Whole Grains Aren’t Good For Your HealthBy: Bryan Marcel, Certified Personal Trainer
Which has more health benefits, whole grains or refined grains? I’m willing to bet that most people will answer, whole grains. Why? Because that is what you have been told. You read and hear about all the studies touting the benefits of whole grains. You see the health claims on the products about whole grains on the inner aisles of the grocery store. But ask yourself a question. Why is it that the choices are only between whole grains and refined grains? Why not whole grains and sprouted grains? Why not whole grains and no grains? First, let’s establish this point. You can’t sell or market a healthy diet. How often do you see advertisements for green beans, raspberries or walnuts? There just isn’t much profit in those products. It’s the products that are advertised or that are making health claims that are the cash cows. Don’t think for a minute that your best interest is what they have in mind. The question is posed as “whole grain or refined grain” because that is how the grain growers and producers want it to be framed. If you control the question, then you control the debate. It’s a little like a circus. The goal is to keep the audience distracted.
Now I could cite many studies that would answer the question of what grain is best, whole or refined. But, I think that the best way to answer this particular question is to go straight to the source of who’s asking it, the grain industry. At the Third International Whole Grain Global Summit the mission was stated well. “It is to increase the intake of… grain components” . They are just being honest. They want to sell you more whole grains. That is where the honesty ends. Let’s look at some other quotes.
“..Carefully designed meta-analyses (assumptions based on pooled data) and reviews failed to corroborate findings from many observational studies”.
Wait a minute. It is normal for a study to be carefully designed so that the predicted outcome can be proven. That is one of many reasons why I look at who funds a study. It’s also one of many reasons why most studies are meaningless. But here they set up “very carefully designed studies” and still didn’t get the results that they wanted. You don’t hear about that.
There is more bad news. “The case for whole grain health benefits was strengthened by some of the studies presented at the summit. However, intervention studies (a study in which the hypothesized cause and effect factor is modified) failed to support findings gleaned (gathered) from previous observational data”.
So the whole grain industry actually can’t prove that whole grains are good for you. Don’t let the truth get in your way. “While interventions (cause and effect studies) in which consumers are asked to increase consumption of whole grains might predict consumer behavior regarding general dietary advice to eat more whole grains, the outcomes might be very different if the intervention (study) directly substitutes refined grain with whole grain products”.
“There is sufficient evidence showing that higher whole grain diets compared with refined grain diets are beneficial for several health outcomes”. There you have it.
Refined grains are highly processed grain devoid of nutrition. They are processed by your body as simple carbohydrates and spike your insulin. Insulin causes the body to store them as fat. But if we base a study using refined grains which are very bad, then we substitute that for whole grains, which aren’t as bad, then we can claim our product is healthier. That is the equivalent of substituting a soda for a diet soda. One has high fructose corn syrup (stored as fat around your organs), which doesn’t occur in nature. The other has chemical artificial sweeteners (linked to cancer, leukemia and weight gain), which also don’t occur in nature. Which one is less bad for you? And that is what it comes down to. Which one is less bad, not which one is better. Neither one is better.
Let’s continue, “While we know that whole grains can be contaminated with deleterious compounds (harmful to all living things), such as mycotoxins (any substance produced by a mold or fungus, that is injurious to vertebrates, humans included, upon ingestion) and heavy metals (toxic even at low concentrations), and that during processing compounds form such as acrylamide (a cancer causing compound found in potato chips, french fries, and bread that has been heated to high temperatures, can damage the nervous system and is a carcinogenic in laboratory animals.) Clearly, the benefits of ingesting whole grain products far outweigh their risks”. Yep.
They’re willing to bet your life on it. So allow me to sum that up. They say, our products contain toxins that can kill or harm you, but the benefits—and we can’t even prove, with our carefully designed studies, that there are any benefits—far outweigh the risks.
Here comes the last nail in the coffin of whole grains. “There needs to be… development of procedures that can address both the nutritional and anti-nutritional factors in grains and grain-based foods”. Did you catch that? Anti-nutritional factors. Whole grains have anti-nutrients. An anti-nutrient is a compound that interferes with the absorption of calcium, zinc, iron and copper. Herbivores were designed to eat whole grains. Humans were not.
