What is Wrong with Grains?

As you probably know, we’ve been eating grains, refined or whole, only since the beginning of agriculture some 10 000 years ago. The problem is that our genes where formed about 2 million years ago and haven’t changed much since then, nor did our digestive systems. Eating structurally and chemically different foods is therefore more often than not asking for problems. Grains are miles away from what our bodies should be processing.

In fact, grains aren’t really a good thing for any mammal. We’re better off leaving them to the birds, who have a system adapted to them.

The problem is that our food system is so skewed in the wrong direction that everybody now thinks that grains, especially whole grains, are healthy and nutritious. Grains, a food group that we didn’t eat for 97% of our human existence are now at the bottom of the USDA food pyramid with a recommended 6 to 11 servings per day. This is amazingly wrong!




Be aware that the reason why governments pushed grains in the first place where economical. They are cheap to produce (although not without environmental costs), they can be stored for much longer and they can be sold overseas much more easily. In fact, it’s now one of the few things that the US successfully sells overseas, so I wouldn’t count on them to stop promoting them as the healthiest thing around. Sad but true!
Now on to why exactly grains are probably one of the worst mistakes human kind made.

High carbohydrate intake and elevated insulin

Chronically elevated insulin levels is indeed the number one problem we now have as a society. In a few words, blood sugar as to stay between a very narrow range, otherwise you would die. Insulin’s main job is to lower blood sugar levels after you consume any form of sugar or carbohydrate (they’re converted to sugar anyway). When insulin as to deal with so much sugar that it doesn’t know what to do with it anymore, it stores it as fat. Also, when insulin is always high, inflammation begins and cells become resistant to insulin, so your pancreas as to produce even more of it. When your cells have become resistant to insulin, you’ve become diabetic. This is the new epidemic of westernized countries that we also call the metabolic syndrome.
Guess what, the main food source of carbohydrate in out diet are grains (wheat, corn, rye, oats, barley, rice…). Breads ans pastas are mostly made of wheat. Without grains, people wouldn’t get fat and wouldn’t have high insulin levels. Try to get 300g, US’s recommended daily intake of carbs, with vegetables and fruits. You’ll have to eat buckets of them.

Bread, cookies, cakes, crackers, rice, pasta, pastries and breakfast cereals are all staples and consumed at almost every meal by almost everybody. This leads to a high carbohydrate load at every meal and this is why people get hungry all the time and have so much fluctuation in their energy levels (blood sugar levels are unstable).

Your grand-mother knew that potatoes and pastas are fattening, maybe we should listen to her wise words.
Don’t worry, replacing carbs by fat sources will not kill you. For all human evolution, we’ve been eating animal meat and fat with some vegetables, fruits and nuts in the mix and yet observations demonstrate that caveman was lean, strong and healthy.

Gluten, lectins and phytates, three poisons you can live without

Living organisms all develop ways to protect themselves against preys and invaders. It’s the basis of our survival mechanisms. Animals can usually run or attack, but plants have to find another way. In fact, most plants contain some form of toxins so animals can’t eat too much of them before getting sick.
The only part of a plant that want s to be eaten are fruits, and this is not without a purpose. Fruits contain seeds that we and other animals can’t digest so we evacuate them elsewhere and help propagate the plant to new horizons. It’s a fair partnership after all. It’s not by accident that plants produce fruits, it takes up most of its resources do to so.

Grains are not different from most plants and in certain regards they’re much worse. Grains are the offsprings of soon to become grasses so they need even more protection in the beginning to ensure other species stay far away. Other then that, they also contain toxins that inhibit their own growth until they have what they need to grow (soil and water).

Gluten

Gluten is, arguably, the worst offender. You can find gluten in wheat, rye and barley. Don’t forget that wheat is absolutely everywhere today. You probably already know that those who have Celiac disease can’t have even a tiny bit of it or else they’re in for big trouble.

What you might not know though is that 30% of the population have noticeable amounts of antigiadin in their stools. Antigiadin are antibodies secreted when the body sees giadin, one of gluten’s constituent, as an intruder. Having the antibody in your stools means that your body is actively fighting an intruder and that you already have a low level of chronic inflammation, the source of all modern diseases.

Gluten also has this weird ability to mimic certain proteins and to make its way into your cells, then wreaking havoc and making you develop autoimmune diseases where the body attacks itself (Chron’s disease is an example).

