Ironically, those who suffer most severely from wheat withdrawal on removal are the same people who are prone to this effect. Unrestrained consumption can result even after the most minimal “harmless” indulgence.
Short of taking opiate-blocking drugs such as naltrexone, there is no healthy and easy way to bypass this effect. People prone to this phenomenon simply need to be vigilant and not let the little wheat devil standing on their shoulder whisper, “Go on, it can’t hurt! It’s just one little cookie.”
The best way to avoid re-exposure effects: Avoid wheat and related grains 100 percent, without compromise, once you’ve eliminated them from your diet.
WHAT ABOUT OTHER GRAINS AND CARBOHYDRATES?
After you’ve removed wheat from your diet, what’s left?
Remove wheat and you’ve removed the most flagrant problem source in the diet of people who follow otherwise healthy diets. Wheat is really the worst of the worst in carbohydrates. But other carbohydrates can be problem sources as well, though on a lesser scale.
I believe that we’ve all survived a fifty-year period of excessive carbohydrate consumption, accentuated by silly low-fat advice. Reveling in all the new processed food products that hit supermarket shelves from the seventies onward, we indulged in carbohydrate-rich breakfast foods, lunch, dinner, and snacks. As a result, for decades we’ve been exposed to wide fluctuations of blood sugar and glycation, increasingly severe resistance to insulin, growth of visceral fat, and inflammatory responses, all of which lead us to have tired, beaten pancreases that are unable to keep up with the demand to produce insulin. Continued carbohydrate challenges forced on flagging pancreatic function lead us down the path of prediabetes and diabetes, hypertension, lipid abnormalities (low HDL, high triglycerides, small LDL particles), fatty liver, arthritis, heart disease, stroke, and all the other consequences of excessive carbohydrate consumption.
For this reason, I believe that, in addition to wheat elimination, an overall reduction in carbohydrates is also beneficial. It helps further unwind all the carbohydrate-indulgent phenomena that we’ve cultivated all these years.
If you wish to roll back the appetite-stimulating, insulin-distorting, and small LDL–triggering effects of foods beyond wheat, or if substantial weight loss is among your health goals, then you should consider reducing or eliminating a number of other foods in addition to eliminating wheat. As a starter, removing all immediate relatives of wheat means removing all rye, barley, bulgur, triticale, spelt, and traditional strains of wheat such as emmer, kamut, and einkorn. These are the grasses with considerable genetic overlap with wheat, just as modern elephants are related to woolly mammoths.
Because my use of the term wheat represents all related grains, it also means removing all foods made of corn, second only to wheat in its ubiquity in processed foods. People are often surprised to hear that corn is a grain, a seed of a grass, one that has been extensively mutated through human effort to convert the short, slender seed head of teosinte and maize (corn’s natural ancestors) into the huge seed head of modern corn (the “cob”), not to mention the genetic-modification efforts that now define nearly all corn sold. While distinct in taste, the zein protein of corn resembles the gliadin protein of wheat; plus, the amylopectin A carbohydrate is plentiful in corn. The long list of corn-containing foods includes cornmeal products such as tacos, tortillas, corn chips, and corn breads; breakfast cereals; sauces, soups, and gravies thickened with cornstarch.
Rice is also a grain. While it does not share most of the damaging proteins of wheat, it contains wheat germ agglutinin and thereby its inflammatory potential. There is also the recently identified problem with arsenic content, with some products such as rice milk extraordinarily high in arsenic, enough to exert toxic effects on children.6 Rice is also more than 90 percent carbohydrate, essentially little different from sugar. We therefore avoid all rice (white, brown, or wild) and rice products such as rice milk, rice cakes, and rice crackers.
You might think that oats have been given a free pass, given the fiber content, but no such luck: With the amylopectin A carbohydrate, oat products such as stone-ground, organic oatmeal send blood sugar sky high, even if no sugar or sweetener is added. We therefore avoid oatmeal and oat-containing baked products such as breads and cookies.
