Grains are very
low-nutrient foods. Most grains have little
or no vitamin A and except for corn, no
beta-carotene (a source of A). They contain
no vitamin C, and are low in many B
vitamins, vitamin E, calcium, potassium, and
many other critical nutrients.
Although the average western diet is varied
enough and the grains supplemented enough
that deficiencies rarely develop, in the
developing world, where grains and other
low-nutrient staple foods often make up more
than 80 percent of a person's food intake,
its not unusual for grain-eaters to run into
nutritional deficiencies.
Although rare in the west today,
civilizations (including the United States)
were often plagued by scurvy (lack of
vitamin C), pellagra (lack of B3/niacin),
beriberi (lack of B1/thiamine), and several
other deficiencies caused by diets high in
grains and starches and low in fruits and
vegetables.
These nutrients and many others, which are
found in their greatest concentrations in
raw fruits and vegetables, which are
critical for human health and vitality. With
almost everyone in the developed world today
dying many years before their time due to
the ravishes of the
preventable
and reversible diseases of affluence,
it just doesn't make sense to sacrifice your
diet's nutrient density by including
low-nutrient grains. A grain free diet
is the way to go.
A Grain Free Diet: Gluten Is Dangerous
The majority of grains, including wheat,
include gluten, a sticky protein composite
that wreaks havoc on the bodies of a many
people.
Gluten is the cause of coeliac disease, an
autoimmune disease in which the intestines
are gradually destroyed, eventually limiting
a person's ability to absorb nutrients from
their food.
It's unclear exactly how many people suffer
from coeliac disease, but it's widely
acknowledged that whatever the number is,
it's a common ailment and the majority of
those suffering from it have never been
diagnosed. Some of the more moderate
estimates of its incidence rate are 1 out of
every 105 people (5), but some medical
researchers place it closer to 1 in 70. The
older you get the more likely you are to
suffer from the disease, with an incidence
rate for people over the age of 52 pegged at
1 in 47 (6).
Another autoimmune diseases caused by gluten
is dermatitis herpetiformis, which causes
horrible skin rashes.

In both
diseases, a completely grain free diet
causes the diseases to disappear completely.
But a huge chunk of the population is what's
called gluten sensitive, a catch-all phrase
for a wide variety of conditions and
symptoms now believed to be at caused or
worsened by gluten in the diet.
Many of them are related to degeneration of
digestive ability, skin, or the intestines.
Estimates of gluten sensitivity range from
30 percent of the population to as high as
50 percent (7).
This barely touches the surface, and as time
goes on grains are being fingered as the
cause of a wide variety of diseases. In my
own life, I was only able to get rid of the
colitis I suffered from when I removed all
grains and starches from my diet.
A Grain Free Diet: What's The
Alternative?
Because grains wreak havoc on the bodies and
minds of a very large part of the world's
population, it's clear that people would do
well to avoid them.
But what's the alternative? Grains, after
all, provide the majority of calories to the
average person's diet. The replacement has
to come from somewhere. Let's review a few
options:
- Meat,
Eggs, And Dairy: Animal foods
aren't a good replacement for the ones
you'll give up when you switch to a
grain fee diet. Meat is well known for
it's ability to cause
variety of diseases, and eggs and
dairy
are no better. Stay clear of animal
foods.
- High-Fat
Foods foods such as oils, avocados,
nuts, seeds, and margarine: High-fat
foods don't make for good options on a
grain free diet in more than minor
quantities. A high-fat diet causes
all kinds of problems, including high-blood-sugar-related
issues like diabetes.
While nuts
and seeds a great in small
quantities, processed fats like oil
and margarine should be completely
avoided.
- Cooked
Foods In General: Any sort of
cooking is going to seriously degrade
the nutrient content of a food, derange
it's protein so it's hard or impossible
for the body to use, and bring about a
host of other problems. It makes
sense to avoid any cooked food.
- Vegetables:
Raw
vegetables are of course
incredibly healthy and you should eat a
lot of them, but the problem is they're
so low in calories and high in volume
that it's virtually impossible to get
enough calories to live off of while
following an all-vegetable diet. Many
people use fats to add to the calories
of grains, but as we discussed above,
that doesn't work.
So now that we know what won't work, but
what will? The answer may not seem like the
obvious choice, but it's a fantastically
rewarding one.
A Grain Free Diet: The Fruit
Alternative
Fruit is actually the food choice that makes
the most sense for use in supplying the
majority of our calories. It's low in
toxins, is know to prevent many diseases,
and it's also incredibly satisfying. It's
the food we evolved eating in the tropical
forests where our species had it's start,
and we're still adapted to thrive on it
today.
A
healthy
low fat raw food diet gets most of its
calories from fruit, but also contains
plenty of raw vegetables and a few raw nuts
and seeds.
This diet will help you
prevent
aging, overcome your health problems, and
open up a new realm of vitality for you.
A Grain Free Diet: Following Up
Learn how to get started on a
raw
food diet today.
Decided to go with a
grain
free diet? Figure out what foods you
should choose and what ones you should
avoid.