June challenge: Cereal Grains

[Billie]

I will begin a few comments from this article by Loren Cordain, Department of Exercise and Sports Medicine, Colorado State University, Fort Collings, Colorado

I am only half way through the article but it is so massive, breaking it down will be easiest for me. What is huge in this study is the number of references 342 in total. Cordain brought in a rich source of comments and facts from his colleagues. The study itself also portrays many charts and references where you can see easily the difference nutritional components and breakdown. Banshee I will report the great information here some of the information you are looking at as well. It goes into great detail in vitamins A, C Beta Carotene, essenial fatty acies, amino acids.

One glimmer is that grains in the diet tend to display other calories and as you will see when I bring the nutritent information forward, you will see how little you get for the calories you take in.

Of course and sadly this study talks about the serious side of how many countries are so dependent on grains and lack protein in their diets.

More later, half way through the reading and taking notes, but as I said this study is massive.

[deirdra]

Billie, where is this study published? Does he cover the rise of food intolerance to grains?

[Billie]

Diedre, this is it
Simepoulos AP Evolutoinary Aspects of Nutrition and Health. Diet, Exercise. Genetics and Chronic Disease. World Rev Nutr Diet Basel Karger. 1999, vol 84, pp19-73

The report was from Mike's Blog and then Gabe downloaded it from there.

[Billie]

Some interesting aspects of this study include:

Only about 17 of the known 195,000 plant species produce edible parts--17 plants provide about 90% of mankinds food supply.

For the vast majority of mankind's presence on earth humans have existed as non-cereal eaters.

Although our genetic makeup has changed little in the last 40,000 years, our diet has changed dramatically.

"In most parts of the world wherever cereal based diets were first adopted as a staple food replacing the primiarily animal based diets of the hunter-gathers there was a characteristic reduction in stature, an increase in infant mortality, a reduction in lifespan, an increased incidence of infectious diseases..." p23.

What the article says about Vitamin A:

Vit A deficiency remains one of the major public health problems. 20-40 millions children worldwide are esteimated to have at least mild vit A deficiency. Although it is virtually unknown in the US and other western countries is it common in rural India where cereals can compromise the mainstay of their diet.

Eating a quantity of cereal grains tends to displace foods that are rich in antioxidants therefore allowing the body to consume calories but not calories rich in disease fighting.

What the article says about Vitamin B;

Diets based wholly upon plant food sources tend to be either low or deficient in vit B. It goes on to say that most nutritionist thinik that Vit B is in good sources in cereal grains, except for B 12. But there seems to be some argument even about that, the study stating that the two most B vitamin deficient diseases are almost exlusively associated with excessive consumption of cereal grains.

(There's alot on biotin but I am going to reread that section and give that information later).

More later...

[Gaelen]

What the article says about Vitamin B;

Diets based wholly upon plant food sources tend to be either low or deficient in vit B. It goes on to say that most nutritionist thinik that Vit B is in good sources in cereal grains, except for B 12. But there seems to be some argument even about that, the study stating that the two most B vitamin deficient diseases are almost exlusively associated with excessive consumption of cereal grains....

Odd that Cordain would characterize 'most nutritionists' as thinking that cereal grains are good sources of B vitamins; nearly every nutrition-focused vegetarian diet-plus-cookbook from the '70s includes a recommendation to supplement B vitamins, especially B6 and B12, and especially if eating a vegan diet or one that uses non-chemically-enriched whole grains.

