Why you should probably stop eating wheat(news.discovery.com)
news.discovery.com
Why you should probably stop eating wheat
http://news.discovery.com/human/why-you-should-probably-stop-eating-wheat-121214.html
13 comments
All I can offer is my personal experience. Having gone wheat free about 5 months ago, my life has changed dramatically.
Energy, weight, hunger, depression, happiness, vitality, vigor, stamina and comprehension have all improved dramatically. I mean dramatically. And I've lost nearly 25lbs.
Going wheat free was quickly followed with other smaller changes (increased fitness, generally better eating, better social life, better professional life) but eliminating wheat preceded all the changes by about two months and I think it was the catalyst for many of the other positive changes.
Just my experience, as of late. But I hear it repeated over and over by others who have done the same.
Energy, weight, hunger, depression, happiness, vitality, vigor, stamina and comprehension have all improved dramatically. I mean dramatically. And I've lost nearly 25lbs.
Going wheat free was quickly followed with other smaller changes (increased fitness, generally better eating, better social life, better professional life) but eliminating wheat preceded all the changes by about two months and I think it was the catalyst for many of the other positive changes.
Just my experience, as of late. But I hear it repeated over and over by others who have done the same.
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> As nutrition expert Mark Sisson has noted, "Apart from maintaining social conventions in certain situations and obtaining cheap sugar calories, there is absolutely no reason to eat grains."
What a load of crap.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-...
What a load of crap.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-...
This article does not address the issues concerning grains, including high glycemic index, the presence of the protein gliadin and its poorly understood role in the intestinal tract, and whether a diet without grains (not the question of whole wheat flour vs. white or enriched flour) is overall better for you.
So, I am calling "fail" on your link.
So, I am calling "fail" on your link.
So your argument is that grains are good for you, because those who eat mostly whole grains are less unhealthy than those who eat mostly processed grains? Not sure that's entirely logical.
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today's hybridized wheat contains sodium azide, a known toxin. It also goes through a gamma irradiation process during manufacturing.
Fear monger much?
(Plants are full of biocides. Remember the "apples tainted with alar" scare? Sodium azide is about twice as toxic as cyanide in terms of dose, but I'm fairly certain you'll physically burst before you can ingest enough from wheat to affect you. Each airbag in your car contains enough sodium azide to kill 50 people. (50-250g of sodium azide, LD50 ~25mg/kg) Drive safely.)
Fear monger much?
(Plants are full of biocides. Remember the "apples tainted with alar" scare? Sodium azide is about twice as toxic as cyanide in terms of dose, but I'm fairly certain you'll physically burst before you can ingest enough from wheat to affect you. Each airbag in your car contains enough sodium azide to kill 50 people. (50-250g of sodium azide, LD50 ~25mg/kg) Drive safely.)
is this another case of people trying to silver bullet their lives into happiness/healthiness by medicating themselves with food?
Why is simply admitting that human health is a complex set of factors that can never realistically be applied to the general population, but rather requires a total holistic approach, and that anything else requiring this much zeal is largely emotionally damaging?
It doesn't really hurt anyone, but it does turn sour. My mother is a breast cancer survivor and she told me a lot about her experiences meeting with other women (some of whom are now dead, which upsets me somewhat).
In particular she struck up a friendship with one woman who was very outspoken in meetings, and told her the 'must reads' for any woman going through breast cancer, and handed her a book she had with her. It was a diet book for women with cancer, HEAVILY annotated and sticky-noted by this woman, to a shocking degree.
When she showed it to me, I realised there was a culture of blame among women with breast cancer; you are 'at fault' for getting cancer because you had the audacity to eat or drink X and must make penance by following these self-help books. I felt sick after I came to that realisation.
I would surmise taking it further and that any nutrition advice of this kind is really just a set up to blame people for their failures when they wind up with something serious.
Of course taking care of yourself is good, and people should be encouraged to do so, but any advice outside of your doctor should really be taken dubiously, all pseudoscience aside.
It doesn't really hurt anyone, but it does turn sour. My mother is a breast cancer survivor and she told me a lot about her experiences meeting with other women (some of whom are now dead, which upsets me somewhat).
In particular she struck up a friendship with one woman who was very outspoken in meetings, and told her the 'must reads' for any woman going through breast cancer, and handed her a book she had with her. It was a diet book for women with cancer, HEAVILY annotated and sticky-noted by this woman, to a shocking degree.