Sorghum is also a grain, though contained in only a limited number of foods. High in sugar and with numerous indigestible proteins, it is a distant relative of wheat but nonetheless poses a collection of unique adverse effects on humans.
Now, don’t panic with the next list of all the foods we avoid. Avoiding cheesecake, for instance, simply means that we avoid store-bought, sugared-up, wheat crust cheesecake, but we can easily re-create a cheesecake with no wheat and no sugar that is every bit as tasty and satisfying.
Non-grain foods we avoid include:
Snack foods—This encompasses thousands of processed food products such as potato chips, popcorn, puddings, candy bars, and energy bars. These foods send blood sugar straight up to the stratosphere.
Desserts—Pies, cakes, cupcakes, ice cream, sherbet, and other sugary desserts all pack too much sugar.
Potatoes—White, red, sweet potatoes, and yams cause effects similar to those generated by rice due to starch content. (We will discuss, however, how raw white potatoes are included as a source of zero-carbohydrate prebiotic fibers.)
Gluten-free foods—Because the cornstarch, rice starch, potato starch, and tapioca starch used in place of wheat gluten cause extravagant blood sugar rises, they should absolutely be avoided.
Fruit juices, soft drinks—Even if they are “natural,” fruit juices are not good for you. While they contain healthy components such as flavonoids and vitamin C, the sugar load is simply too great. More than two to four ounces will trigger blood sugar consequences. Eight ounces of orange juice, for example, contains over six teaspoons of sugar, more than is contained in your entire bloodstream. Soft drinks, especially carbonated, are incredibly unhealthy mostly due to added sugars, high-fructose corn syrup, colorings, and the extreme acid challenge from carbonation. “Diet” soft drinks sweetened with aspartame, saccharin, or sucralose should also be avoided, as they have been associated with the disruption of bowel flora, which contributes to weight gain and type 2 diabetes.7
Dried fruit—Dried cranberries, raisins, figs, dates, and apricots are packed with concentrated sugar and should be used only in the most minimal quantities.
Other grain-like products—Grain-like foods, or “pseudograins” such as quinoa and buckwheat, are unrelated to wheat and grains and thereby lack the immune system and exorphin consequences of wheat. However, they post substantial carbohydrate challenges, sufficient to generate high blood sugars. I believe these grains are safer than wheat, but small servings (less than two tablespoons) are key to minimize blood sugar impact.
Legumes—We limit consumption of black beans, white beans, kidney beans, butter beans, lima beans, chickpeas, and lentils, since (as with potatoes and rice) there is potential for blood sugar effects, especially if serving size exceeds ½ cup. But legumes are rich in prebiotic fibers, so we try to include small quantities (around ¼ cup per meal) as often as possible.
THERE IS NO need to restrict fats. But some fats and fatty foods really should not be part of anyone’s diet. These include hydrogenated (trans) fats (margarine in particular) in processed foods, fried oils that contain excessive by-products of oxidation and AGE formation, and cured meats such as sausages, bacon, hot dogs, salami, etc. (sodium nitrite and AGEs). Look for uncured meats instead that do not contain the carcinogen sodium nitrite. (Sodium nitrate is fine, however.)
THE GOOD NEWS
So what can you eat?
Several basic eating principles can serve you well in your wheat-free campaign.
Eat vegetables.
You already knew that. While I am no fan of conventional wisdom, on this point conventional wisdom is ab
solutely correct: Vegetables, in all their wondrous variety, are among the best foods on planet earth. Rich in nutrients such as flavonoids and fiber, they should form the centerpiece of everyone’s diet. Prior to the agricultural revolution, humans hunted and gathered their food. The gathered part of the equation refers to plants such as wild onions, garlic mustard, mushrooms, dandelions, purslane, and countless others. Anyone who says, “I don’t like vegetables” is guilty of not having tried them all, people who think that vegetables ended at creamed corn and canned green beans. You can’t “not like it” if you haven’t tried it. The incredible range of tastes, textures, and versatility of vegetables means there are choices for everyone, from eggplant sliced and baked with olive oil and meaty portobello mushrooms; to a Caprese salad of sliced tomatoes, mozzarella, fresh basil, and olive oil; to daikon radish and pickled ginger alongside fish. Extend your vegetable variety beyond your usual habits. Explore mushrooms such as shiitake and porcini. Adorn cooked dishes with alliums such as scallions, garlic, leeks, shallots, and chives. Vegetables shouldn’t just be for dinner; think about vegetables for any time of day, including breakfast.