That includes "The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook" (http://www.amazon.com/gp/sitbv3/reader/ref=sib_dp_pt/102-9440501-0494503?%5Fencoding=UTF8&asin=0913990604), which is either the second or third edition of the book originally published (with the same information about B-vitamins) in the late '70s, and Francis Moore Lappe's "Diet for a Small Planet" (http://www.amazon.com/gp/sitbv3/reader/ref=sib_dp_srch_pop/102-9440501-0494503?%5Fencoding=UTF8&keywords=b12&v=search-inside&asin=0345373669), which has been revised at least twice since its original publication in the mid-'70s, and which has always contained the information that vegans and people relying on whole grains that haven't been chemically 'enriched' need to supplement B vitamins. It's popular for people who advocate controlling carbs to paint all nutritionists with the same 'clueless' brush, but in this case, Cordain is off-base. Knowlegeable vegetarians have always recommended that people need to pay attention to their B-vitamin intake, and that people *must* supplement B-vitamins if they do not eat eggs and dairy. None of my nutrition-cookbooks from that era neglect this warning, even when they weren't written by a nutritionist...

[Gabriel Guzman]

It's popular for people who advocate controlling carbs to paint all nutritionists with the same 'clueless' brush, but in this case, Cordain is off-base. Knowlegeable vegetarians have always recommended that people need to pay attention to their B-vitamin intake, and that people *must* supplement B-vitamins if they do not eat eggs and dairy. None of my nutrition-cookbooks from that era neglect this warning, even when they weren't written by a nutritionist...


I think it's just as popular for nutritionists that advocate for the whole-grain camp (including those that advocate for high-carbohydrate/low fat diets) to paint the rest of us with the same 'clueless brush' about grains. Knowlegeable doesn't necessarily mean correct. I don't doubt that those that advocate for whole-grain based diets or even vegtable-only-types of diets are knowledgeable. After all, they have spent years learning. The problem is different from not having knowledge... in my opinion the problem is about not recognizing when we're wrong.

I don't take that as the main point, however. The take-home message of Billie's contribution so far, at least for me, is not really that Cordain thinks this or that, but that the evidence he presents suggests that diets based wholly upon plant food sources tend to be either low or deficient in different vitamins, including vitamin B12 and therefore supplementation is needed under those conditions.

[laughingW]

I think Cordain represents more like what I hear than your conscientious veggie writers, Gaelen.

A simple google search on "b vitamins sources recommended nutritionist" turned up this MSNBC article. No it doesn't flat out say "grains are good for B vitamins" but it lists whole grains as something you should eat to get B vitamins.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13088848/

[laughingW]

Speaking of paleo and neolithic, have you seen this one about early figs? Check out how much smaller they are than our modern ones.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5038116.stm

[Gaelen]

LaughingW, you're correct--the article you linked didn't 'flat out say "grains are good for B Vitamins"' while it did mention that grains are a potential source (listed third out of four, behind fruits and veggies and before beans.) That recommendation is actually correct (as far as it goes...which isn't nearly far enough.)

However, the article you linked, like both of the vegetarian nutritionists I mentioned, ended with this caution...
"People over 50 (whose absorption of B-12 from food may diminish) and vegetarians who avoid animal foods should take a multivitamin or a food fortified with B-12 daily to get the RDA."

Sounds nearly word-for-word like Louise Hagler, Dorothy Bates, Frances Moore Lappe or Ellen Buchman Ewald talking from the mid-70s. ;) As I mentioned, among vegetarians who understand their own diets' nutrition, the need for vitamin B supplementation is what I'd consider common knowledge, and has been for decades. Vegetarians who focus on nutrition also pay attention to the gains and losses of vitamins, minerals and nutrients in general during harvesting, storage, cooking, fermentation and refining processes.

Gabe, I agree that the main point of Cordain's article, at least from my reading, is as you mention: the evidence he presents suggests that diets based wholly upon plant food sources tend to be either low or deficient in different vitamins, including vitamin B12 and therefore supplementation is needed under those conditions. For that matter, most vegetarian nutritionists agree with him, since the diet they usually use for comparison is the standard American diet--also woefully low or deficient in different vitamins and minerals and many nutrients.

