While the standard American diet for non-celiacs includes processed wheat, and are likely responsible for these health concerns, there is also plenty of science that links a diet rich in whole grains including whole wheat to weight loss, better digestion and lower blood sugar. The Mediterranean Diet is still revered as one of the healthiest diets on the planet, and is replete with whole grains and wheat. The centenarians (folks over 100) who live in the Blue Zones eat a non-processed whole food diet, once again, rich in whole grains and wheat.

So, why are so many Americans having trouble digesting wheat? That’s just it… They are not digesting it! Many who are gluten sensitive today digested wheat fine when they were young, but are currently having trouble. Somewhere along the line, our ability to digest foods that are a bit harder to digest, like wheat and dairy, became compromised.

Remove All Processed Foods

The first step in re-booting digestive strength is removing all the processed foods. A processed food diet has been linked to a 141 percent increase in belly fat, high blood sugar and high cholesterol. In the same study, a diet of whole grains including wheat reduced the risk of these health concerns by 38 percent.

Fitness pioneer Jack LaLanne once told me the best way to eat is to never eat anything out of a package. The reason why processed foods are processed in the first place is so they can sit on a shelf for extended periods of time. Whole foods, as we all know, go bad quickly and it is not always possible to eat freshly cooked food. So, here are simple ingredient label navigation tips to avoid highly processed foods.

1.     Avoid all added sugars or artificial sweeteners. Allow nothing over 6 grams of naturally-occurring sugar per serving.
2.     Avoid refined, cooked oils. (Anything baked with oils or fried, i.e., bread, baked goods, chips, etc.)
3.     Avoid all chemicals. Don’t eat it if you don’t recognize the name in the ingredients.

Re-boot Liver and Gallbladder Function

In the 1960’s, when the FDA put cholesterol on the nutrient concern list, food manufacturers started boiling, bleaching, deodorizing and refining vegetable oils. They were used as preservatives to keep bread squishy and “fresh” for weeks. After almost 60 years of blindly consuming these indigestible oils, they remain the number one reason for the great American digestive breakdown. The processed oils both congested the liver and gallbladder, rendering the liver’s bile unable to break down both good and bad fats and insufficient to buffer stomach acids. Without adequate bile production to neutralize stomach acid, the stomach will not produce the needed acid to digest proteins like gluten and the casein in dairy. This has resulted in a huge spike in gallbladder surgeries and epidemic levels of obesity, high blood sugar and food intolerances. It is natural to blame the hard-to-digest foods, but removing them only addresses the symptoms and leaves the cause – weak digestion left untreated only to haunt your health down the road.

Boost Bile Flow

The first step in strengthening the stomach’s digestive acid is to make sure there is plenty of bile flow from the liver and gallbladder. To boost bile flow, enjoy these foods daily:

4.     Eat one red beet and one apple day. They can be raw, cooked, juiced or blended.
5.     Add 1 teaspoon of coconut oil and one teaspoon of high quality olive oil.
6.     Eat more artichokes, celery and leafy greens.
7.     Drink fennel and fenugreek tea with meals.

Strengthen Stomach Fire

Once the liver is making adequate bile and the bile ducts and gallbladder are less congested, then you can stimulate the stomach to make the stomach acid needed to break down hard-to-digest so-called “allergenic” foods. Instead of taking digestive enzymes or a HCI stomach acid pill, I prefer to stimulate the stomach to make its own acid, and the small intestine and pancreas to make their own digestive enzymes. This is best done with the following five spices:

8.     Ginger, cumin, coriander, cardamom and fennel.

Studies suggest that when these five spices are used together, they act as a total upper digestive re-boot. They can be taken as a supplement, in cooking or used to flavor food. These five star spices:

• Increase bile flow (no need for bile salts)
• Increase pancreatic enzyme activity (no need for digestive enzymes)
• Increase small intestine enzyme activity (no need for digestive enzyme supplements)
• Decrease gas and bloating (no need for HCl supplements)
• Increase fat and sugar metabolism
• Are powerful free radial scavengers
• Support optimal weight
• Support microbiology health (especially ginger)
• Improve gut health
• Support a healthy growth rate of good bacteria (especially ginger)
• Decrease H. pylori from adhering to stomach
• Are digestive stimulants
• Quicken the transit time in the intestines – supporting better elimination

Following these eight simple steps of nutritional navigation, boosting bile flow and stomach strengthening, will set you on the right path to retrain your body to digest (and enjoy!) wheat again.

