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Grains are found in thousands of grocery-store products, including pizza, pasta, cookies, cakes, muffins, microwave dinners, pretzels, and bread. The most common grain in American food products is wheat but rye, bran, corn, barley, buckwheat, millet, and rice are also common. These grains, especially after refining (e.g., wheat plants turned to white flour), have little or no nutritional value. Instead, they are highly damaging to the human body. At some point, we must ask ourselves “Why do I eat grains?” When the human body is fed a diet that is closest to those diets it has evolved to eat (i.e., low-carbohydrate, moderate fat, moderate protein diets in higher-latitude, non-tropical regions), it thrives. When food scientists decided to introduce products, such as high fructose corn syrup (1976), rBGH-enhanced milk (1993), white four, and hydrogenated oils, and table sugar, overall human health in the Western world began its current downward spiral. Between 1973 and 1999, adjusted for differences in age, cancer incidence rose 24%. Even more troubling is the precipitous rise in non-smoking cancers like malignant melanoma (156% rise over the same period), liver (104%), non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (87%), thyroid (71%), testis (67%), post-menopausal breast (54%), brain (28%), and acute myeloid leukemia (16%). But, you might ask, what do grains have to do with cancer? No one single dietary or environmental factor causes cancer by itself. It is a confluence of genetic predisposition, poor diet, and unfavorable environmental factors (including stress) that results in cancer. My stance against grains stems from the premise that since cancer has skyrocketed, we must be doing something wrong in America. What has changed most in the last few decades? Diet. I truly believe that if we revert to a diet that our cavemen and cavewomen ancestors would recognize, we will significantly reduce our chances of developing cancer and other modern health epidemics like acne and heart disease. Doing so will entail the removal of grains from our diet. Personally, I feel much better and my skin looks much better when I don’t eat grains. That’s reason enough for me not to eat them. But, if you require a more rigorous intellectual analysis, look at how white flour and wheat flour spike blood sugar levels. Or, look at the their phytate content, which reduces the body’s ability to absorb minerals. Or, consider that grains are of paltry nutritional value when compared to powerfully healthful vegetables and fruits, like tomatoes, berries, peppers, and zucchini. Why eat a category of foods that was wholly unfamiliar to our biology before the past two or three thousand years, that provides little nutritional value, that is pro-inflammatory, and that inhibits the absorption of key minerals like calcium, magnesium, iron, and zinc? If you are serious above improving your skin, you must be serious about removing all those things from your diet which are the invention of modern food science (e.g., HFCS), all those things your cavemen ancestors wouldn’t recognize, and all those things which spike your blood sugar. If after considering all of this you still don’t think that ditching grains will improve your skin, then try it anyway. Try it for a week or two. See if you feel better, less lethargic, stronger, more vital. See if your skin’s tone, texture, and purity improve. What do you have to lose? George www.clearskinlifestyle.com
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Acne, diet, health, grains, organic,
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