It is a harsh irony that we have been conditioned to view whole wheat and other cereal grains as not only health food, but the very foundation of a healthy diet. Even more unfortunate, our federal agencies such as the USDA stand behind the consumption of wheat as if humans never thrived without it.

Unfortunately, cereal grains are a serious concern as both a source of carbohydrates (eaten in excess in the American diet) and as a source of toxic protein compounds. A little known but important fact is that wheat triggers gut inflammation in nearly everyone.

Cereal grains are the seeds of grasses and include wheat, corn, rice, barley, sorghum, oats, rye, and millet.

Grasses are for Grazers

Grasses evolved in concert with grazing mammals: both originated at the same time and they became common together. Grasses, unlike other plants, grow their leaves from the base rather than the tip so they are less likely to be damaged by grazing. Grasses evolved two innovations in order to reproduce successfully despite being regularly eaten. First they generate a multitude of seeds per plant – tens of thousands annually – so that many seeds can be eaten, as long as a few scatter and take root. This fecundity is what makes the grains so attractive for agriculture: much of the harvest can be consumed as food while still retaining plentiful seed for next year’s crop.

The second innovation was a set of toxic compounds specifically designed to sabotage the digestive tract of mammals. The plant’s strategy is to pass its seeds intact through the digestive tract of grazing animals so that they emerge (with fertilizer) to take root in a new location. (In other words, eating wheat causes large amounts of food to be excreted instead of digested in humans; for example, fecal weight increases 5.7 grams for every gram of wheat bran consumed (Cummings, 1993).)

Grazing mammals have evolved defenses for these toxins, such as digestive organs like rumens that allow for the brunt of toxins to be transformed by bacteria via fermentation. Humans, lacking such organs, are comparatively defenseless. (Ironically, this suggests that alcohol is a less toxic form of grain consumption because the grain’s toxins have been removed through fermentation.)

Grain Defenses are Toxic to Humans

Grain toxins are proteins and most abundant in the bran, but present in all parts of the kernel. White wheat flour is about 10% protein by weight, while crude wheat bran is about 16% protein by weight. With corn as a close second, wheat is the most toxic of the cereal grains with the following compounds being of most concern (i.e., there are others):

• Gluten, a compound protein that triggers autoimmune disease and promotes cancer, heart disease, and neuropathy.
• Opioids, which make wheat addictive and trigger schizophrenia.
• Wheat germ agglutinin, a protein that damages the intestine and interferes with vitamin D action, thus sabotaging the immune system and promoting chronic infections.

Gluten is directly toxic to intestinal cells by inhibiting cell proliferation, increasing cellular oxidation products, and changing membrane structure. In the body, gluten changes the structure of the intestine by reducing the height of villi, decreasing the depth of crypts, and decreasing enterocyte surface. In other words, gluten sabotages the gut, reduces it surface area, and impairs digestion.

Like all toxins, gluten inspires an immune response. This immune response helps to clear the gluten from the intestine thereby preventing build up of toxins, however in the process it makes the intestine inflamed. This immune response kills intestinal cells and makes the gut leaky.

There appear to be four levels of immune response to wheat:

1. About 83% of the population develops observable gut inflammation after eating wheat gluten (Bernardo et al., 2007).
2. About 30% of the population develops anti-wheat-gluten antibodies locally in the intestine (Guyenet).
3. About 11% of the population develops systemic antibodies to wheat gluten.
4. About 0.4% of the population develops systemic antibodies that attack human cells in the intestine, thyroid, pancreas, and elsewhere.

This last group is diagnosed with celiac disease. With the immune system attacking and killing gut cells, the intestine can be damaged to the point that sufferers have difficulty absorbing needed nutrients (Sollid and Jabri, 2005).

Leaky gut is a condition that occurs due to the development of gaps between the cells (enterocytes) that make up the membrane lining the intestinal wall. These tiny gaps allow substances such as undigested food, bacteria and metabolic wastes, that should be confined to the digestive tract, to escape into the bloodstream, hence the term leaky gut syndrome.

