If you peruse some of the gluten free websites you will notice folks who are still struggling with significant GI problems despite strict adherence to a gluten free diet. It’s a really unfortunate situation as these folks are typically quite sick and they have been put through the mill of modern medicine to finally receive a diagnosis of gluten intolerance. These folks are lucky in that some doctor, usually a rheumatologist, finally figured out the OBVIOUS. Now these poor souls embark on a gluten free lifestyle that includes rice flour, and loads of legume products. This is not helping the insulin resistance most of these folks have AND it is exposing them to other lectins which have significant GI problems as well.
Swapping out one neolithic food for another might mitigate some problems, only to produce others. I used to hang out on a few of these gluten free forums but the owners of the sites were not happy with me not recommending the rice cookies and crackers they sold and the folks on the forum were already overwhelmed with trying to figure out how to live gluten free. Telling these poor souls that legumes and other grains were problematic as well just launched them over the edge. Too much hassle, too little reward.
8 Comments
Robb,
Besides the obvious high GI of rice, I’m trying to think of other things that would make polished white rice bad. Living in Hawaii, I often hear that “no one is allergic to rice,” which is a staple here.
Since there are anti-nutrients in rice, I’d like to tell people that even if they aren’t celiacs, overweight, or diabetic, rice consumption can still be injurious to their health.
Do you know of any information on long-term, latent anti-nutrient damage?
Thanks.
Nicholas-
The anti-nutrient issue is a real deal and we see this played out in the height difference between Okinawans (Tall) and Most of the rest of Japan (short by comparison to Okinawans or Japanese Americans). The Okinawans get the bulk of their carbs from a nutrient dense tuber and get a fair amount of protein in a mixed bag of fermented soy products, fish and meat. For folks who have solid access to fruits and veggies this is likely not that big an issue, leaving the glycemic load as the main downside of rice.
Rice is without a doubt much more benign from an immunological perspective than say wheat, rye, oats, barley and millet.
Robb
Children’s lymric:
Bean beans the magical fruit
The more you eat the more you toot
The more you toot the more you friends hate you, beautiful women run from your noxious emissions, roll down the windows, blame the dog, raise the sash on the fume hood, bean breath hippie ego looking down at me because I accept what I am, a meat eater, squeeze the Charmin you’ll be using a lot of it to wipe that bean filth from your inflamed anus, beans have feelings too, beans is murder, trading a delicious cow for beans, Jack, silly Jack.. Fee! Fie! Foe! Fum!
Brad
So I guess hummus is also a no-no. But is it at least borderline OK? The Zone recommends for a snack hard boiled eggs with the yolks removed, stuffed with hummus. Before taking your seminar in SF, I tried this as a snack, and it’s sooo good. Oh, well…
Andy-
It’s just VERY carb dense. Use it if you like it. Also, if the eggs are n-3 eggs you should be eating THOSE yolks!
Rob,
Can’t believe someone other than me figured out celiac folks should avoid legumes. I knew no gluten by a celiac dna test, but the legumes I learned the hard way. Good luck getting doctors to see that only paleolithic foods are the best answer for celiac treatment.
Dan-
It’s kind of a sad state of affairs. If you hang out on any of the celiac websites the people are still having significant digestive problems in addition to heading towards type 2 diabetes…for many of these folks the gluten transition is so life altering that a suggestion to remove all the rice bread, chickpea flour products they are using is just too much. Too bad.
If Rice bread is bad, is tapioca better? Or should I stick with Corn flour? It really is overwhelming and confusing!
Kasey-
these other items are problematic because of insulin load…high carbs!
The stuff to keep in mind:
1-the autoimmune aspect of grains/legumes.
2-the glycemic load of the same.
This is where meat, veggies and fruit take care of 99% of our ills. Then we just have occasional forays into foods like rice bread etc. Hang in there, you will get a handle on things.
- I know this is an old post, but I just happened upon it. I do not have an official Celiac diagnosis as I have figured out that gluten and grains make me sick and cannot stomach the thought of ingesting them long enough and in enough quantity to produce positive test results.
That said I have also noticed blood sugar issues and am very interested in how they are all related. I have also figured out that I need to keep my foods to low gi to feel the best.
Even more coicidentally I was reading recently about someone saying that small kids could be the result of diabetes. My son has had a positive gene test for Celiac’s and is showing antibodies against gluten (and casein for that matter) he has been off now for 3.5 months and seems to be slowly putting on some weight , but it is slow. So, reading that and your post give me something to think about.
Fwiw, I cook nearly paleo. We eat grassfed beef and good eggs. I don’t do gf baked goods for the most part- like coconut flour muffins on Sunday and prepared gf products are very, very rare. My son does eat a fair amount of fruit though, mostly bananas- but I do keep him to 1 c of 100% juice a day.
