Going Against The Grain?

In Wednesday’s newsletter, we asked you for your health-related opinion of grains (aside from any gluten-specific concerns), and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:

• About 69% said “They are an important cornerstone of a healthy balanced diet”
• About 22% said “They can be enjoyed in moderation, but watch out”
• About 8% said “They are terrible health-drainers that will kill us”

So, what does the science say?

They are terrible health-drainers that will kill us: True or False?

True or False depending on the manner of their consumption!

There is a big difference between the average pizza base and a bowl of oats, for instance. Or rather, there are a lot of differences, but what’s most critical here?

The key is: refined and ultraprocessed grains are so inferior to whole grains as to be actively negative for health in most cases for most people most of the time.

But! It’s not because processing is ontologically evil (in reality: some processed foods are healthy, and some unprocessed foods are poisonous). although it is a very good general rule of thumb.

So, we need to understand the “why” behind the “key” that we just gave above, and that’s mostly about the resultant glycemic index and associated metrics (glycemic load, insulin index, etc).

In the case of refined and ultraprocessed grains, our body gains sugar faster than it can process it, and stores it wherever and however it can, like someone who has just realised that they will be entertaining a houseguest in 10 minutes and must tidy up super-rapidly by hiding things wherever they’ll fit.

And when the body tries to do this with sugar from refined grains, the result is very bad for multiple organs (most notably the liver, but the pancreas takes quite a hit too) which in turn causes damage elsewhere in the body, not to mention that we now have urgently-produced fat stored in unfortunate places like our liver and abdominal cavity when it should have gone to subcutaneous fat stores instead.

In contrast, whole grains come with fiber that slows down the absorption of the sugars, such that the body can deal with them in an ideal fashion, which usually means:

• using them immediately, or
• storing them as muscle glycogen, or
• storing them as subcutaneous fat

👆 that’s an oversimplification, but we only have so much room here.

For more on this, see:

Glycemic Index vs Glycemic Load vs Insulin Index

And for why this matters, see:

Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?

And for fixing it, see:

How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver

They can be enjoyed in moderation, but watch out: True or False?

Technically True but functionally False:

• Technically true: “in moderation” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. One person’s “moderation” may be another person’s “abstemiousness” or “gluttony”.
• Functionally false: while of course extreme consumption of pretty much anything is going to be bad, unless you are Cereals Georg eating 10,000 cereals each day and being a statistical outlier, the issue is not the quantity so much as the quality.

Quality, we discussed above—and that is, as we say, paramount. As for quantity however, you might want to know a baseline for “getting enough”, so…

They are an important cornerstone of a healthy balanced diet: True or False?

True! This one’s quite straightforward.

3 servings (each being 90g, or about ½ cup) of whole grains per day is associated with a 22% reduction in risk of heart disease, 5% reduction in all-cause mortality, and a lot of benefits across a lot of disease risks:

❝This meta-analysis provides further evidence that whole grain intake is associated with a reduced risk of coronary heart disease, cardiovascular disease, and total cancer, and mortality from all causes, respiratory diseases, infectious diseases, diabetes, and all non-cardiovascular, non-cancer causes.

These findings support dietary guidelines that recommend increased intake of whole grain to reduce the risk of chronic diseases and premature mortality.❞

~ Dr. Dagfinn Aune et al.

Read in full: Whole grain consumption and risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and all cause and cause specific mortality: systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of prospective studies

We’d like to give a lot more sources for the same findings, as well as papers for all the individual claims, but frankly, there are so many that there isn’t room. Suffice it to say, this is neither controversial nor uncertain; these benefits are well-established.

Here’s a very informative pop-science article, that also covers some of the things we discussed earlier (it shows what happens during refinement of grains) before getting on to recommendations and more citations for claims than we can fit here:

Harvard School Of Public Health | Whole Grains

“That’s all great, but what if I am concerned about gluten?”

There certainly are reasons you might be, be it because of a sensitivity, allergy, or just because perhaps you’d like to know more.

Let’s first mention: not all grains contain gluten, so it’s perfectly possible to enjoy naturally gluten-free grains (such as oats and rice) as well as gluten-free pseudocereals, which are not actually grains but do the same job in culinary and nutritional terms (such as quinoa and buckwheat, despite the latter’s name).

Finally, if you’d like to know more about gluten’s health considerations, then check out our previous mythbusting special:

Gluten: What’s The Truth?

Enjoy!