When she showed it to me, I realised there was a culture of blame among women with breast cancer; you are 'at fault' for getting cancer because you had the audacity to eat or drink X and must make penance by following these self-help books. I felt sick after I came to that realisation.
I would surmise taking it further and that any nutrition advice of this kind is really just a set up to blame people for their failures when they wind up with something serious.
Of course taking care of yourself is good, and people should be encouraged to do so, but any advice outside of your doctor should really be taken dubiously, all pseudoscience aside.
"Why you should probably stop taking nutritional advice from articles on the Internet"
The article falls into bad science: http://blog.tedx.com/post/37405280671/a-letter-to-the-tedx-c...
The article falls into bad science: http://blog.tedx.com/post/37405280671/a-letter-to-the-tedx-c...
Except it is not bad science. Gluten and Gliadian are opiates that are found in Triticum (wheat). These opiates have a psychological effect on the brain. A certain segment of the population has a severe reaction to these chemicals, and can not eat wheat. I am surprised the article did not go more into this. There are dozens of scientific papers in mainstream journals covering this. Yes, the article does not cite like a scientific paper, but it is popular science, not a scientific paper for specialists. Scientific journals reflect what it says.
But if you want me to speculate, which I do not feel speculates very far...we know from court records that tobacco companies purposefully spiked their product with nicotine so as to cause more tobacco sales. What chemicals have we seen a spike in from wheat from the industry in the past decades? The chemicals with opiates.
On the fringes of social science, some people think wheat was a grass which was harvested originally for its opiates, not its nutritional effect. It is not the only plant with multiple purposes - cannabis can make hemp, but also has psychological effects. The extreme version of this theory is the agricultural revolution was started by a bunch of drug addicts trying to get their opiate fix from wheat.
See that is speculation. Although speculation which could possibly have some grounding. What is scientific and grounded is that some people have a negative reaction to gluten and gliadin. Which this article is about. I am surprised they did not talk about how gliadin is an opiate, because there are many scientific papers on that. You can look it up yourself. I wrote a biology paper on this once. I can post the references to the scientific literature if anyone is interested and does not know how to look it up themselves.
But if you want me to speculate, which I do not feel speculates very far...we know from court records that tobacco companies purposefully spiked their product with nicotine so as to cause more tobacco sales. What chemicals have we seen a spike in from wheat from the industry in the past decades? The chemicals with opiates.
On the fringes of social science, some people think wheat was a grass which was harvested originally for its opiates, not its nutritional effect. It is not the only plant with multiple purposes - cannabis can make hemp, but also has psychological effects. The extreme version of this theory is the agricultural revolution was started by a bunch of drug addicts trying to get their opiate fix from wheat.
See that is speculation. Although speculation which could possibly have some grounding. What is scientific and grounded is that some people have a negative reaction to gluten and gliadin. Which this article is about. I am surprised they did not talk about how gliadin is an opiate, because there are many scientific papers on that. You can look it up yourself. I wrote a biology paper on this once. I can post the references to the scientific literature if anyone is interested and does not know how to look it up themselves.
Stating "scientific journals reflect [this or that]" and then saying "you can look it up yourself" immediately makes people assume you're either (1) an expert speaking authoritatively, or (2) just another pseudo-science internet crank. I don't know you or your credentials... but I'm guessing the HN crowd isn't going to prescribe you expert status.
In short: I'm not going to do the legwork for you. I have no horse in this race. But... I would have liked to check out credible journal articles suggested by someone that is (perhaps) more informed than me -- I wouldn't even know what to search for on Google Scholar.
In short: I'm not going to do the legwork for you. I have no horse in this race. But... I would have liked to check out credible journal articles suggested by someone that is (perhaps) more informed than me -- I wouldn't even know what to search for on Google Scholar.
Out of curiosity, which of the indicators of bad science from that letter do you believe apply to this article?
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin_index gives better understanding
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How is this hacker news?
When I was my healthiest (in terms of well being) and the fittest. I was eating Paleo. No wheat at all.
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Everything is bad for your health. You should stop eating everything.
Wikipedia says that Italy is fourth in the list of countries with the highest life expectancy. People on average are reasonably fit, it's rare to come across someone that can be defined as "obese".
Of course over the last decades the number of overweight or obese people HAS increased, but what has changed has been the arrival of fast food chains, and the availability of cheap and convenient processed foods over fresh ones.
I agree this is oversimplifying. But so does this this article.
Demonising a particular food (and idolising others) it's the worst kind of information you can give people, the truth is that you can safely eat most of commercially available food with moderation and common sense.