Friday, May 21, 2010

Wheat Legumes and Soy: Hidden Evil Part 1

Hidden Evils: Part 1
Image Courtesy of dglider

Wheat is Healthy for you! You've been told it all your life, it must be true!
You must get your daily serving of Healthy Whole Grains. Wow. Why?
Im gonna go with 1.6 Trillion Dollar Food industry... and the cheapest easiest ingredient around. Why let you know all the side effects. Big Pharma only tells you because they've been forced to! And the list is long.

What if your Bread had the same requirements?

Hows this look.

Your "Healthy Whole Wheat or Soy Based Health Snack has minimal nutrition content, downright crummy compared to Real Whole Food. But heres what you get in return.

  • Increased Insulin Response, resulting in Decreased Insulin Sensitivity. See weight gain and diabetes.
  • Increased Leptin Resistance, see weight gain and other health issues.
  • Lectins: An Anti-Nutrient found in plants to protect them from would be predators. This binds to proteins in your body, causing all kinds of potential nasty results.
  • Soy contains Genistein, increasing excess estrogen in your body. Not great for women, especially bad for men.
  • An increase in Inflammation
  • Weakening of your digestive track, a "leaky gut" opens immense health issues.
  • Wheat contains Gluten, Generally related to Celiac Disease is a way of categorizing the most sensitive individuals. Its known that an incredible number of other people are sensitive to some degree and suspected that All of us are sensitive to a lesser degree.
  • High Omega 6 content(the bad fatty acid)
  • Low Omega 3 content(the good fatty acid)
  • Wheat Germ Agglutinin
  • Gastrointestinal Issues
  • Neurotoxic Issues
  • Potential Thyroid Issues
  • other issues with Food Allergies on a delayed or lesser reaction.
Now before you all ignore the list and start shaking your heads and walking away. Let me clarify.
Some of these are clear as day, Insulin response, Leptin Response, Genistein, Inflammation, Low Omega 6, High Omega 3, these happen immediately and affect all of us. 

These alone are reason enough for me.

However, the rest of the list, is not noticable, harder to test for, may be delayed response, or may only affect you after a lifetime or a short time. If you a mildly sensitive, you may not even know that your Lethargy etc are affected by the Antinutrients found in your "Health Food".
Think back to Big Pharma, sure that pill may have a positive effect, but if you could get the positive effect with a different pill without all the side effects... wouldn't you?
Thats what were talking about here, Change the FOOD you eat to something more nutritionally dense, without the side effects and enjoy a Better, Healthier Life with less side effects.

You can reduce(but not eliminate) some of harmful antinutrients found in grains and legumes. Processing such as Soaking, Sprouting and Fermenting(Sourdough) make the Grains less damaging...but again, Do you want your arm cut off at the Elbow, the Wrist or not at all?

Processing a weak nutrient source to get some benefit from it and the effort behind doing so is considerate, seems a rather silly option when healthy food without the side effects is easily available.

Meats, Vegetables, even a limited amount of Starches(mmm. Sweet Potato) and small quantities of Fruit.(remember our sugar lesson) are all much healthier and much more nutritionally dense.

From NutritionData.com, heres a small portion of Whole Wheat Bread(roughly 2 slices) compared to a smaller portion of Asparagus.


  • 278 Calories compared to 68
  • 45g of Insulin Spiking Carbohydrates compared to 6g
  • 3.8g of Sugar compared to 0g (try eating bread with no sugar used,Blech)
  • 317mg of Omega 3 compared to 14.2mg (asparagus is not a great Omega source)
  • 2621mg of Omega 6 compared to 273mg (but its 1/10th of the bad stuff)
  • 8.4g of Protein compared to 9.2g
  • Vitamin Content, under 20% of anything compared to 7 solid Vitamins, 2 over 100%
  • Mineral content, Manganese and Selenium. vs a nice spread of the rest.
Lets Look at one of my favorites. Half of a Wild Salmon Filet.


  • 278 Calories compared to 281 (pretty close!)

  • 45g of Insulin Spiking Carbohydrates compared to 0

  • 3.8g of Sugar compared to 0

  • 317mg of Omega 3 compared to 3996mg

  • 2621mg of Omega 6 compared to 341mg (wow look at that Ratio!)

  • 8.4g of Protein compared to 39.3g

  • Vitamin Content, under 20% of anything compared to 6 solid Vitamins

  • Mineral content, Manganese and Selenium. vs a nice spread of the rest.


  • my point is, we can do this all day. Comparing Wheat and Grains to Meat and Veggies, the Satiety Factor is less with Grains, the Insulin response is higher, the Inflammation is higher, the Omega Ratios are Terrible, The Vitamins are lower, across the board theres no compelling nutritional argument for Wheat OVER Meat/Veggies... and Wheat has all the side effects...

    So why is it the base of our Food Pyramid?
    First one to answer correctly gets a Grain-free Cookie, and yes it's tasty. Personally Ill keep eating my Surf and Turf. mmm.

    3 comments:

    Stephen (Aegis) said...

    The three most common autoimmune diseases that are connected to lectin are celiac disease, dermatitis herpetiformis and rheumatoid arthritis. However, grains are also implicated in the development of virtually all autoimmune disorders.

    designerdavid said...

    I'll bet the reason grain is at the bottom of the pyramid has to do with money, right?

    Stephen (Aegis) said...

    That's the gist, oversimplified

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