Are you currently grain free or on the full GAPS Diet to heal your allergies or another autoimmune issue?
Fear not, this can and should be only a temporary situation!
Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride MD, author of groundbreaking book Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS), writes that almost half the population reports some sort of “allergy” to a food or foods.
Despite this sobering statistic, she estimates that only 1% of people cannot recover from these food allergies (yes, this includes celiac).
This means that only 1% of people really need to be grain free forever.  Going grain free to reverse allergies should be only a 1 1/2 to 2 year process, not a lifelong sentence in the vast majority of cases!
The important thing is to know how to prepare your grains traditionally when you re-introduce them!
Plenty of Traditional Societies consumed grains, some like the Swiss obtained a large share of their calories from sourdough bread.  Hunter-gatherers from Canada, the Everglades, Australia, Africa, and the Amazon consumed a variety of grains, tubers, vegetables and fruits that were available in addition to plenty of animal foods, so don’t fall for the incorrect notion that ancestral societies didn’t eat grains and that it is unhealthy to do so.
And, if you haven’t yet learned to prepare your grains traditionally and are still consuming plenty of modern grains on a daily basis, you better learn quick as the autoimmune/allergy train is coming down the tracks at full speed and it’s headed straight for you (if it hasn’t flattened you already)!
Knowing how to prepare grains traditionally is the only way to consume them long term without autoimmune illness inevitably cropping up, unless you are part of the 1% who needs to avoid them forever.
For most of us, then, traditional preparation of grains is an essential skill in the kitchen, one that must be mastered to experience vibrant health.
Please note that freshly grinding your flour and baking your own bread with yeast is not traditional preparation of bread!
Fresh bread that is homemade does not necessarily equal healthy bread!
Bread and other grain based foods must be sprouted, soaked, or sour leavened to be digestible and healthy!
So, go with the grain, not against it. It is not necessary to be grain free to be healthy and it’s certainly not very fun – at least not long term.
Eating, after all, is meant to be a pleasant and enjoyable experience and grain based foods no doubt play a big part in that.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Sources and More Information
Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride MD, 2009
Nasty, Brutish and Short? by Sally Fallon Morell
I cannot believe you are advocating people with CELIAC’s to eat gluten!!! It is incomprehensible! Celiac’s is an autoimmune disorder that is inherited and can only be controlled by ELIMINATING GLUTEN. As a diagnosed Celiac with a daughter who suffers from this disorder as well, your message to reintroduce gluten (namely wheat) is not only baffling, it can be dangerous.
Hi Sarah,
I have been following a Paleo regime for about two years and find myself questioning it as the benefits were never that enormous given that I always followed a healthy unprocessed, low sugar diet.
I think for a lot of people who had a habit of over eating due to the addictive nature of the poor food choices they were making find it a novelty to not be constantly hungry so they think Paleo is the holy grail – actually it’s becoming frightening how hard core argumentative and closed minded many “Paleo” blogs are becoming!
Recently I came across a cookbook of my grandmothers with shopping lists and recipes and they ate much bread that they freshly prepared and never were overweight nor made doctor visits – understandbly they were far more active and had other positive lifestyle factors also – now I feel myself questioning the Paleo ethos and feel that I really am sick of the sight of eggs and would like more variety in my diet.
In my local health store they sell an organic sprouted spelt bread – 100% sprouted spelt – would this be an okay option to re introduce grains? I am a student living in a house share and grinding my own flour isn’t going to happen for now.
Thanks,
Ally 🙂
Wow when I ate a lot of wheat and other grains I got fatter and fatter and fatter until I was about 50 lbs overweight…I also had to have a food of my intestines removed as it was inflamed, infected and almost disintegrated…which would have killed me…
Now I eat no wheat and no grains and I am losing my fat layer..I can see my ribs again and it is a wonderful site. I feel great. I am watching my muscles grow also…I can now flex my thigh and it does not jiggle it flexes…
I am NOT going back to eating grains and get fat all over again they are just not worth it.
One cup of rice breaks down to 6 teaspoons of sugar in the number of carbohydrates..why would I want to eat that much sugar with my dinner? I will stick with a steak cooked in butter, and a bunch of steamed veggies soaked in butter or covered with real cheese and watch my fat layer get even smaller…who needs toast when they can have BACON!!!!
People have been on primal for years with no ill effects whatsoever; in fact, they’re healthier for it. “Modern lifestyle”? How about modern processed foods such as sugar and flour? Those are the real problems. I suggest you read this if you believe that we magically adopted to grains:
The fact is, we as a species got shorter, fatter and sicker when we switched to agricultural-based diets.
I tried going grain free and felt horrible. I was freezing all the time, I live in florida and could never get warm! I now eat a soaked rice dish twice a month, pasta once a month and bread sandwiches a few times a week. All things in moderation. I feel like the primal diet is the new vegan diet. It’s one extreme to another. People feel great at first staring a vegan diet, maybe for a period they need to be away rom those foods but soon thigs begin to go wrong. We simply need a balanced diet!
But why should I reintroduce grains? I don’t miss them at all.
Please add my voice to those wondering about how the title of the article applied to its contents.. Based on your other writings I’ve seen that you do advocate a very sane approach to diet, but I’m still lost on why you think it is necessary to eat grains. Thanks for any illumination.
While it’s true that there are those who can eat properly prepared grains without ill effect (there are many with broken metabolisms who can’t, though), it is wrong to say one “should” be eating grains. We can get along just fine without them and did for most of our history as human beings. Whatever nutrition is in properly prepared whole grain foods can be obtained in spades from a diet of non starchy vegetables, low sugar fruits, fish, eggs, nuts, fatty meats and organ meats–no grains required.
Like the others, I have not seen you post a valid reason to eat grains. What is their nutritive value? Skip the grain and live longer. Read “Wheat Belly” and become educated. Every fact in the book is backed up with a reference to the study or document it came from. My tribe never had wheat until the 1940’s and since then obesity, diabetes, and all the other side effects associated with that are prevelent. Yeah, I’m off wheat and I’m hoping everyone else will see the light as well.
I don’t see where your argument for why we should be eating grains is. All I see is why we need not be forever grain-free if we like to eat grains. Personally, food is more enjoyable without any grains because all the sprouting, fermenting, acidifying, souring, and so on is such a hassle compared to some nice mashed potatoes.