The post Eight Steps to Retrain Your Body to Digest Wheat appeared first on Chic Vegan.

The shift from a diet rich in good fats to a diet devoid of them resulted in a global craving for a quicker, faster and more efficient delivery system of fuel for the body. The replacement fats were highly processed in order to extend their shelf life, rendering them indigestible and undeliverable as a fuel supply. Cravings for energy were satisfied with more highly processed sugar-laden foods that left America craving the new kids on the block: comfort foods and fast foods. Many of these foods were highly processed from wheat and corn that had been overeaten and coincidently subsidized to be grown in excess for pennies on the dollar. These quick-energy foods would spike and crash blood sugars, unknowingly sowing the seeds for the epidemics we find today: uncontrollable cravings, obesity, diabetes, depression and cognitive decline.

Five Facts We Haven’t Heard from The Gluten-Free Industry

There are many more pieces to this puzzle, but there is no denying that major dietary shifts away from the foods that we have been genetically adapted to eat can deliver unintended consequences. So, before we completely change our diet once again, let’s look at some of the facts that we haven’t heard from the gluten-free industry:

1. Experts tells us that we have been only eating wheat for 10,000 years, and that is not enough time for us to have genetically adapted to digesting it. New studies at the University of Utah have found evidence –from the teeth of early humans as far back as 3.4 million years ago – that glutinous grasses like wheat and barley were eaten as a significant part of their diet, suggesting that we actually have millions, not thousands, of years of genetics for digesting wheat.
2. We are more genetically able to digest wheat than we are meat. According to the University of Utah study, the earliest definitive evidence that early humans hunted their own meat was 500,000 years ago, while we have been digesting wheat and gluten for more than 3 million years.  Ironically, many gluten-sensitive individuals are shifting to a Paleo Diet that is much higher in meat – a food we may be less genetically adapted to digest.
3. In one report, published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, the average American ate 86 pounds more wheat flour in the year 1900 than they did in 2008, suggesting that the explosion of gluten sensitivity may not be due to gluten itself.
4. In another study, when the ancient wheat, Kamut, was compared with modern wheat varieties, Kamut had twice as much gluten, but reduced inflammation two-fold compared to the modern wheat. In addition, the Kamut, with two times more gluten, also lowered cholesterol and blood sugar.
5. There are also scores of studies that suggest increased consumption of whole grains and whole wheat are linked to weight loss, better blood sugar, better cardiovascular health, improved cognitive function, reduction of cancer risk and increased longevity.

Regardless, gluten has been deemed the new poison on the scene. Gluten sensitivity is real for many people, but are we certain gluten is the cause? Could it be the processed nature of the wheat we eat, a 60-year diet of processed fats and preservatives, overeating wheat, or a stressed and broken down digestive system that plagues most Americans?

Five Suggestions for Wheat Consumption

• Eat sourdough bread, which has been fermented. This can render the bread gluten-free.
• Make sure the ingredients of the bread you eat has only organic wheat, salt, water and a starter, with no added oils or sweeteners. If you do not recognize the ingredients, don’t eat them.
• Eat wheat in season – allowing more to be eaten in the fall and winter when it was originally harvested, and less in the spring and summer.
• Make sure it is organic, as the pesticides and preservatives can damage the intestinal tract and set you up for weak digestion and intestinal inflammation.
• Try to eat your wheat in the middle of the day as part of your main meal. This is when digestion is strongest, so attempt to eat less wheat at night.

Before we convict a grain that has been eaten for millions of years, why not change the wheat we eat as the first step to re-booting and rejuvenating our broken down digestive systems.

The post Five Facts About Gluten That We Haven’t Heard from the Gluten-Free Industry appeared first on Chic Vegan.