Science to the Rescue
Whole Grains Under Siege
By Alex Jack
"Gluten is unhealthy." "Wheat
causes Alzheimer's.'' "Grains
are not part of
the traditional
human diet." As
modern society
gradually shifts
from a predominantly animalcentered to a plant-centered diet, a sharp
backlash has arisen, especially to whole
grains. Nutritionists, medical researchers,
and physicians are rushing to the defense
of whole wheat, barley, and brown rice in
the wake of the gluten-free craze, the rise
of the Paleolithic diet, and several popular bestsellers demonizing grains and
grain products.
A Special Report on the
Demonization of Wheat, the
Gluten-Free Trend, Celiac, and
Paleo vs. Macro
Adapting the approach introduced by
macrobiotics, the scientific-medical community is endorsing the primacy of whole
grains and other complex carbohydrates
in a healthy, balanced diet. Over the last
generation, whole cereal grains and grain
products have become the principal food
group in the govemment's Dietary
Guidelines for the United States, including the Food Pyramid, as well as dietary
recommendations by the American Heart
Association, American Cancer Society,
and other major medical organizations.
1. Refuting Wheat Belly
Two years ago, in Wheat Belly: Lose
the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find
Your Path Back to Health, cardiologist
William Davis, M .D. labeled wheat "the
world's most destructive dietary ingredient." Last year, in Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and
Conitnued on p. 5
Science to the Rescue
Continued from p. 1
Sugar- Your Brain's Silent Killers, neurologist David Perlmutter, M.D. contended that "during 99.9% of our time walking this earth we have never eaten grain."
Like many adherents of the modem Paleolithic Diet, he recommends a daily regimen consisting of about 75% fat, 20%
protein, and 5% carbs.
Challenging these claims, the Tufts
Health & Nutrition Letter this spring featured a lead article on "The Truth About
the War on Wheat." "There is a lack of
scientific evidence to support the claims
that eating wheat is an independent riskfactor for greater abdominal adiposity or
weight gain," stated Nicola McKeown,
Ph.D., an associate professor at Tufts'
Friedman School. "In my opinion, educating consumers about how to identify
healthier whole-grain options to replace
refined grains and how to incorporate ancient grains into our diets is important."
In a "Gut Check" of the "dubious" and
"sensational" assertions in Wheat Belly,
the article went on to cite a 2010 study
that found that increasing consumption of
at least three daily servings of whole
wheat, brown rice, oatmeal, and other
whole-grains was linked with10% lower
VAT (visceral adipose tissue or belly fat)
in test subjects. The findings followed another study that found "higher intakes of
cereal fiber, particularly from wholegrain sources, are associated with lower
total percent body fat and percent trunk
fat mass in older adults."
Cynthia Harriman, director of food and
nutrition strategies at the Whole Grains
Council, dismissed Grain Brain's characterization of grains as "a terrorist group
that bullies our most precious organ, the
brain" as misleading, sensational, and full
of distortions. She cited a study in the
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition of
3831 men and women, aged 65 and up,
whose cognitive function improved with
greater intake of whole grains, legumes,
and nuts. In contrast, a recent study found
that women on an Atkins' style lowcarbohydrate diet experienced gradual
memory loss.
PAGE 6
"If you don ' t eat grains, it's difficult
to consume enough dietary fiber," the
Tufts article concluded. "The typical gluten-free diet contains only about 6 grams
of dietary fiber per day, far short of the
Institute of Medicine's target of25-38
grams daily ... wheat isn:t the bogey
"Increasing consumption of
at least three daily servings of whole wheat,
brown rice, oatmeal, and
other whole-grains was
linked withl0°/o lower
VAT (visceral adipose tissue or belly fat) in test
subjects."
man that these books claim ... choose a
variety of whole grains, including brown
rice, oats, quinoa, faro , popcorn, and so
on ... Consumed in delicious moderation, [whole grain fare] is designed to be
good for both your belly and your brain."
The Harvard School of Public Health
also emphasizes whole grains as part of a
foundation for a healthy diet. Its
"Healthy Eating Plate" calls for 25% of
daily food consumption to consist of
cereal foods: "Whole and intact grainswhole wheat, barley, wheat berries, quinoa, oats, brown rice, and foods made
with them, such as whole wheat pastahave a milder effect on blood sugar and
insulin than white bread, white rice, and
other refined grains."
2. The Gluten Craze
"Thou shalt
not eat wheat."
The first commandment in today's glutenfree modem society is rapidly
replacing giving
thanks for "Our
daily bread."
