The Argument Against Cereal Grains

I’ve been meaning to write a post on how gluten grains are a suboptimal source of nutrition in other than small amounts.   However, due to a busy schedule I thought I would at least repost one of Dr. Kurt Harris’s online papers with respect to this subject: 

“Cereal grains are seeds of monocot grasses that have been artificially selected by humans to serve as food. The ones that cause the most trouble, and constitute the biggest part of European and North American diets, are the gluten grains Wheat, Barley and Rye. I use the term gluten grains to signify primarily wheat barley and rye, but spelt, triticale and other less common grains, and some argue, oats are also gluten containing. One factor complicating gluten grain avoidance is the fact that non-gluten grains can often be contaminated by being processed on the same equipment as gluten grains.

How about other grains? Corn, rice and other non-gluten grains are carbohydrate heavy have antinutrients that interfere with mineral absorption and offer no nutritional advantages over animal products and non-seed vegetables in a food-abundant (non-subsistence) environment. As these non-gluten grains were also not consumed in important amounts in the Paleolithic period, the healthiest strategy is just complete grain avoidance.”

I like the fact that intelligent people such as Dr. Kurt Harris, are skeptics at first until they begin to do their own research on the subject.  I also had the same skepticism, until I did more research:

“Our cultural veneration of grains literally amounts to making a virtue of necessity, as 55% of world calories consumed is from grains. A paradigm shift is possible, though, if you are willing to read some more and adopt a radical skepticism of current government, mainstream media and industry supported nutritional dogma. I was initially as skeptical as you might be, and only came to my conclusions through investigation.

Again I ask, rhetorically, what possible negative health consequence could there be to eliminating wheat, barley and rye from your diet?

Ditch the grains. Don’t be a wheat-eater.”

read the whole article, via Archevore – Archevore Blog – The Argument Against Cereal Grains.