I was just surprised to see Cordain suggest that nutritionists generally think plant foods provide an adequate source of B vitamins. I didn't get that from my first read of the article, although I saw it when I reviewed it again this afternoon. Unfortunately, that shows a nutritional bias on Cordain's part that's not quite borne out by the actual publications of the foundation authors of plant-based diets, even the vegan ones like Louise Hagler and Dorothy Bates. Granted, some people have diverged from those recommendations over time...and some current vegetarian authors have all but forgotten about the importance of sprouting and fermentation, for instance. But the publication history is there, and the authors who neglect the fundamentals are far from the only ones publishing.

There's at least a 35-year nutrition science publication history represented on my own bookshelves of widely read and distributed authors who understand that part of the foundation of incorporating any significant amount of plant foods into diet also recognizes the nutritional limits, where they exist, and understands that B-vitamins always require supplementation--especially so in plant-based diets. I was surprised that Cordain appeared to have overlooked that history in the process of advancing his own argument.

[Ottawa]

I believe that Niacin (B3) used to be added to help fortify cereals (emblazoned or "Kellogg's Corn Flakes" years ago). It also exists naturally in grains such as corn and wheat in bound forms.

This is not an endorsement for cereals as a source of B vitamins.;) As mentioned in several posts above, there is a deficiency of several other B's.

The only grain that I use on a regular basis is ground flaxseed as a filler in baking or thickening agent in shakes. It lists negligible amounts of vitamins.

[Billie]

I am trying to keep ahead of you all. There's alot more in this article , and I will give some more information tomorrow as I have read through amino acids and some more of the vitamin section. I think I will continue plotting through it, and I will try to give a summary of at least my impression of it all.

I have decided though to continue the challenge with another article on grains, perhaps Diedre I can get that question answered you indicated earlier.

[deirdra]

Speaking of paleo and neolithic, have you seen this one about early figs? Check out how much smaller they are than our modern ones.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5038116.stmThe article left me wondering if the reason they were able to find so many well-preserved figs is because nobody was eating them. Perhaps they were using them for jewelry or doll's heads or something and only ate them as a last resort.

I have a pretty necklace that my sister got for me in a small village in Africa where she lived for a couple of years. It is a string of hard leopard-spotted legumes. When I asked how they were cooked, she said she'd never seen them cooked, but saw many woman painstakingly drilling holes in them with tiny pointed sticks so they could string them into necklaces or strings of beads hung in doorways (like hippie beads of the 1960s) to keep flies out.

[Billie]

Finishing the article:

Amino acids
Because human body protein constantly undergo breakdown during growth, development and aging, there is a dietary nbeed for protein. Human Body proteins are composed of 21 separate anmino acids which are divided in to 1) essential, 2)conditional essential and 3) non essential. These essential amino acids CANNOT be made in the body and must be supplied by diet. Consequently your body must intake amino acids from dietary sources (proteins). Just another reason why protein is so important to the body, it truly is fuel. Amino based proteins are consistenly lower in cereal protein compared to animal protein. Sometimes cereal based diets fall qualitative short in lysine and the intake can be marginal.

A study in the US involving 946 men and women over the age of 60 showed that half of them consumed les than 1.0-1.25 g/kg a day of protein. Because total protein content of cereal grains is considerably less than animal foods the displacement of animal protein BY EXCESSIVE consumption of cereal grains has theportential to compromise adequate protein intake.

The thought occurs to me here that visiting older people and being with them, how often do you see then reach for something that is cereal based to eat rather than protein. At least in my experience, quite often.

The study goes on talking about Alyresorincols, alpha amylase inhibitors, protease inhibitors,lectins but then does go in to some detail about the autoimmune disease and cereal grain consumption that I found interesting.

"Dietary cereal grains are the known environmental causative agent for at least two autoimmune diseases: celiac disase and ermatitis herpetiforums, withdrawal of gluten containing cereals from the diet amerliorates all symptoms of both diseases".

The article goes on into quite detail here, so if anyone is looking for more information particularly on the immune system and cereal grains, I would suggest you look into this article, particularly pages 47-57,

Authors conclusion:

"Cereal grains lack a number of nutrients which are essentail for human health and well bbeing, additionally they contain numberous vitamins and minierals with low biological availability. The inability of hunabns to physiologically overcome cereal grain antinutrients is indicative of the evolutionary novelty of our speicies. The ability of cereal grain proteins to interact with and alter human physiology is disturbing.