Millions of people are now ritually shunning wheat, barley, rye, oats, and other ·
gluten-rich grains that were traditionally
revered as the Staff of Life. Gluten, the
protein component in wheat and other
starchy cereals, gives dough its elasticity,
helping it to rise, keep its shape, and add
to its chewiness.
In the United States, an estimated 3
million people have celiac disease, an
autoimmune disorder that affects the
small intestine, and another 18 million
people have gluten sensitivities that can
manifest as bloating, pain, gas, constipation, diarrhea, joint pain, and headaches .
Beer, bread, cakes, pies, pastries, soy
sauce, and many other processed foods
can provoke these symptoms.
As with many nutritional crazes, the
rise of gluten intolerance has spawned an
avalanche of new wheatless products. In
America, thousands of foods in supermarkets, natural food stores, and schools are
labeled as "gluten free," even if they contain no cereal components or protein.
Menus in restaurants often have a GF
sign next to dishes that are without gluten. From overweight and obesity to irritability and depression, wheat and other
glutinous foods are routinely identified as
the chief nutritional suspects. Going gluten-free has fueled not only the fastest
growing segment of the food industry,
but also proved a boon to a new medical
fraternity . Specialists known as Gluten
Doctors thrive in treating people suffering from real or imaginary illness.
In many countries, celiac disease is
rare. For example, in Japan, gluten sensitivity is about one-fifth as common as in
America or Europe. From an evolutionary view, the gluten-free trend is worrisome because for millions of years, our
ancestors have been eating wild or
domesticated grains, and many of them
are high in gluten. Why has gluten intolerance suddenly emerged as a major epidemic in the late 20th and early 21st centuries?
There appear to be three reasons behind this trend. First, the modem food
pattern is centered on animal food unlike
the traditional food pattern that is plantbased. From an energetic view, meat,
chicken, cheese, salmon, and other popular animal foods are classified as extremely yang. They give strong, contractive energy and as a rough balance attract
light, refined grains, raw foods, excessive fruit, sugar, alcohol, and other more
expansive, yin foods. Though not as
extreme as animal food, whole grains
also give strong, but centered yang energy. Since yang repels yang, meat and
heavy animal food eaters are not attracted to whole grains. They prefer soft,
white bread and other light, refined
baked products, including doughnuts,
croissants, and other pastries. Over time,
consuming a combination of extreme
yang and yin foods takes a toll on the
intestines, and many people today can no
longer absorb whole grains, including
whole wheat, barley, and oats.
Secondly, modem wheat is very different from traditional wheat. Beginning
in the early 1960s, a new hybrid variety
of wheat was introduced that produced
higher yields but also required more
chemical fertilizers and water. Soon the
Green Revolution that it launched spread
to India, Africa, and around the world,
displacing heirloom varieties of seeds
that had been used for millennia.
Third, the method of milling wheat
and other glutinous grains has fundamentally changed. Modem milling replaced traditional slow-grinding stones
with high-speed steel hammers and rollers that process wheat into flour. Iron,
zinc, selenium, and other nutrients are
lost in the process, the industrial smashing creates chaotic effects, and the flour
loses its Ki energy. The end result is the
lifeless, puffy buns, breads, and rolls
favored by fast food franchises, school
cafeterias, and those who have little or
no time to cook or bake in their own
kitchens. "There is good evidence that
ancient grains didn't have anything like
the toxicity that current wheat does,"
says Peter Green, a gastroenterologist at
Columbia University and author of Celiac Disease: A Hidden Epidemic.
Medical studies are beginning to show
that the gluten allergies and sensitivities
that people experience are not to wheat
and wheat products per se, but to the
new industrial varieties of wheat and especially to yeasted bread and baked
goods. For example, a 2007 study in Applied and Environmental Medicine found
that when bread was naturally ferment-
Goldilocks must have a gluten allergy.
ed, it reduced gluten levels from about
75,000 parts per million to 12, a level
that falls within the gluten-free range.
Many people with gluten intolerances
have found that by switching to natural
"There is good evidence
that ancient grains didn't
have anything like the
toxicity that current
wheat does."
sourdough wheat or rye bread their
symptoms disappeared.
For consumers, it is not enough to se- .
lect "wheat," "whole wheat," or "organic" when shopping or eating out. Large
commercial mills are still geared to producing primarily white flour by separating out the bran and germ. When a bakery orders whole-wheat flour, they
simply recombine the bran and germ
with the white flour. The process is similar to polishing brown rice into white
rice and then enriching the white rice
with the vitamins and minerals that have
been removed. Most modem dietitians
defend the practice, contending that the
nutritional composition is the same. Holistic health care providers object torecombining. "It's like disassembling a
car, then putting all the parts in a bowl
and saying it's a car, observes Mark
Shigenaga, Ph.D. an expert in digestion.
