If you’re like most people, you likely see the term “whole grain” and automatically you believe that the food will actually be healthy for you. That’s how much we’ve been conditioned.
It’s time to bust the “whole grain myth”. Don’t be fooled any longer.
The reality is whole grain is often (most times) not much healthier than the straight white food variety so you really aren’t going to be that much better off going the whole grain route.
Unfortunately, whole grains still have to endure some degree of processing in order to reach your dinner plate. Unlike an apple or peach that you can eat straight off the tree, whole grain foods go through a number of steps before they turn into the bread you use on your sandwich. It has to be milled (often finely milled) to become the flour. Add to that vast amounts of white sugar and chemicals for taste appeal and texture and you’ve got a product that is far from the healthy product you believed it was.
Even if the whole grains products are not stripped of their fiber and other nutrients during manufacturing, they are still processed which means they are going to break down more quickly, may contain unhealthy ingredients and will increase blood glucose levels more than foods that do come straight from the ground.
An increase in blood glucose levels causes an increase in blood insulin levels. Chronically elevated blood insulin levels (due to a diet high in refined carbohydrates) leads to belly fat storage. Not a good thing.
Gluten Intolerance
Whole grains also contain gluten which presents another whole set of problems and issues for those with gluten intolerance.
Gluten causes its fair share of digestive nightmares which in turn lead to a host of inflammatory and chronic diseases including diabetes and obesity.
Are you aware that just two slices of whole wheat bread causes a bigger and quicker sugar spike (glycemic index of 72) than a spoonful of white table sugar (index of 59)? It does not matter whether the bread includes all sorts of seeds and could be called “multi-grained” or sprouted wheat…the impact on your blood sugar is still greater than table sugar.
Most of us are aware of what a spike in blood sugar does…it causes a spike in insulin on of the body’s fat storage hormones. Thus bread is right associated with a spike in blood sugar resulting in an insulin spike resulting in weight gain.
There are many people who don’t have the necessary enzymes to break these foods down and as such they give their bodies a high level of grief in the digestion process. If you suffer from being bloated, headaches or other gastrointestinal issues after eating foods that contain wheat you’ll likely do much better cutting out all of these grains from your diet entirely.
If your diet is balanced with a wide range of fruits, veggies and fats included, and you don’t have an intolerance to gluten eating a range of whole grains with different textures, nutrients and tastes is the key and you don’t have to cut these whole grains from your diet altogether.
Just be aware and don’t be too quick to assume that just because the food you are eating is whole grain it’s the best and healthiest option. In many cases it is not.
It’s tempting to blame wheat for all our weight problems but truth is, weight problems are never caused by one food alone. Its total diet and lifestyle that really matter in the end.
“Rebound Free Weight Loss” teaches you why your mindset and your body must be healthy first if you want to lose weight and keep it off forever.
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