Once the integrity of the intestinal lining is compromised with a flow of toxic substances “leaking out” into the bloodstream, the body experiences significant increases in inflammation. Consequently, the immune system may become confused and begin to attack the body as if it were an enemy (autoimmune diseases).

Most often, leaky gut syndrome is associated with inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis, or celiac disease. However, even healthy people can have varying degrees of intestinal permeability leading to a wide variety of health symptoms that can be influenced heavily by the foods one chooses to eat.

Side note: Rice, even glutinous rice (e.g., sticky rice), does not contain gluten. Glutinous rice is sticky because of the structure of its starch. Glutinous rice does not contain gluten or other toxic proteins and is safe to eat.

Personal note: I admit I was at first resistant to this information because I love pasta and bread, but when I had a relapse of gut permeability in 2010, I was able to link it back to eating steel cut oats religiously every morning for about one year prior to the outbreak.

New Report Warns of the Sugar in Cereals Marketed to Kids

One of the most common ways grains are consumed is in the form of cereal, many of which are marketed to kids and adults as health foods.  A new report from the Environmental Working Group (EWG) revealed that many popular children’s cereal brands contain more sugar than snack cakes and cookies. For instance, one cup of Kellogg’s Honey Smacks, which is nearly 56 percent sugar by weight, has more sugar than a Twinkie, while a one-cup serving of 44 other children’s cereals analyzed contain more sugar than three Chips Ahoy! cookies.

Sugar, like grains, can upset the balance of bacteria in the digestive tract, encouraging damage to the intestinal lining that can lead to leaky gut. In essence, sugary children’s cereals are a double-edged sword by assaulting the fragile gastrointestinal tract with both damaging sugar and grains. It may be worth considering offering children a healthier breakfast alternative.

Fermented Foods are the Antidote

Leaky gut can cause digestive symptoms such as bloating, gas and abdominal cramps, but it can also cause or contribute to many others, such as fatigue, skin rashes, joint pain, allergies, psychological symptoms, autism and more.

Leaky gut is a vicious cycle because once the digestive tract has been damaged, it allows various gut contents to flood into the bloodstream where they wreak havoc on health. The key to preventing and reversing leaky gut lies in eliminating pro-inflammatory foods in the diet, primarily sugars, grains, and oils high in Omega 6s (e.g., soy, corn, safflower oils) and introducing healthier foods to support beneficial gut bacteria. To restore gut health and prevent leaky gut from occurring, eating traditionally fermented foods is essential.

Fermented foods are essential because they provide probiotic microbes in the best possible form and will carry probiotic microbes all away down to the end of the digestive system. Fermentation predigests the food, making it easy for our digestive systems to handle, which is why fermented foods are easily digested by people with a damaged gut. Fermentation releases nutrients from the food, making them more bio-available for the body; for example, sauerkraut contains 20 times more bio-available vitamin C than fresh cabbage.

On Dr. Campbell-McBride’s web site (http://www.gaps.me/preview/?page_id=30) you can find recipes for many traditionally fermented foods, including sauerkraut, yogurt, kefir, kvass and more. Regularly eating fermented foods that have not been pasteurized (pasteurization kills the naturally occurring probiotics) allows healthy gut bacteria to thrive. Once gut flora is optimized, leaky gut symptoms will improve naturally provided the body is also supported with thoughtful dietary choices.

Personal note: I just finished eating my first home made batch of sauerkraut and I cannot believe what a positive difference it has made in such a short period. I eat a small amount with every meal, particularly with animal products (e.g., organic/ pastured eggs, meat, cheese). Oh, how I wish I had been eating home made sauerkraut 10 years ago when I was so sick from my own digestive disorders!

References

Bernardo D et al. 2007. Is gliadin really safe for non-celiac individuals? Production of interleukin 15 in biopsy culture from non-coeliac individuals challenged with gliadin peptides. Gut 56(6):889-90.