A return to heirloom grains will go a
long way to ending the gluten plague.
Thorn Leonard, a macrobiotic baker in
Georgia and author of The Bread Book,
has been experimenting with growing
traditional strains of wheat from Turkey
and giving them to local farmers. He reports that most people he has met with
wheat problems thrive with this variety.
As the experience of sustainable wheat
farmers and bakers like Thorn shows,
people today are not really intolerant of
wheat, barley, and other grains that
nourished generations of their ancestors.
They are allergic to the unhealthy and
destructive practices of modem agriculture and food processing.
3. Why Celiac?
Unlike most gluten intolerances, celiac disease (CD) is considered incurable.
Eliminating gluten helps some sufferers
maintain normal digestion. But virtually
none goes on to heal to the point they
can return to digesting wheat, barley, or
other glutinous foods or products.
Medical researchers classify CD as a
genetic disorder of the small intestine.
Exposure to gluten causes an inflammatory response that atrophies the villi and
interferes with absorption. Over 95% of
celiac patients have a specific gene variation that initiates an autoimmune
response when gluten is ingested.
The name celiac derives from the
Greek word for "abdominal" and is
traced back to a digestive disorder described by Aretaeus of Cappadocia in
the first century. It is not known whether
this was the same as modem CD, which
was first described in the 1880s. In the
1940s, the condition was first linked to
wheat.
The fact that CD did not appear until
recently suggests that it was not a disease of antiquity when wheat, barley,
and other glutinous foods were consumed even more widely than today.
Rather celiac appears to have arisen as a
result of a major change in modem food
technology. In the late 19th century, advancements in the refining of grains
made cheap white bread widely available. One hypothesis is that consumption
of too much refined flour and other adulterated gluten products led to a gene mutation that was inheritable among sus-
ceptible family members.
The process may be similar to the
emergence of the BCRA gene mutation
that affects about 1% of modem women.
As described in Amberwaves' booklet
Nutrition vs. Surgery: The Breast Cancer
Controversy, BCRA is concentrated in
women of Scandinavian, Icelandic, and
Ashkenazi Jewish origin, all of whose ancestors consumed milk, cheese, or other
dairy products in large quantities. Too
much dairy evidently led to a mutation in
the BCRA gene- a naturally occurring
DNA repair gene- as girls and women
lost their natural resistance to tumor development. In the case of celiac, the villi
of the small intestine appear to have lost
the ability to function properly after excessive exposure to refined flour, especially that made with commercial baker's
yeast and other additives.
There is also a connection with candidiasis. Candida, a naturally occurring
yeast in the digestive tract, is usually
harmless. But when it grows out of control, it produces symptoms similar to celiac. Candida and gluten share a similar
protein sequence that can trigger an autoimmune reaction. Nausea, stomach pain,
and chronic diarrhea typically accompany both conditions. Yeasted white bread,
along with sugar and other depleting
foods that are staples in the modem diet,
appear to be the underlying dietary cause
in both cases.
As the new science of epigenetics is
demonstrating, genes are not fixed and
static, but can be modified in a positive
as well as negative direction. Healthy
diet, lifestyle, and moods can transform
our health and vitality and shape and influence our chromosomes and be passed
on to future generations. In a world with
a sane agriculture and food system, celiac, the BCRA mutation, and other genetic disorders could diminish and become a
relic of the past.
4. Paleo vs. Macro
Paleo is one of the latest trends and
refers to a diet that harkens back to the
Stone Age. According to its proponents,
Paleolithic humans hunted most of their
daily food, and mastodon, antelope, bison, and other large mammals constituted
PAGE 8
a majority of their fare. Only with the rise
of agriculture and civilization, modem day
Paleos contend, did humans produce and
consume significant amounts of carbohydrates in the form of grain and grain products, including bread, baked goods, apd
beer.
Present day versions of the Paleo diet
include mostly grass-fed beef and other
livestock, fish, eggs, cultured dairy, vegetables, fruit, roots, tubers, seeds and nuts.
For the most part, it eliminates grains, potatoes, sugar, processed oils, and other domestically grown or processed fare . Some
Paleos eat small amounts of grain or grain
products but soak them for up to 24 hours,
sprout, or treat them with vinegar to re-
"A new look at the diets of
ancient African hominids
shows a 'game change'
occurred about 3.5 million
years ago when some members added grasses or sedges to their menus,"
duce phytic acid that they link to a multitude of ills. A cottage industry of books,
literature, and tapes on the benefits of this
approach has emerged. According to this
view, Paleolithic hunter-gathers remained
largely free of disease and our species' decline can be traced to the advent of farming, grain consumption, and the subsequent onset of degenerative disease.