Eat some fruit.
Notice that I did not say, “Eat fruits and vegetables.” That’s because the two don’t belong together, despite the phrase sliding out of the mouths of dietitians and others echoing conventional thinking. While vegetables should be consumed ad libitum, fruit should be consumed in limited quantities. Sure, fruit contains healthy components, such as flavonoids, vitamin C, and fiber. But fruit, especially herbicided, fertilized, crossbred, gassed, and hybridized fruit, has become too rich in sugar. Year-round access to fruits overexposes you to sugars, sufficient to amplify diabetic tendencies and weight gain. Manage this issue by consuming small servings, such as a ¼ to ½ cup of blueberries or strawberries, a few wedges of apple or orange; more than that excessively provokes blood sugar. Berries (blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, and cranberries) and cherries are at the top of the list with the greatest nutrient content and the least sugars, while bananas, pineapple, mango, and papaya need to be especially limited due to high sugar content.
Here is a useful rule of thumb to help navigate carbohydrate- and sugar-containing foods such as fruit: never exceed 15 grams net carbs per meal. Maintaining carb intake at this level accelerates weight loss and reversal of conditions such as type 2 diabetes and fatty liver. A simple calculation is necessary:
Net Carbs = Total Carbs – Fiber
Fiber is classified as a carbohydrate, but humans are incapable of metabolizing fibers and we can therefore subtract fiber from total carbs. A seven-inch ripe banana, for example, contains 27 grams total carbs, 3 grams fiber: 27 – 3 = 24 grams net carbs—too high and enough to turn off weight loss, raise blood sugar and insulin, and prevent reversal of conditions such as type 2 diabetes and fatty liver. Consume only half the banana (or include a green, unripe banana in your smoothie for its prebiotic fiber content, to be discussed later). You can find total carb and fiber counts in several smartphone apps (search for “nutritional analysis” in your app store; Nutrition Lookup and Suggestic are my favorites), websites such as SELF NutritionData, and inexpensive handbooks that you can carry in your purse.
Eat nuts.
Raw almonds, walnuts, pecans, pistachios, hazelnuts, and Brazil nuts are wonderful. And you can eat as much as you want. They’re filling and full of fiber and monounsaturated oils. They reduce blood pressure, they’re satiating, and consuming them several times a week can add two years to your life.8 Just be careful with cashews, as even a ½ cup contains around 20 grams net carbs—too high for our purposes.
It’s tough to overdo nuts, provided they’re raw or dry roasted with nothing added. (Avoid those roasted in hydrogenated cottonseed or soybean oils, “honey roasted” beer nuts, or any of the other endless variations in processed nuts, variations that transform healthy nuts into something that causes weight gain, high blood pressure, and increases LDL cholesterol.) This is not the “No more than fourteen nuts at a time” or one-hundred-calorie pack recommendation issued by dietitians fearful of fat intake. Many people are unaware that you can eat or even buy raw nuts. They’re widely available in the bulk section of grocery stores, in three-pound bags in “big box” stores such as Sam’s Club and Costco, and at health food stores. If you like your nuts dry-roasted, just be sure that they are just that: dry-roasted and not ruined with added sugar, maltodextrin, wheat flour, etc. Peanuts, of course, are not nuts, but legumes; they cannot be consumed raw and should therefore be boiled or dry roasted and should not include ingredients such as hydrogenated oils, wheat flour, maltodextrin, cornstarch, sucrose—nothing but peanuts.
Use oils generously.
