CanadianBiker32

Just reading a book that tells one to never eat bread and grains.

Is this true? is it ok to eat bread? or should we stay away from it. as they call it gives grain Belly etc

since we are all cyclists here, is it ok to eat bread as long we burn it off from biking?

or does bread really add on the pounds?

Would it be better to limit it? your thoughts

Chaco

If you have any insulin resistance at all, or any other problems metabolizing carbs, then yes, stay away from bread -- and rice, pasta, sugar, and all the other highly processed carbs.

Carbonfiberboy 

Oy. There are a very few individuals who have celiac disease, meaning that ingesting gluten (found in wheat, mostly) makes them ill. Those people can't eat bread. You'd know it if you had it. When you read something about nutrition that strikes you as completely different from usual dietary practices, it's pretty safe to assume that the writer is nuts. That said, consuming large quantities of soda and sweets, as is now common in America, is a bad idea. But that's what everyone says, so it's safe to assume that is correct. "Give us this day our daily bread" has been around for a long time.

hyhuu

Sounds like the author ate one too many nuts.

charbucks

Gluten free seems to be the new fad diet, but personally, I don't believe it's inherently bad for you. Nor is wheat.

As Carbonfiberboy says, there's about 1% of the population that has celiac disease. Those people eat gluten, and the villi in their intestines basically freak out and flatten, reducing the effective surface area for nutrient absorption. You can probably guess what happens when your intestines can't absorb anything!

I believe you can lose weight by avoiding wheat, because you're essentially eating less. Wheat is awesome because it's such a nutrient-dense little package. An innocent-seeming slice of whole wheat bread has close to 100 calories, and you're probably going to eat two at once. A muffin has anywhere from 300-600 calories, and people eat those as snacks. It's not that wheat is "bad", it's just that it's really easy to eat a lot of it. A diet that says "don't eat gluten" inherently limits how much food you can cram in your stomach, so yeah, it'll help you lose weight.

When I was a kid, my mum made bread for our sandwiches, and to help it rise on the wet coast, she added pure gluten flour to the dough. You can still buy it at health food stores, and it helps make bread delicious. I feel sorry for those who can't eat it, and it's great that the fad is helping them have an easier time of things. But I'm going to continue to consume (in moderation, of course) bread, muffins, cookies, pancakes, and beer until I see firm evidence that it's bad for me. And no, I'm not overweight.

Koobazaur

yes, bread is disastrous. If you were to eat nothing but a single slice of bread you would be gaining on average 2-3 pounds a week.

Ok seriously, are you really asking this? Nevermind centuries of heavy bread and wheat based diets in Europe, nevermind that plenty of skinny guys everywhere love their sandwiches, nevermind that countries like Poland, with a typical breakfast AND supper of bread, hams and cheeses has lead to people living up to 70-90yo without major health concerns.

There is nothing wrong with bread, just as there is nothing wrong with any single type of food by itself. Will you gain weight if you eat bread? Yeah, if you eat like four loaves a day.

People believe the darnest things these days...

chandltp

The main premise of the book Wheat Belly is that we've change wheat in such a way over the last 50ish years is that we've mutated it into something our body doesn't know what to do with, to varying degrees. The author didn't seem to have an issue with Einkorn wheat as much, and he did find that it affected many people differently than our modern wheat strains.

However, processed wheat causes blood sugar issues for me so I avoid it as much as possible. If unprocessed wheat were available I might try it, but no one seems to sell / eat it that way. To me, that says something about a food if it's rarely/ever eaten plain.

Although GMO corn and soy are much scarier to me than wheat, but that's another topic.

supernovae

What is so scary about GMO corn and soy? I can't stand the concept of patented crops, but GMO is just another word for something every farmer has done for centuries - choose traits that offer the best crop yield be it through seed / plant mixing of years ago or genetics today.

jon c. 

That's not really true. For centuries we cross bred plants to try and develop new strains combining beneficial attributes. With GMO, we are actually modifying the genetic structure in the lab in an attempt to isolate and increase beneficial traits. A very different process with untold potential for unintended consequences.

chasm54

For most people, bread is absolutely fine. Like everything else, one shouldn't eat too much if it, but it is a remarkably complete food.

Here is a different perspective on the gluten-free fad.

typeDvorak

I can't think of any substance more fulfilling that that whole family of simple sugars. Omnomnom, fatigue busters.

Chaco

There are 26 million people in the U.S. who have diabetes. There are probably another 10 million or so that have insulin resistance or metabolic syndrome. For these people, bread is NOT absolutely fine; it is a food that should be carefully monitored, the same as all carb-laden foods.

I'm curious how bread is a "remarkably complete food". A typical serving of multigrain bread has the following: 1 gram fat, 110 mg sodium, 11 grams of carbs, 3 grams of protein, 3% of RDA for calcium, and 4% of RDA for iron. Since carbohydrates are not an essential nutrient for humans, that means there's not that much to be gained from eating bread.

chasm54

That is a ridiculously simplistic view as far as nutrition is concerned. Wheatgerm is a source of a number of essential proteins and vitamins. you could read this. there are plenty of other sources.

As for the suggestion that carbs are not essential for humans, don't make me laugh. Getting all your calories from protein and fats is not a recipe for good health, whatever the low-carb faddists say.

And those 26 million people have diabetes mainly because they are fat. Bread, eaten as part of a balanced and not excessive diet, is absolutely not the problem.

Chaco

I'm not particularly interested in calling people's arguments simplistic or ridiculous, so I won't respond directly to that.