Cummings JH. 1993. The effect of dietary fibre on fecal weight and composition. In: Spiller GA, ed. Handbook of dietary fibre in human nutrition. 2^nd ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, p.547-73.

Gluten composition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten. Howdle PD. 2006. Gliadin, glutenin or both? The search for the Holy Grail in coeliac disease. Eur J Gastroenterol Hepatol 18(7):703-6.

Gut and Psychology Syndrome: http://gaps.me/preview/

Jaminet P, Jaminet, SC. 2010. Perfect Health Diet. Ying-Yang Press. Cambridge, MA.

Sollid LM, Jabri B. 2005. Is celiac disease an autoimmune disorder? Curr Opin Immunol 17(6):595-600.

Stephan Guyenet, http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2008/05/gluten-links-from-bloggier.html, quoting Dr Kenneth Fine of EnteroLab; see transcript of Dr Fine’s talk at http://www.enterolab/StaticPages/EarlyDiagnosis.htm.

–Cygnia F. Rapp, Founder of Prosperity Organic Foods

How I do use Melt®?

I love Melt®! I really do. It boggles my mind how far it has come along from its humble roots. Even after all of these years, Melt continues to be a regular staple in our household. Between my husband and me, we easily go through one “square” (container) per week. How we use it is only limited by the types of food we are cooking each day.

I mostly use Melt for poaching eggs in our egg poacher in the morning. Yes, Melt is delicious for making eggs. Over time, I have come to prefer my eggs poached instead of fried because they taste so much creamier cooked in water instead of fried in a pan. More and more I go out of my way not to cook over high heat because I believe its damaging to the nutritional content of all food.

Second to poaching my eggs, I use Melt on toast. This may sound a little boring, but keep in mind that when I had to exclude butter while on a restricted diet, it was dry toast in the morning that drove me to create Melt in the first place! For 10 years, we mostly eat sprouted-grain toast in the morning (e.g., Ezekial Bread) because it is so much more nutritious and easier to digest than wheat-based products.

Melt is divine in mashed potatoes made with sweet potatoes or yams. These potatoes have so much more flavor and nutritional value than Russets! When I steam vegetables (mostly green beans), Melt is right by my side as a topping. For snacking, I love Melt over popcorn with an added kick of nutritional yeast sprinkled on top.

What other oils do I use?

I was recently asked what other oils I have in my kitchen besides Melt. It’s pretty simple: we have virgin coconut oil, extra-virgin olive oil, and flax oil.

Fortunately, I enjoy the flavor of unrefined flax oil. The nuttiness is great for making salad dressings, which is how I primarily use flax oil these days (I never buy salad dressing, I always make my own). With that said, I would like to point out that if any flax oil smells “fishy” it is because it is rancid. I primarily buy Spectrum’s unrefined flax oil, but sometimes Barlean’s. I avoid the flax oil products with lignans because these particles can be attachment sites for bacterial growth causing rancidity.

I use virgin coconut oil with or without Melt when I want to add an extra boost of medium chain fatty acids to my meal. Mostly I use virgin coconut oil for higher-heat sautéing uses, but sometimes I add it to my mashed potatoes. I use it on my skin sometimes, but I live in such a dry climate (Rocky Mountains of Idaho) that I mostly use unrefined Shea Butter (which strangely enough has been completely effective as a sun screen). I use olive oil mostly for making salad dressings with flax oil, and for medium-high heat sautéing.

Please feel free to let us know how you use Melt in your life. We look forward to seeing you in the grocery store!

-Cygnia F. Rapp, Founder of Prosperity Organic Foods

I admit I have not delved into the Paleolithic-diet literature before, however I was struck with the refreshing, broad viewpoint provided by Jaminet and Jaminet (2010)  in their book, “Perfect Health Diet”. The authors believe, due to personal experience, that conventional dietary advice is largely mistaken, a statement I am inclined to agree with. The well-researched, surprisingly readable perspective provided in “Perfect Health Diet” is worthy of in-depth examination and personal experimentation. If my grandmother were still alive today (the person who fostered my passion for nutrition), this is one of the few nutrition books I would buy for her.