Lectins

Lectins are other toxins present in all grains that cause their load of problems. First, they damage the gut lining and a damaged gut lining is an inflamed gut lining that will have difficulty absorbing nutrients. This also leads the way to colon cancer. Lectins also causes leptin resistance, which means that your hunger signal is suppressed and that you’ll be hungry even when your body has had more than enough calories.

Phytates

This other set of toxins, also found in lesser quantities in nuts and seeds, bind to nutrients and robs them from your body. You can then think twice when you think that eating grains will feed you loads of nutrients. Phytates make a good job of making them less bio-available. All this list of nutrients on a bag of sliced bread is only a small proportion of what your body will really be able to get.

Do you think that grains can beat any vegetable or fruit nutrition wise or that you’ll find some nutrients only in them? The answer is NO!

Conclusion

I sincerely hope that this article helped shed some light on the problems caused by this group of food that is so popular.
Of all the habits that you can develop, dropping the grains off your diet is probably the one that will pay off the most.

Recipe: Portobello burgers

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I am sticking with the theme of quick and easy recipes as this good weather continues. The other night I hosted some friends and we were all really in the mood to be outside. When this happens, I almost always resort to the BBQ. The menu called for simple beef hamburgers atop a lightly seasoned Portabello mushroom. Tomatoes and avocado were the perfect toppers, along with a spiced mustard. I will especially enjoy making this meal again later in the season when the vegetables from my garden are ready. I completed the meal with a side of mashed sweet potatoes, which just so happens to be a recipe I posted not too long ago.

Whenever I am making hamburgers, I make sure that the ground beef is not too lean. Reason being, I do not like to season the meat too much, so the more fat on the meat, the more flavor. That being said, by no means do you have to limit your seasoning. Pretty much anything goes! I will share with you what I did; however, feel free to add your own twist.

In the recipe, I didn’t specify any specific topping to use with those burgers, but the reason is to let you choose what you prefer and what you have available. Almost anything goes. A good homemade condiment like ketchup or mustard is a great choice, so is a homemade mayonnaise. As for the vegetables, tomatoes, lettuce and avocados are great. I also personally really like a sliced, crunchy and naturally fermented dill pickle.

Portobello burger recipe

Serves 4 to 6

 

Ingredients for the hamburgers

Makes 6 to 8 patties

• 3lbs of ground beef (not too lean ifyou want a very flavorful patty);
• 3 eggs;
• 2 cloves garlic, minced;
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste;

Ingredients for the portobello mushrooms

• 6-8 large Portabello mushroons;
• A few tablespoons of olive oil (the amount will depend on how large your mushrooms are, so start with a little and add more as needed);
• 2 cloves garlic, minced;
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste;

Preparation for the hamburgers

1. Place the ground beef in a large bowl and add the eggs. Combine until the eggs are evenly mixed through.
2. Mix in the garlic and season with salt and pepper.
3. Form 6 to 8 patties that are slightly smaller than the mushroom caps so they can fit on top once cooked.
4. Place on a preheated grill and cook each side for about 5-7 minutes (the time it takes will depend on the temperature of your grill. I cooked them at medium-low for approximately this time).

Preparation for the portobello mushrooms

1. Rinse the mushrooms and pat them dry.
2. Remove the mushroom stems. The reason for this is because you want your mushroom cap to take the form of the hamburger bun. Do not discard, they can be great for many other recipes, or you can grill them along with the caps.
3. Coat the caps in olive oil and then season with salt and pepper. Do not let the oil penetrate for long, as you will notice the mushrooms will start to get soggy.
4. Place on the preheated grill and cook on each side for about 5-7 minutes.

Now all there is left to do is stack your patty on top of your mushroom and add any toppings you desire. There you have it! The complete Paleo hamburger. Enjoy!

Choosing and cooking meat The butcher shop

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Lets not kid ourselves, one of the nicest things about the Paleo diet is the fact that we can eat unlimited amounts of meat. Red meat, fatty meat, anything will do as long as it has been fed and treated properly. Like so many others following the conventional wisdom way of thinking, I use to think that high quantity of fatty red meat would cause a quantity of problems latter in life.

I’ve now learned better and know that meat and fat is not what’s causing all the deseases we’ve burduned with today or else how would we’ve thrived for millions of years as a specie eating mostly game meat and vegetables.