For anyone who is interested in the subject of carbohydrates as an "essential nutrient" there is more and more research into that. Here's an article, by Eric Westman, of the

gregf83 

I'm not a diabetic. I like bread and carbs.

I'm pretty sure you could find a book claiming just about any food was bad thus eliminating all options other than water. Generally, these authors sensationalize the negative effects of a particular food group. It sells more books than the more rational, but boring, advice to eat a balanced diet in moderation.

youcoming

I say everyone is different. Me I have to limit simple carbs but still need them, if I don't eat some my riding suffers. I don't care what any study, doctor, whoever says I know what my body says. My father on the other hand eats carbs like mad, 68 years old, worksout almost everyday, has 6 pack abs, his breakfast a LARGE bowl of cereal with fruit, snack will likely be a yougurt with fruit, luncg a bowl of soup and a sandwhich, snack of nuts and fruit, supper a well balance combination of all food groups with a slice of bread and oh make that two trips to the plate, then have some popcorn in the evening. If I ate all that I'd be fatter than I already am. Dad on the other hand just keeps at 155lbs.

late

Most bread has a lot of salt in it.
If you need to watch your sodium intake, that can be a problem.
The key is moderation.

poxpower

Yeah once again people looking for the easy way out.

OH, BREAD WAS MAKING ME FAT? FINALLY I CAN STOP LOSING WEIGHT THE HARD WAY!

chandltp

Well, if you believe not being hungry all the time is taking the easy way out, then yes, I'm taking the easy way out. I don't know if the bread was the only cause, but since I switched from a low fat high carbohydrate diet to a high fat low carbohydrate diet, I'm not hungry all the time. I find it much easier to regulate the amount of food I eat.

Granted, I have damaged some process or series of processes in my body (as I believe is likely in a majority of extremely overweight people). A few years back after I got my life back on track and lost a large amount of weight, I also started having problems with reactive hypoglycemia. Simple carbohydrates such as bread, fruit, and sugar will cause my body to over produce insulin and result in a larger than normal drop in blood sugar. After 2 years of unsuccessfully trying to manage this using the government's recommendations of a grain based diet, I had an experience with a co-worker who improved his blood lipids using a high fat low carb diet. I watched the movie Fat Head and was convinced to give it a try. As long as I don't deviate from this new way of eating, I feel great.

bgary

I read both Wheat Belly and Why We Get Fat and thought they were very revealing. I would definitely like to see an opposing point of view, if someone could recommend a book that presents one, I'd appreciate it.

Some points that are on track, though...

1. As pointed out in another post, the wheat we eat today is far removed from the wheat of even half a century ago, let alone several centuries ago.

2. It is well documented historically that people groups worldwide suffered health consequences when they abandoned their native diets and started consuming large quantities of refined sugar and flour. These products are great for insuring against starvation, but poor for health.

3. Sticking with natural food that you can either kill or pick makes more sense nutritionally than the variety of factory food products that we are inundated with today.

4. Whole wheat bread is so quickly and easily digested that you might as well be eating sugar. Insulin spike, blood sugar crash--HUNGRY!

5. It could be accurately stated that the leading cause of death in Western countries, especially the US, is the "food" we eat. Heart attack, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and quite possibly, Alzheimer's.

On a personal note, I have lost nearly 20 lbs in a month by basically replacing the grain and potatoes and junk in my diet with meat, vegetables and fruit. This is the easiest weight loss I have ever experienced in my life. My BP and blood glucose have gone from borderline trouble to right where they should be, even though I am 53 and still overweight. From what I have read, my triglycerides are certainly much lower, and my cholesterol numbers are probably better. So don't dismiss the low carb diet so quickly.

Lewis_Moon

Water? Fish fornicate in that stuff!

Otherwise...agreed. Moderation in all things...including moderation.

Chaco

Congrats on your new way of eating. I've had exactly the same experience you've had. Not only that, but I'm far less prone to bonking since I cut my carbs to around 60 to 80 per day. Once I made the transition to ketosis, I'm drawing on fat stores much more than carbs. There are more and more endurance athletes who are giving up the high carb low fat diet and finding that low carb is improving their performance.

charbucks

I try to take books like this with a grain of salt (get it? ), but has anyone read Coffee is Good for you? It looks like an interesting account of food claims with at least some research to back it up.

I did a quick Google Scholar search on diet comparisons (low-carb vs low-fat seemed to be the most common), and the consensus that I'm seeing seems to be that low-carb results in more weight loss at 6 months, but the difference disappears at 12 months. Cholesterol and fasting glucose levels also seem pretty similar between the two groups.

I have to admit, I'm kind of opposed to the low-carb diet thing because my body seems to love bread...

Sixty Fiver

My wife has Celiac disease as does her brother, there is a genetic component behind this as well as a theory that the increased amount of refined flour and different types of modern flours that are triggering a reaction to gluten.

As such our diet does not include wheat and gluten and I have adopted a low carb diet because I feel better when I am on this and my wife's diet is also lower carb.

Chaco

There are 25 million diabetics (Type 1 + Type 2) in the U.S., and another estimated 75 million people with insulin resistance, high blood sugar, or some other form of carb metabolism problem. For these 100 million people, low carb is less about losing weight than it is about preventing the sort of blood sugar spikes that are common with the traditional high carb, low fat diet. Losing weight is almost a side benefit.

Part of the problem involved in comparing HCLF vs. LCHF regimens is that most of the "research" is based on observational rather than clinical studies. However, more clinical studies are being performed, and for those that are in that group of 100 million above, the results are very promising, certainly much more so than the last 30 years of the "food pyramid."