Many people have been told with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), that the cause of their irritation is a lack of fibre in their diet, therefore eat more grains, however through my experience with my clients that have irritable bowel it is in fact the grains that are doing the irritation and that the better source of fibre is from fruit and vegetables.  It gets so confusing when the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) uses wheat as its emblem promoting that it is a ‘good food’.

In the bible good foods were herbs and fruit and the punishment form god was giving men wheat “…cursed is the ground for thy sake;…In the sweat of thy face shalt though eat bread, till though return unto the ground…” (Genesis 3:17,19). The USDA MyPlate state that grains should constitute a sizable sector or our diet in the form of ‘bread, cereal, rice, and pasta’.  Back in the hunter and gatherer stage bread was not something we consumed and our bodies have not evolved on grains.

How is it that we can ‘stomach’ grains or not?  We are monogastric mammals, meaning we have one stomach, unlike the cow that has forestomachs (more than one), this enables them to break down these grasses that are difficult to digest.  Even they cannot digest seeds properly leading to metabolic acidosis and infections, if they cant why would we be able to?  Seeds have developed survival mechanisms so that it lasts, by having toxic lectins, phytates and oxalates, alpha-amalyase and trysin inhibitors, and endocrine disrupters, this enables the plant to survive. 

In a study looking at the ability of this current society to be able to handle a grain diet they concluded that:

“The grasses emerged between 65 and 55 million years ago. And since the last common ancestor of the humans emerged before this time, some 90 to 65 million years ago, it cannot have had a diet consisting of seeds from grass. Subsequent evolution of our primate ancestors up until 4-8 million years ago is thought to have taken place in the trees, where almost all potential plant food comes from dicotyledonous species and the monocotyledonous grasses are absent.”

The increase in susceptibility for obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes in societies that have a grain-based diet is due to the absence of genetic adaptations to the consumption of grains. It is shown that 73% of hunter and gatherers obtained 50% or more of their food from hunted and fished animal foods.

Points as to why we are designed to have a grain free diet:

• Humans have same genetic traits with feline. Enlarged brain, reduced gut size, can synthesize taurine (an amino acid found in animal foods), cannot convert alpha linolenic acid found in grains into the essential EPA/DHA.
• Humans cannot deactivate the leptin-blocking lectin found in grains, which leads to obesity, however this ability is in birds.

Intolerance to grains is due to:

1. 1. High in enzyme inhibitors, mineral binding phytates and oxalates.
   2. Has toxic lectins
   3. Low in lysine (an essential amino acid) and high in excitoxic amino acids aspartic and gluamtic acid.
   4. The DNA sequence in grains mimics other pathogens causing autoimmune reactions and disease.
   5. Once grains are processed and cook their glycemic index increases leading to endocrine disorders and diabetes.

References:

1. Plio-Pleistocene Hominin Diets for Modern Humans, pg. 367
2. Jönsson T, Olsson S, Ahrén B, Bøg-Hansen TC, Dole A, Lindeberg S, 2005. Agrarian diet and diseases of affluence – Do evolutionary novel dietary lectins cause leptin resistance? BMC Endocr Disord. 2005; 5: 10.