Cereal grains obviously can be included in moderate amounts in the diets of most people without any noticeable deleterious health effects, and herein lies their strength. When combined with a variety of both animal and plant vased foods, they provide a cheap and plentiful caloric source. The downside of cereal grain consumptin is their ability to disrupt helath and well being in virtually all people when consumed in excessive quantities.

Cereal grains are truly humanity's double edge sword".

My thoughts:

The article was very enlightening to me. We, or perhaps better stated I, tend not to always think what every bite does to me. I simply enjoy the taste the texture etc., and I do think that there is nothing wrong with that approach, eating should be treasured time to converse and be with others. But truly it blew my mind (wow that is scientific evidendce) that eating too much cereal grain, obviously translated to us as carbs, can be so devastating. It is not just obesity, in fact those words were never mentioned in the study at all, but some serious indicators of health. It talked about children who have a diet of cereal grains with less stature, and as well a direct correlatioin to autism. I didn't go into that because I felt the author didn't give enough correlation there, but it makes you think, it kind of made me ill when I thought of kids in Third world countries and what does the US send but cereal grains. On the other hand, cereal grains do sustain life, they are just not so optimal.

A lightbulb went on for me many times getting through this. Much of it was very scientific so I had to re read re read re read :o and I wanted to do this on my own without help from my resident scientist but it has intrigued me enough that I want to continue during the challenge finding more articles on grains and the effects they have on our body's metabolic system.

[Mitra]

I've been reading the same article as Billie, Cereal Grains: Humanity's Double-Edged Sword (http://www.thepaleodiet.com/articles/Cereal%20article.pdf), by Loren Cordain, so I hope she doesn't mind if I report in the same thread.

First, a small correction - it wasn't that only 17 plant species were edible, in fact, Cordain said that, "most of the 195,000 species of flowering plants produce edible parts that could be utilized by man..." For whatever reason, we've ended up only using a tiny fraction of them.

As Billie noted, it's a chunky paper, so I decided to limit my focus somewhat. Although, as the paper notes, grains provide the majority of the nutrition available to much of the world's population, including most of their protein, that isn't the case for most of us. I took a more personal line, to see if I could find whether the small quantity of grains you'd eat while limiting your carbs would be likely to be harmful. Billie pointed out that many of the nutritional deficiencies linked with grain consumption occur because of the displacement of other foods. Assuming even a fairly generous carb consumption (for a PP'er) of, say 100g per day, and that half of it came from grains - 50g per day, or about 200 kcals, still leaves plenty of room to get your nutrition from other foods, so I was looking not at what was missing from grains, but at whether they are positively harmful, even in small quantities.

But first I allowed myself to be distracted by the historical consideration of when we first started to eat grains. The Food Timeline (http://www.foodtimeline.org/) linked to Alternative Wheat Cereals as Food Grains: Einkorn, Emmer, Spelt, Kamut and Triticale (http://newcrop.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/proceedings1996/V3-156.html) (1996), which cited evidence of emmer and einkorn being eaten in the Near East, first as porridge, and later as bread. Wild grains are found in sites as early as 17,000 BC, and cultivated versions, along with barley by 10,000 BC.

A fascinating paper describing the finds from an archeological site on the banks of the Galilee (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=470712) where more than 90,000 plant remains were found. Wild grasses, including wild wheat and barley were included, in quantities suggesting that they were a staple food as far back as 23,000 years ago. Grass seeds appear to have been the main plant food at this site, along with acorns, almonds, pistachios, wild olives, figs, raspberries, grapes, borage, sunflower, and small quantities of pulses. Small quantities of nuts, legumes and cereal grains have been found at some two even older sites: 50-70,000 years ago.

