Do grains really make you gain weight and drain your energy?
Most people doing Paleo will say that grains are definitely not allowed on the Paleo diet… but we think slightly different here…
Let’s start by breaking down the reasons why you will typically hear others say that you must cut out grains from your diet if you want to be Paleo… then I will share with you why I don’t fully agree with this…
One of the first things you will hear people say about why you should avoid grains is because supposedly, the starch in grains converts into sugar too quickly and spikes your blood sugar levels…
These people don’t fully understand sugar metabolism, which I’ll break down later…
The next few reasons why they say that grains are not part of the Paleo Diet is because it contains anti-nutrients or inflammatory nutrients like lectins, phytic acid and gluten…
So far so good…
These are valid points to an extent… lectins and gluten are hard to digest proteins. Lectins are part of a plant’s self defense mechanism which basically halts digestion in an attempt to keep from being eaten…
Similarly, phytic acid is also an anti-nutrient. The way phytic acid works is that it binds to minerals. Minerals are needed for digestion. By binding to minerals it halts digestion which protects the plant from being eaten…
This is the argument you’ll hear against plants and grains in addition to oxalates which create calcium deposits (stones)…
… but if that’s all you hear about grains, then you’ll miss the point of what the Paleo Diet is trying to teach…
The real reason why grains are not allowed on a Paleo Diet
While the reasons above are valid, the real reason why you should avoid grains is because modern day grains are nothing like the grains that our ancestors used to eat…
In his book Wheat Belly, William Davis, MD says that modern day grains have 46 chromosomes compared to the original wheat strain called Einkorn which has 14 chromosomes
That’s the reason why modern day wheat has gluten which is so hard to digest that it can cause inflammation in people with weak immune systems…
People have been eating grains and bread for thousands of years with no problem until recent decades when everyone seems to be developing gluten sensitivity…
It has less to do with eating grain and more to do with the type of grain being consumed…
Ancient wheat strains like Einkorn are not commonly found when you go out to eat that’s why cutting out grains from your diet seems to work… not because grains are bad, but because modern day grains are bad…
Can you eat grains on a Paleo Diet?
Our ancestors were not dumb cavemen people… they knew a lot more than some people give them credit for…
One reason why our ancestors did eat grains was because they understood the need to soak, sprout and ferment grains…
Soaking, sprouting and fermenting is how you remove anti-nutrients from grains…
You can go to any professional beer brewer and ask about a phytic acid rest, which they will know is the process of soaking grains at room temperature to remove phytic acid… this allowed the beer brewer to access the starch in grains and convert them into sugar to brew beer with…
This practice is not as common nowadays because modern day grains are different, but this was a common practice by our ancestors to be able to consume grains…
Many Paleo Diet gurus will think this is just to hard and not needed that it’s so much easier to just say “cut out grains”…
… but if you really want to eat like our ancestors did, which is what a Paleo Diet is all about, then you should definitely learn about:
#1 Ancient grain varieties like Einkorn
#2 How to prepare grains using fermentation (i.e. sourdough, brewing ales, etc.)
Note that Old World Ales and modern day beers are not the same… old world ales are the traditionally fermented beverages people made that were considered sacred, herbal and medicinal… modern day beer is not what ancient brews were like…
You can learn a lot about diet and health by studying fermentation…
Fermentation is a continuation of the digestive process… when grains are fermented, if the grain is an ancient grain variety, it will contain easy to digest gluten which gets fully digested during fermentation… this is what probiotics do in your gut…
When you eat modern day wheat with hard to digest protein that has not been fermented, then the probiotics in your gut will have a hard time breaking it down…
When your body can’t break down protein, it triggers a histamine reaction… this is what we call inflammation… it’s your body trying to do everything it can to break down foreign proteins…
What makes Paleo work is understanding that everything you eat affects the probiotics that live in your gut… when you shift from thinking of eating a Paleo Diet to eating a diet that grows healthy probiotics in your gut, you too will find it much easier to get more energy and lose weight…