Anyway- excuse the ramblings- I just find it all interesting.
Thanks Amanda! Good stuff!
Been seeking a dietary/nutritional solution to several bouts of tendonitis in different parts of my body that have stopped me from exercising. I’m 56 and don’t want to waste away, so it’s been depressing. I discovered the Weston Price diet by accident but have a gut sense (no pun intended, or maybe yes) that it’s way too restricted and too heavy on the saturated fats. I’m not convinced, despite their claims, that it’s a wonderful thing to pile on the cream and the beef. Also they don’t have the impressive amount of scientific research behind them that I’ve discovered in Dr. Cordain’s book, which I’m reading right now.
So I have some questions that I’m hoping you can answer for me. The first concerns the prohibition on tuberous vegetables. If one of the main criteria is length of time humans have been eating foodstuffs, I’d think yams and yuca, for instance, would be allowed. Indigenous people all over the world have root vegetables in their diets, since they are so easily “gathered” by just digging them up. I absolutely love sweet potatoes and yuca and would really miss them.
I also wonder about the total prohibition on lentils, split peas and the like. I think of the millions of Hindu vegetarians, who get all their protein from lentils, yellow split peas and chick peas (and the flours made from them) and dairy. They also eat a lot of whatever fruits and vegetables they can get their hands on, as well as rice and wheat. They may not have a lot of variety in their diets depending on economic limitations, but statistically they have a low incidence of heart disease, obesity, Alzheimer’s and the like. Their diet also contains a lot of spices, including turmeric, a wonderful anti-oxidant. How do they fit into the Paleo picture?
Here’s another one: although we are genetically identical to the humans who lived 40,000 years ago, there are significant variations in diet among races and ethnicities arising from climate variations and available resources. Like the Eskimo who thrives on fish and blubber or the Mongol who lives on yak and its by-products…people adapt amazingly well over generations to very limited conditions, and can live long, healthy lives eating very little. So it’s clear that there isn’t just one way to eat healthy.
Just trying to make sense of the do’s and don’ts of the Paleo diet. It’s very confusing and disheartening to me when dietary philosophies take on the tone of religious wars, everybody waving their supposed authenticity in the air — my diet is better than your diet! What impresses me about Paleo is the research. It’s not just a guy tripping around the world and looking at the teeth of a few cultures, coming home and making pronouncements (not that W. Price did that — I think his followers did).
I’ve got serious enough health issues to at least consider taking the grains and beans out of my diet. But I’m allergic to wheat, dairy and soy and don’t eat those, and the thought of removing the few remaining grains (quinoa, buckwheat, corn and rice) and the beans, which I love, is depressing. Whenever I cut out carbs all together, I feel unsatisfied, no matter how much of animal protein, vegetables and fruits I eat.
Knowing the science and understanding the underlying reasoning would help.
Thanks for your insights into these topics.
Milos D.
Milos-
When you get sick enough, and depressed enough…changing your food and finally getting well will seem like a reasonable trade. A few things to consider:
The Health of Legumes:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0999/is_7190_318/ai_54561205/pg_1
Health of Vegetarian Hindus:
Similarly, the Russians of the Caucasus mountains live to great ages on a diet of fatty pork and whole raw milk products. The Hunzas, also known for their robust health and longevity, eat substantial portions of goat’s milk which has a higher saturated fat content than cow’s milk (86). In contrast, the largely vegetarian Hindus of southern India have the shortest life-spans in the world, partly because of a lack of food, but also because of a distinct lack of animal protein in their diets. H. Leon Abrams’ comments are instructive here:
Vegetarians often maintain that a diet of meat and animal fat leads to a pre-mature death. Anthropological data from primitive societies do not support such contentions.
With regards to endurance and energy levels, Dr Price, from the Weston Price Group, traveled around the world in the 1920s and 1930s, investigating native diets. Without exception, he found a strong correlation between diets rich in animal fats, robust health and athletic ability. Special foods for Swiss athletes, for example, included bowls of fresh, raw cream. In Africa, Dr Price discovered that groups whose diets were rich in fatty meats and fish, and organ meats like liver, consistently carried off the prizes in athletic contests, and that meat-eating tribes always dominated tribes whose diets were largely vegetarian.
The above from CrossFit Balboa
Brother, you need less information and more action.
let me also mention that indians (dots, not feathers) suffer greatly from heart disease & obesity, stomach problems & diabetes, at least when they get over here & quit walking all the time. in india, as in europe, people are thin & fit from daily walking or labour, which often falls by the wayside when they adopt our comparatively lazy, suburban american lifestyle. there is nothing magically healthy about their vegetarian food. i ate it for several years & became lethargic & skinny. (on the bright side, at least i had not the faintest trace of love handles billowing over the sides of my sari, but it’s quite the price to pay for not getting enough protein & other nutrition from your food.)