Further north and west, in Greece, excavations at the Franchthi cave (http://projectsx.dartmouth.edu/history/bronze_age/lessons/les/1.html) showed only very few wild oat and barley seeds by 12,500 years ago, and they were not common until about 9,000 years ago. Moving still further north and west, a 1996 article in British Archeology (http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba12/ba12feat.html#richards) between 4,000 and 2,000 BC reported that bone analysis showed that British people at that time had little plant food in their diets.

On this basis, you might think that those of Eastern Mediterranean/Near Eastern descent would be best adapted to grain consumption, but Cordain quotes recent problems of rickets in children of that region getting more than 50% of their calories from whole unleavened wheat. I also found it curious that in his most recent newsletter (http://www.thepaleodiet.com/newsletter/newsletters/PaleoNewsletterVol2Issue1.pdf), cordain talks about the fair skin and lactose tolerance of Northern Europeans as being in part an adaptation to grains - that would prevent rickets. Given that individuals in regions where grains have been part of the diet for much longer don't seem to have adapted, it's odd that those in regions where grains arrived much later should show more adaptation.

OK, that's probably enough for one post - more later...

[Mitra]

To start finding out about the damage grains can do, I looked first in PPLP, at the Leaky Gut chapter which, as you'd expect, was a good starting point :). The opening section says that, "although most of us tolerate them to a point, they pose a definite health risk for some people. And even those of us who appear to tolerate them may not really be escaping unscathed."

A lot of the time, when we think of grains, we (that is, PP'ers) think firstly of the carb content, but in the context of the leaky gut, and attendant autoimmune problems, it's the protein parts that cause us problems, so products such as vital wheat gluten, which cut out the carbs don't avoid the problems of grains altogether.

PPLP explains that when sugar and starches are incompletely digested in the intestine, and pass through to the colon, the bacteria they encounter there can ferment them, producing various alcohols and gasses. If the fermenting mix flushes back into the intestine, it can cause inflammation, weakening the normally tight junction between the cells there, and allowing incompletely digested plant proteins into the blood stream. The body sees these as aliens, and produces antibodies, but unfortunately, these alien plant proteins can resemble normal human proteins in some people, and the antibodies can start to attack the body's own tissues. PPLP gives some examples.

Unfortunately, PPLP doesn't give any indication of how many people might be affected. They do say that up to 10% have leaky guts to the extent that it's useful for them to do a few days of gut healing, then follow the purist version of PP, at least at first. One of the PPLP references (from the list Larry compiled) says that around 2% of the population (I think it was Italian school children) have antibodies suggesting undiagnosed Crohn's disease. A Guardian newspaper article (www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,11381,793501,00.html) reported a similar figure in Britons and Americans. Tchernychev and Wilchek (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T36-3Y15908-5F&_coverDate=11%2F18%2F1996&_alid=410730371&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_qd=1&_cdi=4938&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=a080746e60a3f057f8acd815b8ace95c) found that healthy adults had antibodies to various plant lectins, suggesting that it's normal for them to pass into the blood.

Cordain writes a lot about the nutritional deficiencies of grains when they're used as the main source of nutrition, but says that if you're also eating meat, dairy, fresh fruit & veg, that nutritional deficiency shouldn't be a problem (for some Asian and African countried grains make up 80% of calories, and bread contributes more than 50% of calories in at least half the countries in the world.) Grains are incomplete proteins, but again, this is only of significance if they are your main source of nutrition.

There are a couple of references to preparation techniques as being significant. For instance lime-processing of corn prevents pellagra, and substitution of leavened white breads for unleavened whole-grain improved symptoms in patients with rickets or osteomalacia.

Of more interest to me were the anti-nutrients:

Alkylresorcinols - these are phenols, and are highest in rye, also in wheat, and lower in other grains. They are found in the bran layers. There is little information on their effect in humans, but in animals they affect red blood cells and kidneys. They are possibly inflammatory, but also antimutagenic and antioxidant.

