Whole Grains - Are they reall that wholesome?

I’ve been reading up on whole grains the last couple of days. I happened upon The Real Truth About those “Healthy Whole Grains” by Scott Kustes over at Fitness Spotlight. The post suggests that those wholesome whole grains aren’t actually all that great for us. Despite the opinions of this post going counter to popular belief, a chord was struck within me, and I had to investigate the matter further.

The gist of what is wrong with whole grains according to Scott Kustes and the articles he cites, as understood by a very non-biology sort of person (they couldn’t even make me take Bio 10) is:

The plants that we call whole grains contain a hormones called lectins that act as a self defense mechanism for the plant. These lectins have the ability to latch on to vitamins and minerals, preventing the body from absorbing their goodness. They also seem to be able to block certain receptors, which also prevents the body from taking full advantage of the foods being consumed.

There is a correlation between lectins in the body, and leptin resistance. Leptin is a good hormone in the body that lets us know when we are hungry or full. Leptin resistance is a precursor to insulin resistance, which is a precursor to diabetes and obesity. The causality between lectins in wheat and leptin resistance is not scientifically proven. There is, however, sufficient evidence to investigate their correlation.

If this theory is correct, grains, specially wheat, messes with our ability to properly monitor our level of hunger, and our ability to absorb the goodness in the foods we eat. That is some seriously bad effects for something we consider to be wholesome!

One of the comments on Scott Kustes’ above mentioned post caught my attention. Kat Eden wholeheartedly agrees with the sentiment of the post, and the conviction behind her comment led me to her blog. The personal trainer and coach from Australia supports a new holistic approach to nutrition that she calls New Nutrition. Even though the programmer in me is cringing at the use of “New” in the name, I love what Kat has to say and her nutrition philosophy. Her approach incorporates additional factors in nutrition including hormones (this is HUGE one), sleep and our evolutionary relationship with the change of seasons.

Kat Eden proposes The Grain Challenge, in which she challenges us to cut out all grains for 2 weeks, evaluate how you feel, and slowly reintroduce grains, re-evaluate how you feel, and judge for yourself as to whether whole grains are really the bees knees as touted by conventional nutrition philosophies.

I decided that I would take on this challenge almost immediately. I found these posts on Sunday night, and on Monday morning I was routing around the kitchen to put together an omelet and fresh fruit for breakfast instead of my usual Shreddies with skim milk. I don’t know if this New Nutrition approach is correct, but what I now understand about lectins, leptins and their possible interactions having an effect on our weight and overall health makes sense to me. So I’m doing it: The Grain Challenge. I’ll be blogging about my experiences with grain elimination in the hopes the my readers might benefit from my experiences.

My motivation for taking on The Grain Challenge comes from a long lived frustration. Frustration from being sick and tired of being sick and tired. For quite sometime, in the order of years, have felt tired most of the time, and had been very prone to illness in the last 3-4 years. I have also been struggling to lose weight over the past year. I am about 20 pounds overweight, and have bee focused on loosing that weight, to no avail. I have in no means been a saint, but I have put in honest effort in keeping my eating clean, and my fitness level up, and have been rewarded with nothing but a 3 lbs gain over the year.

My evaluation factors are:

• My energy level – Will I find my long lost “get up and go”
• How I feel – Will I feel healthier and less prone to illness?
• Weight loss – Will I shed any of this excess weight with the elimination of grains?
• My skin – My sensitive, acne -prone skin is a good monitor of how healthy I am

I havn’t eaten any grains for 3 days. It is still to early to properly evaluate, but I do feel that my energy level is up since the weekend. I’ll be blogging again about my experiences with The Grain Challenge in the days and weeks to come.