Happy Healthy YOU
Article content
Kelly Spencer - Happy Healthy YOU
(A wellness column by Kelly Spencer: writer, life coach, yoga & meditation teacher, holistic healer and a mindful life enthusiast!)
As the owner of a holistic wellness centre which includes an Organic Eatery, I am very aware of the intolerance many individuals have with certain types of food.
"I am gluten free"... “I can't eat dairy"... “I can't eat tomatoes"... “I can't digest meat"... and the list goes on. Our menu caters to all the varied requirements of people’s dietary needs and preferences. But I can't help but wonder: Why are there so many food intolerances?
Let's look at gluten intolerance first. Wheat and grains have been a food staple and the foundation of civilizations for thousands of years. The hardiness of the wheat kernel allows storage for years while holding the nutritional value intact until ground and used in fresh breads and hot cereals. But in the last couple decades the rise of gluten-intolerance has risen.
What has changed to make this ancient goodness create modern day gut and body havoc?
The people of Grainstorm Heritage Baking website say "everything" has changed. The way we grow it, the way we process, and the way we eat has all deviated. With the technological revolution we have changed the way we cultivate, farm, mill and process.
All of these deviations have created a very profound shift in the grain and subsequently in our bodies.
Norman Borlaug, often called the Father of the Green Revolution, had a PhD in plant protection. In the 1940-50s he worked at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, Mexico City. Borlaug assisted to make the country self-sufficient in grain. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work, credited with saving one billion lives.
According to his Wikipedia entry, Borlaug led initiatives that “involved the development of high-yielding varieties of cereal grains, expansion of irrigation infrastructure, modernization of management techniques, distribution of hybridized seeds, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides to farmers.”
This was the part of a revolutionary time of radical genetic modification and industrial “high-input” farming that changed the world, changed the wheat, and most probably our ability to digest it.
Cardiologist Dr. William Davis, M.D., author of the bestselling book "Wheat Belly" maintains the wheat grown and used today is "the altered offspring of thousands of genetic manipulations" that doesn't even remotely resemble the wheat consumed by our ancestors. He blames changes in the gluten protein in modern wheat (found in wheat as recently as 1960) for the increased incidence of celiac disease and inflammatory diseases ranging from rheumatoid arthritis to inflammatory bowel disease.
What else has changed?
Well, in North America we started to eat (or rather over-eat) bread and grains. We have toast and cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, and perhaps some pasta with bread for supper. Dr. Andrew Weil, an American medical doctor, teacher, and author on holistic health states that it is possible to develop intolerances to foods you eat often and you may find the commonly eaten foods less digestible then previously or that you react badly to some of them.
Dr. Weil also states an allergic-type reaction, called "histamine toxicity" can develop from eating a food repetitively. For this reason, Dr. Weil encourages a diet with variety with as much fresh foods and lots of fruits and vegetables and minimizing consumption of processed food.
Grain processing is no longer the same way our ancestors did it. Traditionally, the grains were sprouted first. A step that is rare in modern day processing. Sprouted grain bread is made from entire wheat kernels unlike white breads and other refined-grain products that lose the outer bran and inner germ parts of the wheat grain in the milling process. In some varieties, “whole wheat” breads are often processed the same way as white bread, then bran added back in to give it the wholesome look.
The sprouted grain breads available today also use a variety of grains and legumes, such as barley, oat, millet and even lentils. This diversity provides a larger array of amino acids than found in whole wheat bread. According to the Whole Grains Council, sprouted grains are also easier to digest compared to other whole grains, as the sprouting process increases the bio-availability of some vitamins and minerals.
During travel to Europe this summer, I noticed my own digestive system having a very different reaction to my ingestion of bread while in Paris. A quick Google search turned up many similar stories of those in the North America, who had difficulty with bloating, indigestion or gluten-intolerance with bread from our home country, but had no trouble eating wheat in Europe. Many believe it is because Europe is by majority, non-GMO and have banned genetically modified farming.
Other theories include the use of potassium bromate during the processing of wheat in the USA. Many people have difficulty with this in their digestive tract, as they should! Potassium bromate is illegal in the European Union, Canada, Brazil and elsewhere because it causes cancer in rats and mice. Potassium bromate bleaches dough making the end product fluffy, soft, unnaturally white... and toxic.
Candida overgrowth in the gut is epidemic due to our overindulgent carb diet (and over-use of antibiotics). Our gut is filled with natural bacteria and when the flora is properly balanced, the beneficial bacteria far exceeds the bad bacteria and yeast. The beneficial bacteria are crucial to our health. They help us digest our food, create neurotransmitters and utilize vitamins.
It is said that 80 per cent of our immune system is in the gut, states Kali Sinclair, lead editor for Organic Lifestyle Magazine. "When we eat sugar and simple carbs that change into sugar, we feed the candida its favorite food."
With gluten intolerance being an ever growing reality and the cause is our diet and lifestyle, you have to wonder: Can it be reversed? Sinclair states, "If Candida is eradicated, if the gut is completely healed and is no longer permeable, and the immune system has healed, it is possible that many will again tolerate gluten.”
Grainstorm website sums up: “We have mutant seeds, grown in synthetic soil, bathed in chemicals. They're deconstructed, pulverized to fine dust, bleached and chemically treated to create a barren industrial filler that no other creature on the planet will eat. And we wonder why it might be making us sick?”
So what do we do if we have intolerance but still want to enjoy the grain?
We look for sprouted grain breads at markets, we use stone-ground “whole meal” flour, where the entire wheat kernel and germ is ground into the flour. Eat ancient variety like spelt or kamut while denying the unhealthy imitation version of white flour. Educate ourselves where our food is coming from, how it is grown and processed. We eat organic, chemical free, non-genetically modified food with a wide variety of fresh whole foods.
The power of food – our worst poison or best medicine. We have a choice.
(If you would like to see an article on a specific topic, please email kelly@indigolounge.ca)