RE: Giving up grains

[Guest guest]

>> Psoriatic arthritis, PMR, Ank.Spon, all respond well to a wheat free diet.Low carb really. Great post Zoe!. I couldn’t agree with you more about the damage grain does, especially in certain conditions, and I am perpetually preaching this to patients. When they are willing / able to make the changes, results can be wonderful and dramatic. However it is hard. People are shocked, even angry at the prospect of doing without their grains , and my long list of alternative foods, web resources, recipes etc, is sometimes met with dismay. Do you mind sharing some of your ideas on the subject? Which links do you send people to, to better inform them about the evils of grains? Or suitable recipes (there are so many!) Apart from obvious meat / fish /eggs/ veg choices, my ideas tend to revolve around combining eggs with ground almonds, or coconut flour, and adding grated veg (eg courgettes), to make pancakes or muffins. Lots of nutty snacks and if they can’t do without oats, I get them to soak oats in natural, live yoghurt + water overnight at room temperature (breaking down indigestible elements, and starting fermentation), then combine with seeds (also soaked overnight) and berries etc. There are some great websites (mainly “paleo” sites) for recipes. I give people a list, but welcome other suggestions. I’d like to help people as much as possible, because I appreciate how hard it can be to make these changes. Requiring more preparation time and forethought (until they are used to it) especially when they have kids, and work full-time. So any tips, ideas (esp. breakfast and snacks), good websites would be very welcome. Thanks Firnberg From: ukherbal-list [mailto:ukherbal-list ] On Behalf Of Zoe HawesSent: 03 February 2012 10:00To: ukherbal-list Subject: Re: Re: Psoriatic arthritis? Psoriatic arthritis, PMR, Ank.Spon, all respond well to a wheat free diet.Low carb really. I used this now for about 3 years worth of patients, all presenting with of a various combination of these, all making complete recovery when they stick to grain free. I say grain free because if you say gluten free they go and fill up on gluten free products which are still eventually glucose in the body and full of glucose corn syrup crap. Get the BM (Blood sugar) down then insulin comes down and inflammation resolves. My last patient took herbs for 6 months - ALL the anti inflam ones and had small improvements but kept relapsing UNTIL he went off and had a proper look at all the links I gave him about grains - he went grain free in November and is now pain free and back to work. Vegans are totally fat deficient and I can't think of one I have seen in clinic that doesn't rely on grain based carbohydrates as a main part of their diet. Omega 6 fats are inflammatory (from seeds, nuts and vegetables)And you can't get anywhere near enough the amounts of omega 3 required from hemp and flax. Our ancestors didn't get essential fats from vegetables and they wouldn't have eaten flax and hemp seed in quantities enough to give them anything close to what is required(it would have given them the runs though) It has to be animal fats.The anti nutrient effects, immune screwing gluten and high glucose stuff aside - I'm thinking that another part of these illnesses is to do with the biology of the brain. The amygdala in the brain is programmed to monitor for potentially dangerous stuff. I picture it like a security guard in his office. Doesn't have a rational brain or ability to think for himself. Just sees how things are over time and then sets responses to alert when anything changes.So if you have a pretty steady high blood sugar and insulin, then as soon as that monitor on the security guards screen starts to blip off down into lower levels, then he will react as if it is dangerous and set off a red alert. That means flight or fight response. Skeletal muscles get tense in response, ready to power off running or fighting. Tenseness=poor circulation=bad nutrient supply & poor removal of wastes= inflammation and disrepair= aching, tense, painful joints and muscles.So they have a nice carby cereal breakfast with a few seedy nuts (omega 6) and some evil soya milk or rice milk(why not just poor sugar syrup on?!) on it. Then 2 hours later the BM drops. Then a snack on a few rice cakes, oat cakes what ever. BM goes up. For a bit.Back down for lunch of pasta, potato, sandwich, soup and bread, cous cous etcAgain in the afternoon -MMMmmm a banana or some kind of healthy fruit (fructose)or yoghurt.and again for dinner of something carb based. So the BM yoyos massively all day long. And they body is constantly on alert. High sympathetic tone causing every system to direct function to flight or fight.There is hardly any parasympathetic activity at all - digestion stops and starts and they have symptoms of irritable bowel - oh and they think they have candida and probably do have an element of dysbiosis because of all the glucose feeding the nasty bloaty bugs. A good regular dose of bile(in a parasympathetic state) would sort that out straight away and fermented foods.(or you can buy expensive pro biotics) Then all the " good " bugs will be able to make nutrients more bio available for absorption.(or you can keep buying expensive supplements long term)or you can make bone broths for your veg soup.Lots of people even get low BM symptoms and they think it's because they need more carbs/glucose/sugar. They also crash pretty badly after about 7-10 days as the system resets. Warn them about this if they are going to do withdraw carbs suddenly rather than gradually. Parasympathetic is also what powers elimination of wastes. If it doesn't get a chance then they accumulate. Lots of these patients complain of insomnia and poor sleep. It's because that amygdala keeps waking them up. Gotta keep running.Oops. Didn't mean to write so much. Can you tell I've been 6 hours a day alone pruning the orchard for 5 days! There is more but I'll stop now just in case I'm telling granny how to suck eggs.(eggs now there's a great breakfast alternative!)zoexMedical HerbalistMNIMH CPP Dip. Phyt. Buteyko Breathing Practitoner " Wild Drugs " 'A Foragers Guide to Healing Plants' Gaia 2010Bath01761 439920

[Guest guest]

I find breakfast is a very difficult meal for people to adjust to

without grains. Trying to convince people to go back a generation or

two, or to a more continental breakfast of meat, fish, eggs, cheese,

or even, God forbid, vegetables seems a difficult mental shift.

Equally would welcome others thoughts or suggestion here...