The Whole Grains Thing

Now, back to the whole “it didn’t end well for me” part. The Primal Blueprint asserts that humans have not evolved enough yet to eat grains and because of this eating grains causes all kinds of problems from systemic inflammation to allergies to bloating to chronic fatigue syndrome. The science from Sisson, Taubes, Wolfe, Eades and others is compelling (and trust me I have read it all. Twice.) and I won’t say they’re wrong on this. Unfortunately I also can’t say they are right. For me this is the who-killed-JFK of nutrition. For every Mark Sisson success story, there is a Bill Pearl (a vegan bodybuilder) rebuttal. I’ve gone back and forth on this so many times that I think I may just have to conclude that I’ll never know.

What I do know is that every time I have tried to remove all grains from my diet I have felt worse and not better. Whether that’s because of my mental issues (restricting makes me nutso) or because I’m addicted to carbs (taking out whole grains always leads to me bingeing on sugar) or perhaps that I’m half ruminant and more evolved than other humans, it doesn’t work for me. It may be a matter of finding the nuance – i.e. that genetically engineered wheat is bad but “ancient” grains are good – or it may just be time for me to let this one go. Honestly I eat very few processed grains – my servings are things like a handful of barley thrown in soup or cracked wheat berries on salad – and my body seems to like it. It’s kind of like when I quit being a vegetarian. I still eat a lot of vegetarian meals but now I don’t worry about craving the occasional piece of meat. Intuitive Eating works for me and I’m healthy and happy.