The citadel of Paleo thought is the Weston A. Price Foundation, a nutritional center founded by Dr. Weston Price, an early
20th century dental pioneer. In his classic
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
(1939), Price showed that traditional peoples around the world enjoyed optimal
health and vitality prior to coming in contact with modem civilization. White sugar,
white flour, and other highly processed
foods, in his view, ruined their teeth, lowered their susceptibility to infection, and
led to epidemic disease and decline. Price
died in 1948, and the foundation serves today primarily as a platform for the Paleo
diet.
From a macrobiotic perspective, there is
a significant degree of overlap with Paleo.
Both recommend fresh, chemically free,
largely unrefined, natural foods. Both recommend predominantly cooked food (at
least in temperate and colder regions).
Both support an active, healthy lifestyle.
However, there is fundamental disagreement on the original human diet. George
Ohsawa, Michio Kushi, and other macrobiotic authorities have long taught that humanity's unique structure and energetic
functions, including higher consciousness,
were created by whole cereal grasses.
Until recently, there was little evidence
in the scientific record to support this theory. But in the last several years, archaeological discoveries have demonstrated the
primacy of whole grains to Paleolithic cultures. In East Africa, for example, scientists found evidence of extensive grain
milling and baking dating to 100,000 years
ago-or half of the estimated existence of
homo sapiens, our current species. In multiple European sites, ancient grain harvesting, cooking, and processing has been dated to about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago, a
late Stone Age era renowned for its majestic Ice Age cave paintings.
In another dramatic finding, scientists
this past year reported that the earliest
hominids (or proto humans) evolved several million years ago when some individuals started to eat wild grasses (or proto
whole grains). "A new look at the diets of
ancient African hominids shows a 'game
change' occurred about 3.5 million years
ago when some members added grasses or
sedges to their menus," according to a new
study led by the University of Colorado
Boulder.
High-tech analysis of tooth enamel
found that prior to 4 million years ago,
early primates were eating like chimpanzees, ingesting mostly fruits and leaves. In
their report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and funded in
part by the Leakey Foundation, theresearchers reported that the change in diet
to wild grasses was "an important step in
becoming human." For example, about the
same time as "Lucy," a famous 3-millionyear-old fossil skeleton often referred to as
the matriarch or progenitor of the human
race, there lived an upright hominid
known as Paranthropus boisei. Initially
dubbed Nutcracker Man because of its
large, flat teeth and powerful jaws, the ancestral species now appears to have used
its back teeth to grind grasses and sedges
(a family of rushes, including water chestnut) .
Dr. Price' s work was conducted among
the Inuit and other largely indigenous peoples. Their healthy native diets did not include much if any grain or grain products,
so his followers conclude that cereals are
not part of the traditional human diet. As
macrobiotic dietary guidelines recognize,
meat- or dairy-centered diets can be
healthy and appropriate in cold, northern
regions, deserts, mountains, and other specialized climates and environments.
Grains, wild or domesticated, may not
grow there, and over the millennia cultures
and cuisines have made use of more abundant foods such as cassava, yams, and taro.
But only about 2 to 5% of the world's population dwell in these niche habitats. The
vast majority lives in temperate and tropical regions where wild grasses, whole
have served as the foundation of all the
world 's civilizations prior to our own.
Now, whole cereal grains are being rediscovered and are contributing to personal
and planetary health.
•!•
Resources
For most of human existence, people foraged for wild grains, veggies, fruits, seeds,
nuts, herbs, and other foods.
grains, and grain products have served as
principal fare.
Since time immemorial, as the myths
of many traditional cultures tell and scientific evidence now confirms, the original Paleolithic Diet was centered on wild
sorghum, wild millet, emmer (wild
wheat), wild barley, wild rice, wild quinoa, teocinte (the ancestor of maize), and
other ancient cereal grasses. For the last
ten thousand years, domesticated grains
See "I Love Gluten" by Katya Thomas
(Amberwaves, Autumn 2012) for the account of a woman who had severe gluten
intolerance and was told she would have
to eat gluten-free food for the rest of her
life. With macrobiotics, she overcame her
allergies and now enjoys wheat, shoyu,
and other gluten products in moderation.
See Brown Rice and the Phy tic Acid
Controversy edited by Alex Jack, an
Amberwaves ' Special Report. Complimentary with a donation to Amberwaves
or a membership renewal (see coupon on
back page).
Alex Jack is president of Amberwaves
and general manager of the Kushi Institute, where he teaches planetary medicine and health.
PAGE9