Curtailing oil is entirely unnecessary, part of the dietary blunders of the past forty years. Use healthy oils liberally, such as extra-virgin olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, butter, ghee, and cocoa butter, but avoid polyunsaturated oils such as sunflower, safflower, corn, and vegetable oils (that trigger oxidation and inflammation). Try to minimize heating and cook at lower temperatures; minimize frying, since deep-frying is the extreme of oxidation that triggers, among other things, AGE formation.
Eat meats, organs, and eggs.
The fat phobia of the past forty years turned us off from foods such as eggs, sirloin, liver, and pork because of their saturated fat content—but saturated fat was never the problem. Carbohydrates in combination with saturated fat, however, cause measures of LDL particles to skyrocket and, for this reason, we manage the real driver of health problems: wheat and sugar. The problem was carbohydrates more than saturated fat all along. Newer studies have exonerated saturated fat as a contributor to heart attack and stroke risk.9 There’s also the issue of exogenous AGEs that accompany animal products; AGEs are unhealthy parts of meats that are among the potentially unhealthy components of animal products, but not the saturated fat. Reduced exposure to exogenous AGEs in animal products is a matter of cooking at lower temperatures for shorter time periods whenever possible, not outright avoidance of animal products that we consumed for millions of years before the fiction of “healthy whole grains” tricked us.
Try to buy meats from grass-fed livestock (which have greater omega-3 linolenic acid composition and are less likely to be antibiotic- and growth hormone–ridden), and preferentially those raised under humane conditions and not in the Auschwitz-equivalent of a factory farm. Don’t fry your meats and avoid meats cured with the carcinogen sodium nitrite. You should also eat eggs—all you want. Not “one egg per week” or other non-sensical restriction. Eat what your body tells you to eat, since appetite signals, once rid of unnatural appetite stimulants such as wheat flour, will let you know what you require.
Choose dairy products.
Dairy has issues. But we can reduce or minimize such problem issues by being selective. Whenever possible, choose organic, full-fat—never low- or non-fat—and unflavored and unsweetened. We also gravitate toward fermented dairy that further reduces problem ingredients.
Cheeses are a wonderfully diverse food. Recall that fat is not the issue, so enjoy familiar full-fat cheeses such as Swiss or Cheddar, or exotic cheeses such as Stilton, Crottin du Chavignol, Edam, or Comté. Cheese serves as a wonderful snack or the centerpiece of a meal.
Other dairy products such as cottage cheese and milk should be consumed in limited quantities of no more than one serving per day due to the insulinotropic effect of the whey protein, the tendency to increase pancreatic release of insulin, as well as the immunogenic (immune-disease-causing) effects of casein.10 (The fermentation process required to make cheese and yogurt reduces the content of intact casein protein, as casein is denatured, or broken down, by the acids of fermentation.) Butter and ghee (“clarified” butter with proteins removed) are nearly all fat and thereby minimize the problems associated with lactose, whey, and casein.
Most people with lactose intolerance are able to consume at leas
t some cheese, yogurt, and butter, provided it is real cheese and real yogurt that have been subjected to a fermentation process. (You can recognize real cheese and yogurt by the words “culture” or “live culture” in the list of ingredients, meaning a live organism was added to ferment the milk.) Fermentation converts lactose to lactic acid, as well as breaks down casein. People who are lactose intolerant also have the option of choosing dairy products that include added lactase enzyme or taking the enzyme in pill form.
The subject of soy products can be surprisingly emotionally charged. I believe this is primarily because of the proliferation of soy, like wheat, in various forms in processed foods, along with the fact that soy has been the focus of so much genetic modification. Because it is now virtually impossible to tell what foods have soy that has been genetically modified, I believe that we should consume soy in no more than minimal quantities and preferably in fermented form—e.g., tofu, tempeh, miso, and natto—since fermentation degrades lectins and phytates in soy that can exert adverse intestinal effects. I believe that, for the above reasons, soy milk is likewise best consumed in minimal quantities. Similar cautions apply to whole soybeans and edamame.
Wheat Belly (Revised and Expanded Edition) Page 25