Alpha-Amylase Inhibitors - these are heat stable, so still present in bread. They are found in wheat, rye, barley, oats, rice, sorghum. Their effect is to reduce starch digestion. You might think that would be a good thing, but in animals fed with them, some damage to the pancreas occurs in the long term. Long term effects on humans aren't really known. I might speculate that undigested starches could contribute to the fermentation in the colon that the Eadeses describe in PPLP (referred to above). They are allergenic, especially on inhallation of flour ("bakers' asthma"). That interested me, because I've noticed that when I bake, particularly with whole grain flours, I have to be particularly careful to was my hands thoroughly afterwards, because the flour seems to irritate my allergies if I don't - more than eating it.

Protease Inhibitors - these inhibit some of the enzymes involved in breaking down proteins into amino acids. Some of them can survive both heat and digestion. I suppose that would mean that when your gut leaks, there are more of those big protein molecules about to confuse your immune system.

Lectins - are plant proteins that can bind to carbohydrate-containing molecules. The wheat one can bind to a vast range of bodily cells and extracellular substances. It is heat stable and not broken down by digestion. Very high levels (equivalent to eating 3kg or more of unprocessed wheat germ) can damage the digestive tract. Cordain didn't find any long term studies of the effects of low levels on gut structure.

He concludes that, "Cereal grains obviously can be included in moderate amounts in the diets of most people without any noticeable, deleterious health effects, and herein lies their strength. When combined with a variety of both animal and plant based foods, they provide a cheap and plentiful caloric source, capable of sustaining and promoting human life. ... The downside of cereal grain consumption is their ability to disrupt health and well being in virtually all people when consumed in excessive quantity."

I know quite a bit more about cereals than I did before, but I still don't know what the risks are for low levels of consumption :(. I might be convinced to try dropping them for a while to see if I feel any different, and taking periodic breaks to give my body and gut some recovery time. At the moment, though I don't think I'll be giving them up permanently.

[laughingW]

Given that individuals in regions where grains have been part of the diet for much longer don't seem to have adapted, it's odd that those in regions where grains arrived much later should show more adaptation.

I didn't think it was odd because the regions are so different in sunlight. There would be no need for the Mediterranean area people to adapt that way.

[Mitra]

But since the children are still getting rickets, clearly they're not getting enough vitamin D even though they have more sunlight. As Cordain pointed out in the newsletter, rickets in girls can cause serious problems with childbirth, so isn't something that would be expected to be survivable for many generations. It may be that the change to unleavened versions of the bread is more recent, or that there has been some other change.

[Billie]

Janet thanks you are right. I went back to the study it clearly states, " Approximately 17 plant species provide 90% of mankind's food supply, of which cereal grains supply far and away the greatest percentage". Call it a rocky mountain high!

[Mitra]

Weston A Price was a dentist/anthropologist who, in the 1930s travelled around the world studying groups of people who were relatively isolated from civilisation, still eating their traditional diets, and in very good health - the children were born with good bone structure, there was little to no tooth decay (he was a dentist, after all :) ) and very low levels of degenerative diseases and cancer. His findings are described in his book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0879838167/qid=1149773879/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-0506481-8946415?s=books&v=glance&n=283155).

He studied groups in widely varying climates, and eating widely varying diets, some including grains. The ones I found that included grains were a Swiss mountain group, most of whose meals consisted of a slice of whole rye bread, with a piece of cheese about the same size, and fresh (raw) cow and goat milk. Meat about once a week, then the bones and scraps made into soup to eat in the rest of the week, and limited green foods in the summer. The Gaelics of the outer Hebrides ate mainly fish (including eggs and organs as well as lobsters and flat fish) and oats, with very limited dairy and vegetables, and virtually no fruit. They used the smoked thatch from their crofts to enrich the soil in which the oats were grown. One of the African groups (Kikuyu) ate sweet potatoes, corn, beans, bananas, millet - but he comments that they were not as strong and healthy as other tribes. The Chewya ate fish, cereals (unspecified) and sweet potatoes, and the Australians ate some grass seeds and peas along with kangaroo, fish, birds, roots, stems, leaves, berries, insects & grubs, and eggs.

