twice before implementing such changes unless we're talking about overwhelming evidence. For example, pretty much everyone agrees that smoking is bad for you but the same thing can't be said about the "are grains bad for you?" question because there are compelling arguments both for and against eliminating them from your diet.
You constantly assume the status quo is legitimate ostensibly for no reason other than it is the status quo, and yet you try to shift the overwhelming burden onto alternative theories.
 
For me, I stopped eating grains for 30 days to see what was up - because I didn't feel like grains were causing me any issues. When I tried to eat them again on day 35 or so, I would get headaches, my stomach would be insanely bloated, and I would feel like shit for the rest of the day - symptoms that I didn't have before. My theory on why this happened is that I had fucked up my system so bad that I couldn't really feel the damage it was doing. When I took it out and my system had time to actually repair, when I reintroduced it it was like "what the FUCK is this shit" and went haywire.

Just playing Devil's Advocate here, but that doesn't necessarily mean that grains are bad for you. I'm sure if you stopped eating meats for a month, and then resumed, your body would be just as shocked when you put meats back into your diet.
 
You constantly assume the status quo is legitimate ostensibly for no reason other than it is the status quo, and yet you try to shift the overwhelming burden onto alternative theories.

Ok, so clinical trials suck and it's all a huge conspiracy to trick people into thinking that grains are healthy, right?

In that case, why are there clinical trials with findings both in favor of and against grains?

Let me give you a few examples.

1) Clinical trial results which indicate that grains don't lower risks for certain diseases

Exhibit A:

Dietary Fiber Intake and Risk of Colorectal Cancer, December 14, 2005, Park et al. 294 (22): 2849

725 628 men and women were followed up for 6 to 20 years across studies and no link between dietary fiber intake and risk of colorectal cancer was observed.

Exhibit B:

Exhibit B

88,757 women were followed up, no association between the intake of dietary fiber and the risk of colorectal cancer and adenoma was observed.

2) Clinical trials which indicate that grains lower risks for certain diseases

Exhibit A:

Whole grain, bran, and germ intake and risk of type... [PLoS Med. 2007] - PubMed - NCBI

This study followed 161,737 US women and according to its findings, increasing whole grain consumption if you want to prevent type 2 diabetes is recommended.

Exhibit B:

Dietary Intake of Fiber and Decreased Risk of Cancers of the Colon and Rectum: Evidence From the Combined Analysis of 13 Case-Control Studies

This study followed 5287 case subjects with colorectal cancer and 10470 control subjects without disease. According to this study, there is substantive evidence that intake of fiber-rich foods is inversely related to risk of cancers of both the colon and rectum.

Exhibit C:

Fiber: Start Roughing It! - What Should I Eat? - The Nutrition Source - Harvard School of Public Health

In a Harvard study of over 40,000 male health professionals, researchers found that a high total dietary fiber intake was linked to a 40 percent lower risk of coronary heart disease, compared to a low fiber intake.

There you have it: in some cases, they found that grains can be good for you (coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancers of both the colon and rectum) and in other cases, they didn't find any benefits (colorectal cancer - men and women, colorectal cancer and adenoma - women).

As you can see, I only referred to five studies and there's already contradictory information (for example, whether or not there are benefits when it comes to colon cancer) and that's why I repeatedly explained that being 100% positive is impossible.

Are there shitloads of conspiracies out there? Yes.

But this doesn't mean that clinical trials should be eliminated from the equation.

What's the alternative? Blog posts and viral YouTube videos?

Here's the message I'm trying to get across:

1) It's obvious that smoking is bad for you because the proof is overwhelming.

2) It's obvious that sleep deprivation is bad for you because the proof is overwhelming.

... the list could go on and on.

However, when it comes to grains, the proof is NOT overwhelming in my opinion.

I'm not saying they're good for you, I'm not saying they aren't. I'm just saying that since there are lots of arguments both for and against grains, thinking twice before eliminating 'em altogether might be a better approach. Or, dare I say it, maybe eating grains in moderation and buying the best ones you can get your hands on might be an alternative worth keeping in mind?

Blindly believing everything you're fed through "mainstream channels" such as clinical trials or TV shows is wrong but blindly believing everything you're fed through alternative channels (blogs, YouTube videos and so on) is just as wrong.
 
Dude didn't even read past the Exhibit A for pro/neg grain studies because you say "clinical" when those are BOTH observational studies...fail