Who Eats Wheat?

The times they are a-changing.

In 2010, following my doctor's advice to the letter, only made me need more drugs, feel worse, and clearly was not working.  This advice: "Eat lean chicken, no red meat, lot's of whole grain bread, use healthy oils like canola."

Eating this way after a lifetime of SAD was no panacea, but it seemed to be good advice. Eventually I realized I needed to make a drastic change. My change: do the exact opposite. I started eating fatty beef, no bread or any grains of any type. "No sugar, oil or wheat" was my mantra. I called it the SOW diet. But quickly learned there was a whole community already eating like this called "Paleo."

Within a month of turning my doc's advice upside down I was off my meds for high blood pressure, high trigs, high cholesterol, and gout attacks.  I was no longer pre-diabetic. I could exercise again.  I lost about 20 pounds..all in one month.

Soon, I read the Perfect Health Diet, Wheat Belly, and a couple other books that cemented my belief that SOW was the root of all evil.  For the last 5 years, I have been free of SOW in my diet. Other things come and go, for instance, I did not eat much fruit and first, fearing all of the fructose (Sugar). It became apparent that fruit is a natural food and need not be avoided. Still, I avoid as much refined sugar as possible, but I do use a goodly amount of honey and will choose a packet of white sugar over Equal.

Then I started getting wise about the gut and increased fiber-rich foods. I still try to be true to the SOW roots of how I eat, though.

Recently Mr. Duck Dodgers, who I have been conspiring with for years now about different health issues, wrote a wonderfully detailed post over at Free the Animal concerning the wrongful maligning of wheat. It's not wheat, per se, he informs us, but the modern invention of refined, enriched wheat that is problematic in a society filled with fast-foods, high calorie treats, and a reliance on refined/processed foods over whole, natural foods.

I poked around Amazon and found a couple of wheat flours that look like the real deal of  whole grain wheat that is unrefined and not enriched. Once things slow down a bit at my house, I'm planning on getting some wheat flour and experimenting with homemade bread, sourdough especially.

How about ya'all?  Anyone thinking that maybe wheat is not so bad as "Paleo" made it out to be?

Later,
Tim