It's interesting that most of the healthy groups he found ate little or no cereals, and that he didn't find any healthy wheat eaters - the two main cereal eaters, Swiss & Gaelic, ate rye and oats. I'm not sure if that's because it's hard to eat much wheat and stay healthy, or because wheat-growing regions are generally more "civilised" and therefore eating a modern diet.

[mcsblues]

I did start to read this paper ... twice! Each time I was brought up short by a seemingly fatal flaw in the statistics he uses in the first couple of pages. He equates food crops with human consumption - perhaps later in this manifesto he realises that a substantial part of "food crops" are used as animal fodder and for other uses such as fuel (eg ethanol ... as well as other more palatable alcoholic beverages;))?

Whilst the overall thrust that we have become dependant on a small number of species that produce grains is true (the same could be said for non grain plants as well as livestock) the actual makeup of the human diet can't be derived from overall crop yields.

On the question of adaptation, is he really saying that those that have been exposed to agriculture (grains) the longest have adapted the least? - or is this still part of his vitamin D/lactose tolerance scenario? I would have thought that the two (dairy and grains) don't necessarily go together. Asian populations for example have a long history with grains such as rice, but limited exposure to dairy which would reasonably explain their relative tolerances.

[Mitra]

On the question of adaptation, is he really saying that those that have been exposed to agriculture (grains) the longest have adapted the least? - or is this still part of his vitamin D/lactose tolerance scenario? I would have thought that the two (dairy and grains) don't necessarily go together. Asian populations for example have a long history with grains such as rice, but limited exposure to dairy which would reasonably explain their relative tolerances.

I don't think he's putting the two together. There were references to people in the Middle East eating a diet consisting of a high proportion of unleavened bread and getting rickets. In a separate article he puts forward his theory that Northern Europeans would have suffered rickets eating a high grain diet, and that pale skin helps, also that eating raw dairy helps - and not fermented dairy, which is (was) common in many parts of the world other than Northern Europe. The mechanism is postulated to be that Epidermal Growth Factor in raw milk displaces the Wheat Germ Agglutin at the EGF-receptor sites, impeding the entry of WGA into the bloodstream, and improving Vit D metabolism, thereby reducing the incidence of rickets.

It just struck me as curious that those who were the areas where cereals appeared latest would show these adaptations, but that those in areas where the grains have been around much longer evidently aren't tolerating them well - but it may be that they didn't eat such large quantities in the past, or that the bread was more often leavened ... or something else entirely.

I must admit, I find his site very frustrating to read. He keeps going on about how little saturated fat wild animals have compared to domesticated ones (they may well be fatter, but it's a question of degree rather than it being a completely alien or highly concentrated food), while recommending quantities of vegetable oils (including olive) that must surely be way above anything available in paleolithic times.

I've just ordered Colpo's Cholesterol book (http://www.theomnivore.com/The_Great_Cholesterol_Con.html), so that should keep me quiet for a while.

[mcsblues]

I must admit, I find his site very frustrating to read. He keeps going on about how little saturated fat wild animals have compared to domesticated ones (they may well be fatter, but it's a question of degree rather than it being a completely alien or highly concentrated food), while recommending quantities of vegetable oils (including olive) that must surely be way above anything available in paleolithic times.
I rather thought he was softening his anti sat fat rhetoric in this paper;

http://www.thepaleodiet.com/articles/CRC%20Chapter%202006a.pdf

I've just ordered Colpo's Cholesterol book (http://www.theomnivore.com/The_Great_Cholesterol_Con.html), so that should keep me quiet for a while.
Great! I have had an advance pdf copy for some time. I'm supposed to be writing a review!!:o

If Billie is impressed by Cordain's 342 references, she will be blown away by AC's 1400! I have heard that even this will be surpassed by the long awaited Taubes book - which is now not due till early next year as I understand it - but when it does arrive expect 2000+ references!!:eek::)

[Mitra]

I rather thought he was softening his anti sat fat rhetoric in this paper;

http://www.thepaleodiet.com/articles/CRC%20Chapter%202006a.pdf


I'll have a look - I just read a few of the papers whose titles caught my eye - I didn't study them all, or check what was most recent.

