Week - 8.24.2012

"Instead, remember that the need for "healthy whole grains" is pure fiction.  Grains such as wheat are no more a necessary part of the human diet than personal injury attorneys are to your backyard pool party.
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Contrary to popular wisdom, including that of your friendly neighborhood dietitian, there is no deficiency that develops from elimination of wheat - provided the lost calories are replaced with the right foods.
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Some people, for instance, are concerned they will not consume sufficient fiber if they eliminate wheat.  Ironically, if you replace wheat calories with those from vegetables and raw nuts, fiber intake goes up.
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The dietary community assumes that you live on taco chips and jelly beans, and you therefore require foods "fortified" with various vitamins.  However, all those assumptions fall apart if you don't exist on what you can obtain from a bag at the local convenience store but consume real foods instead.  B vitamins, such as B6, B12, folic acid, and thiamine, are added to baked, processed wheat products; dietitians therefore warn us that forgoing these products will yield vitamin B deficiencies.  Also untrue.  B vitamins are present in more than ample quantities in meats, vegetables, and nuts.  While bread and other wheat products are required by law to have added folic acid, you'll exceed the folic acid content of wheat products several times over just by eating a handful of sunflower seeds or asparagus.  A quarter cup of spinach, or four asparagus spears, for instance, matches the quantity of folic acid in most breakfast cereals.  (Also, the folates of natural sources may be superior to the folic acid in fortified processed foods.)  Nuts and green vegetables are, in general, exceptionally rich sources of folate and represent the way humans were meant to obtain it. ... Likewise, vitamin B6 and thiamine are obtained in much greater amounts from four ounces of chicken or pork, an avocado, or 1/4 cup of ground flaxseed than from an equivalent weight of wheat products.

In addition, eliminating wheat from your diet actually enhances B vitamin absorption.  It is not uncommon, for instance, for vitamin B12 and folate, along with levels of iron, zinc, and magnesium, to increase with the removal of wheat, since gastrointestinal health improves and, along with it, absoprtion.

Eliminating wheat may be inconvenient, but it is certainly not unhealthy."

I wanted to include the above information because, in a way, it was new to me.  To think that you don't need grains to live a healthy lifestyle contradicts what we are brought up learning.  Davis often discusses ancient man, before farming, who were hunters and gatherers.  Their diet consisted primarily of meat and plants they could gather and eat as they were.  And they survived.  Well, at least what killed them was not disease, but rather harsh living conditions.  With the introduction of farming wheat, you can trace the increase in many ailments.  It's good information to consider when thinking about the diet we subsist on today.

The last couple days have actually been really good.  Last night I slept without waking the whole night.  After experiencing that before I strayed last week, and then going back to fitfull sleep, I can't help but wonder if my eating had to do with it.  I'm also finding new ways to fulfill my cravings that fit in with the current diet.  For example, for lunch I had carrots and gluten-free crackers with hummus.  I haven't enjoyed hummus in a long time, and the crackers made it feel like I was snacking on dip.  Tonight, after dinner, I had strawberries with some chocolate syrup and whipped cream.  It felt like I was eating this awful, fattening dessert when really, the majority of it was healthy strawberries.  At the end of the book, Davis talks about what you can eat unlimitedly (is that a word?)...cheese, nuts and seeds were in this category.  Such a difference from what I was trying to do before with no cheese and measured out proportions of seeds and nuts.  It certainly helps to be able to do to the kitchen and no what can be eaten and what can't, and then to go about putting something together without really having to worry about measuring any of it.

Overall, I can't say I will never slip with wheat (afterall even O'Reilly has a cookie now and again), but I feel confident that I can take the lessons of this book and go with it.  After the crumbling resolve of last week, I feel solid again.