Grains
Has anyone ever heard nutritional advice that doesn’t mention grains? Typically in the form of “whole grains”, which have acquired something of a health halo.
Grains, too, have a number of aspects that flatly contradict each other. Here are some of them.
This is not a balanced overview: you probably already know the arguments in favour of grains, especially whole grains. I won’t repeat them here. Instead I’ll focus on “the other side”, the aspects I find missing from the usual discussion:
Nutrient Density
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New ND SimulationHuman nutrition
Grains, especially whole grains, are praised for their nutrients, above all:
- Indigestible carbohydrates. Typically distinguished as soluble and insoluble. Conventionally 'indispensable', but neither in the literature nor in my experience truly 'essential'. There are occasions where they can be beneficial. → more
- Minerals and trace elements
- Vitamins
- One of the three macronutrients — typically sugars, starches, or (indigestible) fibre. → more
What is rarely discussed:
- The nutrients found in the outer layer of the grain (minerals, for example) come packaged with other compounds - phytic acid in particular - that bind them so tightly that the body can barely absorb them.
- Traditional processing can counteract this (long sourdough fermentation, soaking, sprouting), but I have never seen that mentioned in dietary guidelines. And in practice it simply doesn’t happen: commercially baked goods’ fermentation time is measured in minutes - far too little time to break down the anti-nutrients and unlock the nutrients.
- Lectins are anti-nutrients that can irritate the gut lining and interfere with the absorption of other nutrients. They can be reduced by cooking but barely by baking.
- Trypsin inhibitors, amylase inhibitors (in grains grouped as ATI), tannins, saponins, oxalates… (possibly more on those in later articles)
In short: the overwhelming share of anti-nutrients sits in the outer layer of the grain - the very part that is so enthusiastically promoted under the label “whole grain”.
And even the fibre found there is not simply beneficial for the microbiome as is routinely claimed; it also impedes nutrient absorption - if only by mechanically keeping nutrients away from the intestinal wall where they would otherwise be taken up.
The endosperm - including white flour sifted from it - consists mostly of starch, i.e. carbohydrates. We are advised by dietary guidelines to meet more than 50% of our energy needs from carbohydrates, even though they appear nowhere in the literature as Essential nutrients are those that the body cannot synthesise itself and must obtain through food – vitamins, essential amino acids, and fatty acids., and they raise our Pancreatic hormone that signals cells to absorb glucose from the blood. Central regulatory hormone of energy metabolism. and Chemical name for the sugar commonly measured as blood-sugar. This is what starch is built from, and 50% of table sugar or 45% of HFC. Also known as dextrose. → more levels. Elevated blood glucose and insulin - particularly over extended periods - are not typically listed as benefits.
Despite all these aspects, grains and whole grains in particular remain an indispensable part of dietary guidelines.
Whole grains are also frequently recommended for weight loss - partly on account of the satiating effect of fibre.
Animal husbandry
Grains are also widely used in livestock farming - but for entirely different purposes: the high carbohydrate content raises insulin levels, just as it does in humans, and elevated insulin promotes fat storage. The animals put on weight faster. The muscle meat becomes “marbled”, i.e. interspersed with fat. And the price achievable at slaughter depends solely on weight.
The effect of grains is further amplified by supplementing the feed with skimmed milk or whey (2) - a by-product of cheese production, for example. These contain a lot of lactose and little fat. This combination drives the insulin levels of the animals even higher, so they put on fat even faster.
All in all, a superb (note: sarcasm) way to make animals fatter faster, and also sicker. The key difference from humans: animals do not die from the resulting metabolic problems. They are slaughtered before those problems become fatal.
One more example, from foie gras production (3): force-feeding geese with grain causes massive liver enlargement within just a few weeks. But geese, too, do not die of their fatty liver - they die because of it.
Note: I am not endorsing any of this - I am describing the effects on animal metabolism and the strategies used in livestock farming. In particular those where the outcomes are the diametric opposite of what is considered desirable in humans - which brings us to:
The contradiction
Grain combined with low-fat milk is deliberately used in animal husbandry to make the animals fatter faster. That sounds a lot like muesli to me - and I have yet to see a nutritional consultation that advised against it.
Grain leads to massive fat accumulation in poultry in a very short time. And it counts as one of the uncontroversial staple foods that everyone is advised to eat without reservation.
When assessing the value of grains, only the contained nutrients are listed - not their bioavailability. The latter is a function of the nutrients, their chemical bonds, and the effects of the co-occurring anti-nutrients on an organism that may simply be unable to absorb those nutrients. As you might imagine, the bioavailability of nutrients in grains - not least because of the anti-nutrients - is remarkably low.
Dietary guidelines do not mention that grains ideally need to be processed first (for example by long sourdough fermentation) to make the nutrients more accessible. And so it rarely happens - especially not in industrial production.
A further reason for the health glow surrounding grains can be found internationally: In the United States, grains are considered healthy partly because a range of micronutrients and vitamins must be artificially added by law. In Europe that is not the case - but given international exchange of research and recommendations, it is not always obvious what background assumptions underlie a particular guideline or classification.
And finally: nobody points out that the body’s requirement for ingested carbohydrates sits at exactly zero. That is a figure many people find hard to accept, but I can relate to it personally: I have tested it in a multi-year self-experiment. Not only did it work well - I felt considerably better throughout than I had before. The one-month trial I had planned for September 2012 (in words: two thousand and twelve!) is still running - I never ended it, because the results were convincingly positive.
More about the absolute minimum requirements for carbs
How Many Carbohydrates Does the Body Actually Need?
The body needs glucose, but not carbohydrates. A look at the biochemistry shows how it effortlessly sources everything it needs on its own.
Read more →No bread, no pasta, no cake?
I am not saying everyone needs to live this way. I am only saying that I personally feel considerably better doing so. My own energy levels across days and weeks matter far more to me than the taste of something over minutes. Since my health, body composition, skin, and weight have all improved markedly since the change, I have no reason to go back.
Conclusion
I have now been without grains - neither whole grain nor white flour - for more than a decade, and the negative effects one might expect have so far not materialised at all. On the contrary: whenever I have made an exception (two or three croissants over the course of a year, for some years) it has cost me one or two days of noticeably lower energy than usual.
I compare this low tolerance with other substances - alcohol, for example: after a period of abstaining from something, the body no longer tolerates it as well as it did after prolonged habituation. For me that is a reliable indicator of how well my body handles grains in general.