Great! I have had an advance pdf copy for some time. I'm supposed to be writing a review!!:o

Is that your excuse for needing to be chased for your contribution to the challenge (by the way, we haven't seen Gabe's yet)? Or does your excuse cover that as well? Anyway, I'll look forward to reading it. Maybe I'll even get to read it before I get the book?

If Billie is impressed by Cordain's 342 references, she will be blown away by AC's 1400! I have heard that even this will be surpassed by the long awaited Taubes book - which is now not due till early next year as I understand it - but when it does arrive expect 2000+ references!!:eek::)

Aargh. Just what I need. Another book :rolleyes:

[James L]

I have heard that even this will be surpassed by the long awaited Taubes book - which is now not due till early next year as I understand it ....
Malcolm,

Are you referring to Gary Taubes? If so, what can you tell us about this forthcoming book: title, probable contents, etc.? TIA.

[mcsblues]

Malcolm,

Are you referring to Gary Taubes? If so, what can you tell us about this forthcoming book: title, probable contents, etc.? TIA.

Yes. This covers the detail (not much) - I'd guess the contents will be an extention of his previous writings on the subject ("The Soft Science of Dietary Fat" and "What If it has all Been a Big Fat Lie?")

http://livinlavidalocarb.blogspot.com/2006/04/gary-taubes-book-on-fat-set-for-early.html

[Gaelen]

This article came over MedWire's Gastroenterology news alerts this morning. I've included the full text, since reading it on MedwireNews requires registration and an account...the article and study make some interesting conjectures about the developement of food allergies, specifically allergies to wheat and cereal grains. If you want to investigate the reporting site further, check out www.medwire-news (http://www.medwire-news.md/default.aspx), which offers daily medical journal news updates in several areas.

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Delayed infant wheat exposure may increase allergy risk
14 June 2006
Pediatrics 2006; 117: 2175-2182

Study findings indicate that, contrary to common belief, delayed exposure to cereal grains in babies may increase the risk of developing wheat allergy.

Writing in the journal Pediatrics, the study authors explain that the issue of when to introduce solid foods to infants is controversial, in part because the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) currently has not just one, but two recommendations.

The academy's Committee on Nutrition advises giving infants cereals between 4 and 6 months of age. Conversely, the AAP Committee on Breastfeeding suggests that parents should not give babies solid food until they are 6 months old; a decision based on earlier study results that found infants given solid food in the first few months of life had a higher incidence of developing allergies than those given solid food later.

To explore the issue of when to introduce cereal grains further, Jill Poole, from the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver, Colorado, USA, and colleagues examined the association between first dietary exposure to the cereal grains wheat, barley, rye, and oats in 1612 infants and the development of wheat allergy.

The infants were enrolled in the study at birth and followed-up to an average age of 4.7 years, during which time questionnaire and dietary exposure data were obtained from the parents at 3, 6, 9, 15, and 24 months and annually thereafter.

During the study period, sixteen infants developed wheat allergy. Four of these infants had been introduced to cereal before they were 6 months old, while the remainder were not introduced to solid foods until after 6 months of age.

Poole commented that although these findings need to be replicated, they suggest that parents who wait beyond 6 months to give their infants cereal in an effort to prevent food allergies, waiting may not be beneficial and may even be harmful.

"Delaying initial exposure to cereal grains until after 6 months may increase the risk of developing wheat allergy. These results do not support delaying introduction of cereal grains for the protection of food allergy," the scientists say.

"In addition to our study, other retrospective studies in Europe also suggest that delaying solid food introduction in an infant's diet may not be beneficial," Poole said.
free abstract (http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/117/6/2175)
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