Jaminet and Jaminet are two Doctorate–level scientists (one a physicist and the other a vascular biologist and cancer researcher) who ate poorly and ignored the gradual decline of their health. By age forty, both had developed disturbing health problems including chronic rosacea, sluggishness, neuropathy, memory loss, and impaired mood (Paul), and endometriosis, ovarian cysts, uterine fibroids, allergies, constipation, acid reflux, and abdominal bloating (Shou-Ching). When doctors were of little help, they decided by 2005 to take charge of their health by experimenting with the low-carb Paleo diet; they both rapidly reversed their health conditions. The low-carb diet had some pitfalls as well: Paul’s cognitive and neuropathic issues worsened and at one point he developed scurvy. They researched, experimented, and added nutritional supplements to fine-tune the diet. In 2009, Paul traced his remaining problems to a chronic bacterial infection, which a course of antibiotics cleared.  With the recovery of their health reminiscent of their twenties, they decided to write “Perfect Health Diet” as a culmination of what they learned.

The primary premise of the book is that disease and ill health are caused by three inter-related factors: food toxins, malnourishment, and chronic infections by bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa; all three factors must be addressed by diet. Furthermore, in many cases “aging” is in fact infectious disease aggravated by poor diet, meaning, many chronic diseases have a microbial origin that are in many cases left untreated (or for that matter undiagnosed).

I found “Perfect Health Diet” to be compelling due to three concepts that are developed throughout the book:

1)     The concept of “Economics of Nutrition”, which is a discussion on food toxicity. With nutrition, the greatest benefit comes from the first amount eaten of any nutrient; each additional amount provides less benefit until eventually the benefit equals zero. Beyond the “plateau range”, a nutrient can become toxic, with increasing amounts becoming more and more toxic. Jaminet and Jaminet (2010) evaluate the “marginal benefit curve” for carbohydrates, protein, and fats with numerous references to scientific literature.

2)     An excellent discussion on how food is transformed by the body. In other words, what goes in the mouth is not the same as what it becomes in the body. Similarly, different foods produce different by-products after the digestion process. Their discussions on wheat (and all grains), soy (and all legumes), sugar, and polyunsaturated fats (especially Omega 6s) are particularly interesting.

3)     The three mammalian dietary strategies (omnivores, herbivores, carnivores) that have evolved over time, how humans are similar and where humans differ in dietary needs. This chapter is especially interesting because it discusses the differences in how omnivores, herbivores, and carnivores transform their foods, which allows the authors to place context for humans and, in doing so, decrease the margin of error in dietary choices.

Ultimately, the Perfect Health Diet resembles the Pacific Islander Diet: a low-to-moderate-carb (20%), high-fat (65%), moderate-protein (15%) diet. By weight, the diet is about 65% plant foods and 35% meat and oils with targeted supplementation.

Keys to the diet include (found: http://perfecthealthdiet.com/?page_id=8):

• Daily carbohydrate intake should be 400-600 calories, primarily from starches (e.g., rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, taro), fruits, and berries, except on therapeutic ketogenic diets (which should have ~200 carb calories). Eat a variety of vegetables as well, but don’t count them as calorie sources. Protein should be a modest fraction of daily calories — 200-400 calories — but eat to taste. Fats should supply most (50-70%) daily calories.

• By weight, the diet should be about 2/3 plant foods, 1/3 animal foods.

