What To Eat What Not To Eat : Part 1 Gluten
There is lot of Gyan spread on WhatsApp and Facebook on what to eat and what not t eat to stay healthy and free from diseases. Going through that, we sometime feel guilty for what we are eating !
We largely believe that whole grains are healthy food. But it is worth recalling that a few thousand years ago, once grinding technology made it possible to remove fibrous parts of wheat and other grains, the riches opted for the white bread. They relegated whole grains such as brown rice and brown bread made whole grains to peasants and poor people. The whole idea to refine grains was that it go easy on the gut, as well as to make bread whiter. But the rich did not know that whole grains are considerably higher in lectin content than grains that have been stripped of their fiber, which explains why they were easier on the tummies. In fact Greeks and Romans even debated over which country has the whitest wheat and Egyptian was winner.
In India people were habitual of eating wheat flour with wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) i.e. chowkar but food faddists and some nutritionists started to bring whole-grain movement in mainstream, now breakfast cereals, bread and other baked goods touted as health foods and seductive words like 'whole grain goodness'. But Dr. Steven R Gundry, Director of the International Heart and Lung Institute, Palm Springs, Cal. says that this trend has actually wrought damage on our collective gut and opened the door to other health problems. The increased consumption of both whole grain foods and translates into a double whammy of lectin exposure.
He studied eating habits of people of Italy and France and opined that men and women keep their shape and have fewer heart problems than Americans as they are not consuming WGA. It is why Italians who eat white bread and only small portions of pasta made with white flour-in Italy, pasta is a first course, not the main dish American make of it-do not get fat , or at least not as fat as Americans. But the paradox is that now even Italians have also started eating whole grain pasta !
Now a days, the general perception is that the brown rice
is healthier, yet billions of people in Asian region eat rice stripped the hull off brown rice to make it white. Sounds stupid ? No, very intelligent, the hull has lectins and these cultures have been removing. It was believed that any white grain is inferior to whole grain. Traditionally, the Chinese, Japanese and many other Asian countries have not been plagued with obesity, heart disease, diabetes and other conditions that are so much common in western countries.
The current obsessions with 'whole-grain goodness' totally counter what our fore-bearers were trying to do with grains, but it is not the first time this fad has surfaced.
We largely believe that whole grains are healthy food. But it is worth recalling that a few thousand years ago, once grinding technology made it possible to remove fibrous parts of wheat and other grains, the riches opted for the white bread. They relegated whole grains such as brown rice and brown bread made whole grains to peasants and poor people. The whole idea to refine grains was that it go easy on the gut, as well as to make bread whiter. But the rich did not know that whole grains are considerably higher in lectin content than grains that have been stripped of their fiber, which explains why they were easier on the tummies. In fact Greeks and Romans even debated over which country has the whitest wheat and Egyptian was winner.
In India people were habitual of eating wheat flour with wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) i.e. chowkar but food faddists and some nutritionists started to bring whole-grain movement in mainstream, now breakfast cereals, bread and other baked goods touted as health foods and seductive words like 'whole grain goodness'. But Dr. Steven R Gundry, Director of the International Heart and Lung Institute, Palm Springs, Cal. says that this trend has actually wrought damage on our collective gut and opened the door to other health problems. The increased consumption of both whole grain foods and translates into a double whammy of lectin exposure.
He studied eating habits of people of Italy and France and opined that men and women keep their shape and have fewer heart problems than Americans as they are not consuming WGA. It is why Italians who eat white bread and only small portions of pasta made with white flour-in Italy, pasta is a first course, not the main dish American make of it-do not get fat , or at least not as fat as Americans. But the paradox is that now even Italians have also started eating whole grain pasta !
Now a days, the general perception is that the brown rice
is healthier, yet billions of people in Asian region eat rice stripped the hull off brown rice to make it white. Sounds stupid ? No, very intelligent, the hull has lectins and these cultures have been removing. It was believed that any white grain is inferior to whole grain. Traditionally, the Chinese, Japanese and many other Asian countries have not been plagued with obesity, heart disease, diabetes and other conditions that are so much common in western countries.
The current obsessions with 'whole-grain goodness' totally counter what our fore-bearers were trying to do with grains, but it is not the first time this fad has surfaced.
Comments
Post a Comment