At this point you are saying to yourself, “In previous posts he’s already asked me to give up all processed food and anything that is white like sugar, flour, pasta, potatoes and white bread. So I bought whole wheat bread. I can’t even shop the inside aisle of the store anymore. Now is he asking me to give up bread altogether?” If you have been reading my articles for awhile, you know that I occasionally ramble, but I will eventually answer that question. Patience, young grasshopper. Oh! I forgot to mention a USDA study that found 25% of farm-stored wheat was infested with an average of 3,645 insects per bushel  (a bushel is about 9 gallons, if my math is correct). That’s a lot of insects. Maybe grain is nutritious after all.
To help understand why whole grains aren’t healthy I want you to imagine that you are a wheat seed. As a wheat seed your sole mission, like all living things, is to regenerate life. One day you’re growing there, minding your own business and an animal comes along and eats you. At this point one of two things will happen. Either you will get mashed up in his teeth or you manage to find your way to his digestive tract intact. In the first scenario, you are like a kamikaze pilot. You know that you are dead so your goal is to take out your enemy. You do this with enzyme inhibitors (anti-nutrients) which prevent efficient digestion and stress the pancreas. You also will release complex sugars that the body can’t break down. Your final blow will be hard-to-digest proteins that may cause digestive problems and allergies. The second scenario is the preferred outcome, because you still have a chance at completing your mission. Nature has given you some defenses. Your outer hull, also known as bran consists of phytic acid, an anti-nutrient that keeps you, the seed, from sprouting until the conditions are right. Needless to say, sitting in an animals’ stomach is not the right condition. If you can survive long enough you will emerge from the back side of the animal. That sounds terribly unpleasant (and it doesn’t smell so great either), but now you are outside in the world again with a second chance at creating life. With the help of a little rain and some sun, you sprout. Mission accomplished. You relax and let all of your defenses down. Extra nutrients and proteins unlock and release to provide you life until you establish your own root system. Congratulations. You are now a sprouted grain well on your way to becoming your own plant. Can you see where I am going with this?
A history lesson. In 1838 Hiram Moore invented the combine for harvesting grain. Over time this process has become very efficient. By the 1980′s combines had on-board electronics that allowed them to harvest more grain even faster. Up until the combine was invented though, grain was left to sprout before it was milled into flour. The combine changed that by harvesting the grain in the field and then moving it to storage bins before being processed. But whole grains aren’t processed you say. That’s for refined grains. Nope. All grains are processed. Humans can’t eat whole grain without sprouting, blending or cooking them first. Not to mention that raw grains taste unpleasant and bitter. Bite into a fresh, uncooked ear of corn and see what I mean. Whole grains go through almost the same process as refined grains. The difference is that whole grains are “put back together” in the same proportions as the whole seed. But when you process the grain without letting it sprout you leave all of the anti-nutrients intact. Therein lies the problem.
The solution is to do what we used to do. You will notice that that is an underlying theme of the Bryan Marcel lifestyle. To do, what we used to do. Before butter was made evil, fat was accused of causing us to be fat, cholesterol caused cholesterol and man-made laboratory-created processed food was considered better for us than natures’ own creations of vegetables, fruits, nuts, eggs and meats that we thrived on for thousands of years. We veered off of the track of good nutrition in 1980 with the first food guidelines by our government and it just keeps getting worse. We are the unhealthiest that we have ever been in history and following the common “health advice” and “studies” only make us unhealthier.
Sprouting grain has many benefits. It changes the starch (a simple carbohydrate) composition into vegetable sugars that the body recognizes. Complex sugars are already broken down. Enzymes are released that aid in digestion. Vitamin and mineral levels increase. Carcinogens and enzyme inhibitors are neutralized. This is what nature intended. So, yes, young grasshopper, you can have bread occasionally. Just make it sprouted grain bread. You can buy sprouted grain bread in a good grocery store’s freezer section or you can buy sprouted grain flour and make your own.
Let’s go back to the original question. Which is better, whole grains or refined grains? Neither. A diet free from grain is best, but if like me, you want bread occasionally, choose sprouted grain products.
 http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05545.PDFCopyright, all rights reserved. Internet redistribution authorized with this active link present: http://www.BryanMarcel.com