• Do not eat toxic foods.  Notably:
  • Do not eat cereal grains — wheat, barley, oats, corn — or foods made from them — bread, pasta, breakfast cereals, oatmeal. The exception is white rice, which count as “safe starches.” Rice noodles, rice crackers, and the like are fine.
  • Do not eat calorie-rich legumes. Peas and green beans are fine. Soy and peanuts should be absolutely excluded. Beans might be acceptable with suitable preparation, but it is recommended to avoid them.
  • Do not eat foods with added sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. Do not drink anything that contains sugar: healthy drinks are water, tea, and coffee.
  • Polyunsaturated fats should be a small fraction of the diet (~4% of total calories). To achieve this, do not eat seed oils such as soybean oil, corn oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, canola oil, or the like. The best cooking oils are coconut oil, clarified butter, and beef tallow; palm oil, lard, olive oil, and avocado oil are next best. Nut butters are another possible source of fats.

• Eat nourishing foods: liver, egg yolks, seaweeds, shellfish, vegetable and bone broths. Make sauces from an acid (lemon juice, vinegar), an oil, and herbs. Get sufficient salt.

I am seriously considering the adoption of this diet to see how it affects my health. Stay tuned.

-Cygnia F. Rapp, Founder of Prosperity Organic Foods

Before answering that question, we need to first define “real food.”

The following information has been adapted from Michael Pollan’s book, “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual” where he explores the idea of real food.

To summarize, real food includes the plants, animals, and fungi people have been eating for generations versus the highly processed products (“edible food-like substances”) of modern food science and the food industry.

Mr. Pollan elaborates by suggesting you probably are not eating real food if the following general rules of thumb apply:

• Your grandmother or great-grandmother would not recognize the ingredients as food.

• It contains chemical additives and or corn and soy derivatives.

• It contains additives that you would not cook with yourself or that you do not recognize (e.g., ethoxylated diglycerides, cellulose, xanthan gum, TBHQ (tertiary butylhydroquinone)).

• It contains high fructose corn syrup or it contains any sugar or sweetener listed in the top 3 ingredients (e.g., barley malt, beet sugar, brown rice syrup, cane sugar, corn sweetener, dextrin, fructo-oligosaccharides, fruit juice concentrate, glucose, sucrose, invert sugar, polydextrose, sucrose, turbinado sugar, organic sugar, raw cane sugar, etc). The same applies for artificial sweeteners since they do not lead to weight loss and may heighten cravings for more sweetness.

• A third grader cannot pronounce all of the ingredients.

• Food products contain the wordoid “lite” or terms “low-fat” or “non-fat” in their names. Many low-fat and non-fat foods are higher in refined carbohydrates (sugar). Excessive carbohydrate intake is more strongly associated with weight gain, obesity, and secondary illness that go with them than consuming fat. Eat the real thing in moderation.

• It has a long list of ingredients (this is different from following a recipe).

• It is an imitation product and or contains imitation ingredients instead of the real thing (e.g., edemame vs. soy mock meats; hydrogenated oils (fake fats) vs. virgin coconut oil, artificial sweeteners vs. honey).

• It is advertised on TV.

• You found it in the peripheries of the supermarket and not in the middle aisles of the store. Processed foods dominate the center aisles while cases of mostly fresh foods line the walls; exceptions include food products like yogurts flavored with high fructose corn syrup and margarines containing corn/ soy oils and hydrogenated fat.

• It will not eventually rot.

• You got it through the window of your car.

Melt® Organic Buttery Spread easily qualifies as real food even though it is intended as a replacement for butter (and therefore could be considered an imitation food).

With that said, Melt® Organic Buttery Spread is a far cry from the margarines of our parent’s generation.

• Melt is organic, non-GMO (!) and contains no hydrogenated oils, artificial ingredients, synthetic preservatives or corn/ soy derivatives and it never will.

• Melt is made with only wholesome ingredients like virgin coconut oil, flax oil, and others, providing you with a balanced combination of healthy organic saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats in a rich and creamy format that is a pleasure to eat.

• Melt offers an Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio of 2:1, which you simply do not and will not see matched by any other food product in this part of the grocery store.

We hope you enjoy Melt® Organic Buttery Spread’s goodness and look forward to seeing you in the grocery store!

Go to www.meltbutteryspread.com for more information.