Amber Waves of Grain

The CSPI recently came out with a list of 5 hyped foods which, as it turns out, are not good for us. The CSPI is the Centers for Science in the Public Interest. The foods they de-bunk are granola, smoothies, canned vegetable juice (specifically V8), pita chips and energy bars. I concur.

What is so fascinating about this list is this: there is such a thing as a nutritious granola, but packaging laws or moreover, the lack of packaging laws makes it possible for anyone to call a hunk of white flour and sugar by the name "granola". You can even say it is a "whole grain". You can call it "God's gift to Life Whole Grain Granola" and the first two ingredients are allowed to be white flour and white sugar. Go figure.

I do not believe anybody on the planet should ever for any reason put white flour, white sugar or white salt in their bodies. All of these 5 hyped foods in their store-bought form contain one of them.

And yet, products are continuously packaged as "healthy choices" and "whole grains". Here is what they actually contain. A raw whole "amber wave" of wheat is blowing in the wind. Let's say it is never dusted with insecticides or chemical fertilizers. As it grows to maturity it is plucked. If you ate it right away, it would be good for you. It would be nutritious and edifying, albeit dry. You would be eating living enzymes and it would speed through your digestive tract releasing vitamins, minerals and adding fiber to your colon. It would create health and then quickly eliminate the roughage through your colon taking with it any excess debris thus creating a healthier immune system. Goody.

But this is what actually happens. That same stalk of wheat is plucked. The whole grain kernel consists of bran, germ and endosperm. The bran and germ are separated from the endosperm. The bran which contains Fiber, B vitamins and trace minerals is sold at a premium price to health food stores. The wheat germ is full of essential nutrients: rich in Vitamin E, folic acid, phosphorous, thiamin, zinc and magnesium. But that too is sold at a premium to health food stores. What is left is the endosperm which contains only carbohydrate and a trace amount of protein: no minerals, Fiber or nutrients. The endosperm is then ground into flour and colored with a whitening agent.

Flour is used in almost every single product in the grocery store packaged foods section: pasta, bread, croutons, pancakes, cupcakes, crackers and cookies.

Flour is also used in breading. Restaurants serve a flour product in almost every dish: chicken fried steak, chicken fingers, hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza, onion rings, enchiladas, fried calamari, fried cheese, croutons, tuna sandwich, ramen noodles, grilled cheese, quessadillas, spaghetti and all pastas.

Most American breakfast/lunch/snack foods contain flour: granola bars, energy bars, bagels, donuts, croissants, muffins, pita chips, pita pockets, sandwich bread, Wheat Thins.

If you look at the standard daily diet of 3 meals and one snack per day, guess how many times the average American consumes wheat flour? Yep, 4. Consider the consequences: what happens when you consume an indigestible, un-nutritious substance 4 times per day for a lifetime? Refined wheat flour is indigestible. It turns to yeast in the small and large intestines. Yeast becomes a breeding ground for bad cells, parasites, undigested meat and cheese. These in turn become disease: diverticulitis, constipation, reflux, fat, cancer.

Is it no wonder that Americans are fat and cancerous? We buy into the idea that all boxed food marketed as a "healthy whole grain choice" is OK and we eat it 4 times per day.

STOP EATING FLOUR. You will completely change your health, change your weight, change your risk of cancer and can start to eliminate the diseases brewing in your yeast filled colon. STOP EATING FLOUR.

Raw Granola

serve with vanilla rice milk and 100% maple syrup

1 cup raw pecans

1 cup chopped dried apples

1 cup dried cranberries

1 cup raw sunflower seeds

1/2 cup chopped raw almond

pinch of ground cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg

Does Excercise Make You Lose Weight?

Let's face it: we exercise so we won't get fat. Some of us love it. Granted, we all feel good after the fact, but who has an hour everyday to drive to the gym, sweat, take a shower, dress and then face the day?

And does exercise make you lose weight? In my 50 years of personal experience I would have to say no. It makes me feel better. It can be fun from time to time. But it also makes me hungrier. Worse, it gives me a great excuse to reward myself with certain foods. Is there a better way?

10 years ago I changed the way I eat and that changed my body in exactly the way I had always hoped exercise would change it. I lost 20 pounds. I gained enormous energy; so much energy that I have trouble sleeping longer than 6 hours some nights. And most bizarrely: I gained muscle tone. Wierd but true.

Here's how it works: I eat right and exercise. I eat a vegan/celiac diet. I cheat on 1 meal and 5 snacks per week out of a total of 21 meals and 7 snacks. I walk 20 minutes in the morning.

Here's what I do not do: I don't pay money to exercise - my body weight and the great outdoors provide enough "resistance training" by themselves. I don't go to a class that meets only at certain hours. I can walk at whatever time I wake up in the morning. I don't have appetite increases due to excess lactic acid in sore muscles. I don't reward myself for working out because mentally I have not done anything I didn't want to do. I don't fling my body around for "aerobic activity" which is counter to my personal nature or ability. I do a few push ups now and then when it is cold because I want to. I never worry about my weight or my clothes fitting - I wear the exact same pants I bought 15 years ago. (Fashion be damned!)

"'You just have to understand what exercise can
and cannot do. In general, exercise by itself is pretty useless for weight
loss', says Eric Ravussin, a professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research
Center in Baton Roughe, LA and an expert on weight loss. 'It's especially
useless because people often end up consuming more calories when they
exercise.'"
Dallas Morning News
Sunday 4/27/10

"In a completed but unpublished study conducted
in his energy-metabolism lab, Barry Braun, an associate professor kinesiology at
the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his colleagues had a group of
volunteers spend and entire day sitting. If they needed to visit the
bathroom or any other location, they spun over in a wheelchair. Meanwhile,
in a second session, the same volunteers stood all day, 'not doing anything in
particular', Braun said, 'just standing.'
The difference in energy expenditure was
remarkable, representing 'hundreds of calories', Braun says. Standing, for
both men and women, burned multiple calories but did not ignite hunger.
One thing is going to become clear in the coming years, Braun says: If you
want to lose weight, you don't necessarily have to go for a long run. Just
get rid of your chair."
American College of Sports
Medicine
newsletter April 2010

If you LOVE spinning or taking your bike for a fast ride around the lake, do it. Do it for the joy, the fun, the mind cleanse, the fresh air. But if going to the gym is as fun as scrubbing tile, don't do it. Go to the kitchen and cook something clean, fresh, whole, savory and yummy!