Now, I think conventional wisdom has moved us so far off red meat that we don’t know how to choose a good cut or how to prepare it anymore.
When starting out with the Paleo diet, I was only agile with simple cuts of chicken and pork. I now know better and I’m not shy to buy cuts of meat that need roasting, stewing, poaching, braising or grilling. So much flavors are available to us, it’s a shame to eat the same things over and over again.
As a rule of thumb, the parts of an animal that move the most will require the longest and slowest cooking. Those will reward you though with a deep flavor and melt in the mouth meat when cooked properly. On an animal like a pork, a lamb or a beef, those parts are usually the shins and the shoulders.
Try to choose your meat with the bone still in as the bone will render great flavor and nutrients when cooked slowly in a liquid with meat attached to it. If you grill or roast meat with the bone, you can then use those bones to make delicious stock.

How to choose great meat from your butcher

When choosing meat at your butcher’s, other than how it was fed (choose naturally fed and grass fed) or treated (choose free-range and antibiotic free), also look at the meat your buying and look for cuts that look dry, have a deep red to purplish color and are marbled with fat with an extra creamy fat layer on top. Of course, with pork or chicken, it won’t be marbled, but good cuts of pork should have a good layer of fat on the exterior (exception made for lean cuts like the tenderloin). The more fat a cut of meat has, the more moisture it will hold when cooked. You’ll want to choose meat that look dry because wet meat often hasn’t been hung long enough and will lose most of its juices in the cooking process. Hanging an animal makes the muscle fibers break down and the meat gets more tender.

The different cooking methods

For almost all cooking methods, it’s best to have your meat at room temperature before cooking it so it cooks faster and more evenly. Also, most cooking temperatures given in recipes are based on room temperature cuts of meat, so you’ll have more accurate results if you start this way.

Roasting

Great method for tender cuts of meat like racks of lamb, pork loin, poultry or beef ribs, rump and sirloin roasts. You basically put your meat in a hot oven (about 425 F) for the first 15 minutes and then lower the temperature to around 350 F for the rest of the cooking process making sure to baste the meat from time to time. Tender red meat can be underdone to your taste, but chicken and pork should be well cooked through.

 

Slow-roasting

Basically the same method as roasting, but with an oven at a lower 300 F to 325 F and for a longer period of time. This method is very well suited for cuts that are a bit too tough for regular roasting like lamb and pork shoulder and pork belly.

 

Pot-roasting

A method that is suitable for the same cuts of meat has slow-roasting. You brown your meat in a pot on all sides (this helps keep the juices inside the meat) and then put the pot with the meat in the oven to roast and add a liquid like stock halfway through the cooking process. You can also add red wine in place of the stock if you allow it in your diet. You can baste the meat with the liquid is often as you want.

 

Pan-roasting

A bit like pot-roasting, but for tender cuts of meat and without a liquid. This method is well-suited for cuts that are tender, but are still too thick to simply fry like a steak. You brown the meat on all sides in a pan and then put it in the oven for the rest of the cooking process.

 

Frying and stir-frying

Those two methods are probably the most used methods and are well suited for all kinds of tender cuts of meat like chicken breasts, steaks, chops, ribs and tenderloins.

For frying, you heat up a pan to a medium-high heat and then put some kind of healthy fat (coconut oil, ghee or other animal saturated fat that won’t burn) on the meat or in the pan and cook the meat while turning every now and then until cooked through.
For stir-frying, you cut your tender piece of meat in thin slices and put them in a sizzling hot wok with a fat that’s heat resistant and then stir non stop until your meat is cooked.

Grilling

What’s better than grilling a tender piece of meat during the summer time outside on the grill with friends and family? Simply sear your meat on the hot part of the grill and then let the rest of the cooking process happen on a medium-hot part of the grill. Make sure your piece if meat is well browned before turning so it doesn’t stick and turn it with tongs so the meat doesn’t get pierced which would make the juices run out of the meat.

Poaching

A good way to cook tender meat like fish and chicken, poaching will also produce a delicious stock that can be used for the sauce that will go with the final dish. You can poach whole chickens and whole fishes and the rule is to have a tight lid that will cook even the parts that are outside the liquid with the steam it produces. Keep the temperatures low and make sure that the liquid is no more than simmering.

Stewing and braising

This method is used for tougher cuts of meat like shoulders, shins or beef brisket and will produce a very flavorful and tender end product when done properly. Simply put your meat and a liquid like stock or water on the stove top, in the oven or in a crock-pot. Add tough vegetables (onions, carrots and celery are a good aromatic combination), herbs and spices and let cook at a low temperature until the meat is fork tender.
With braising, you usually use a whole cut of meat instead of having it cut in small pieces and you don’t cover the meat entirely with the liquid letting the steam between the lid and the liquid do to rest.