So a few weeks ago I made a post about a project I have been working on for the past few months and the day has finally come to announce it. Through my constant research on optimal survival nutrition, I got in touch with this company developing the most efficient form of protein designed specifically for survival situations.

The best survival food?

I came across this small team of highly experienced pharma and biotech guys with 75 years of experience between them that had set their sights on developing amino acid based formulations to help in a number of nutritional deficiencies. Needless to say these guys spoke my language. They had enough of the rat race and decided to start something on their own using the experiences they gathered over the years to build a small totally independent company.

These days there are some really sketchy things going on, quality issues and boneheaded formulas. This group was out to create the best amino acid company in the world.

After getting to know them a bit,  I found out that they were preppers themselves! They had designed a product specifically designed for survival to overcome what they couldn’t find in the market. I told them that I had developed one of the most intelligent audiences on the blogosphere interested specifically in nutrition. By the end of the conversation we had discussed the potential for a product that would be the lightest, smallest and highest efficiency protein source available today.

What’s the point?

Three months of protein in a shoebox. That was their promise. I told them that the most important thing for preppers was space, weight and shelf life (more on that later). Protein is the most important macronutrient when it comes to survival but by now we know it’s the hardest to maintain. Meat spoils in a few hours, vegetarian and canned sources are poorly absorbed, and if you miss key amino acids you’re in trouble. If we could take care of the hardest and most important part of the equation, the rest would fall into place.

Those were the specifications they went after. They found a highly efficient protein replacement formula backed up by decades of research that was shown to have the ability to maintain muscle mass when dietary protein is not available.  The result? SurvivAMINO, the lightest, smallest and highest efficiency protein source available today.

How does it work?

By now we all know the importance of amino acids. Instead of providing a whole protein source which takes up space, can rot and is possibly inefficienct, SurvivAMINO is made up of pure amino acids. And not just any amino acids. This product only contains the essential amino acids, in ample supply. It contains every amino acid you need to survive, indefinitely.

How do they get it so small? The answer is in efficiency. When you eat protein, your body breaks part of it down into useable amino acids and the rest into sugar and nitrogen waste. The amount that’s used is called the Amino Acid Uptake rate, or AAU. Most over the counter proteins have an AAU of 20% or less. This formula was engineered to maximize AAU and has a 99% AAU rating. So that means that taking 5 grams of this is the same as taking 25 grams of the other stuff. And even better, because there is no nitrogen waste.

It would seem almost too good to be true if it wasn’t backed by over a decade of research. From trials on top level track athletes to dieters, it’s been proven time and time again to be a complete source of protein. My personal favorite: a study in which a woman crossed the Talikmakan Desert of China for ALMOST A MONTH with this formula as the only source of protein.

Other benefits

You can get your 3 month supply and keep it in your trunk for a rainy day and be all set. This stuff is pure amino acids and does not break down or rot like regular food. One bottle is enough for up to a week depending on your size and activity levels. So if you have a family of three you’ll be good for at least a month with a 12 bottle box. The essential amino acids are more important for developing children and the elderly, who are physically weaker. I even gave some of this to my 81 year old grandmother who was recovering from a hip injury and she felt better after the first day.

If you subscribe to my idea that the most important item on your bug out bag list is you, there are huge benefits to taking this regularly. This formula has been used for over a decade by top flight triathletes and was a closely guarded secret. If you look into the research, trials have shown muscle gain of up to 2 lbs per week, fat loss and general markers of health. It’s amazing what your body can do when it has the amino acids it needs.

Available for the first time

Up until now, products with this formula have spread only through word of mouth. And you can imagine hyper competitive triathletes aren’t too keen to share their new advantage with friends. People paid quite a bit for this formula in the early days. My friends are taking this formula public and making it available for order online. While they are pretty savvy businessmen they appreciate that providing value to the customers is the most important thing, so they made a few changes.

First, the price has been brought down from the triple digits where it used to be. They needed to make it accessible to the average consumer. Moreover, they’re adding bulk discounts. The three month supply is over 25% off.

Second, they decided to up the ante on the quality of the ingredients. Instead of going the standard route, they went to the best pharmaceutical amino acid producers in the world. These guys provide the same amino acids that are used in IVs in hospitals worldwide. They spared no expense.

Finally, they added a 60 day unconditional money back guarantee. If you have any doubts with this formula, try it out on them. If you don’t like it for any reason you’ll get your money back. It’s that simple. They are so confident in the product they’re willing to back it up.

How can I get it?

You might have noticed the banner I’ve put on the side of the site. This is the first time I’m ever doing an advertisement and I’m doing it because I love this product. Full disclaimer, I became an affiliate so if you click on that you’ll be helping me keep the lights on for this blog.

It’s a great product from a great team and I’m starting to use it every day. I took some instead of eating dinner after a rough jiu-jitsu class and I was nowhere near as sore as I should have been. I even give this to my grandma!

Take a look and let me know how if works for you!

My girlfriend used to joke with me when I started taking paleo seriously that after taking out this food and that food eventually the diet I would be on would just be no food. She ended up being right! At least partially.

The benefits of fasting and calorie restriction have been known for decades to the scientific community. Populations like the Okinawans which are known for their longevity seem to have calorie restriction behavior as well. Animal models have even shown an increase in lifespan of up to 200%!

So am I suggesting you close this window right now and clean out your pantry? Hardly. It turns out you might not have to starve yourself to get these benefits. At least not forever.

Enter intermittent fasting

Intermittent fasting is the practice of not eating for a fixed amount of time (the fast). After the fast has ended, eating continues as normal. Some popular protocols for this include leangains (16 hour fast, 8 hours eating per day), eat stop eat (24 hours once a week) and even religious holidays like Yom Kippur.

Research has shown that fasting for short periods of time can have the same effects as calorie restriction on a cellular level. In fact, our bodies are programmed to behave like this. The answer lies in our evolutionary past.

Feast and Famine

Up until the creation of the modern agricultural system, human beings were subjected to intermittent fasting all the time – and not by choice. As a hunter-gatherer, it could be days before a kill could be made or some nutrient rich plant foods could be found. As we evolved, our bodies developed systems to maintain the health of our cells during the times when food could not be found.

In times of plenty, the hormone insulin determined the majority of activity within the cell. We’ve covered insulin before in a number of posts but on a very basic level it exists to tell our cells to grow. In the presence of insulin, nutrients are added to cells, new cells are created and pro-inflammatory activities occur. All very necessary activities if done in moderation.

However, in times without food, insulin is downregulated and conservation becomes the primary goal. This is accomplished through the release of Human Growth Hormone (HGH).  During fasting, the genes for HGH secretion are ‘turned on’ epigenetically, boosting the rate up to 2000%. The goal of this is to increase repair, which is less costly from a metabolic perspective than growing new cells. It also increases the use of fat as a fuel source, preserves muscle tissue and turns on the genes for cell death in non useful cells (often fat cells).

Using Intermittent Fasting for Survival

Because of the cultural norms in the western world, most people are never in a true fasted state. Eating 3 meals a day, riding the blood sugar rollercoaster and eating high glycemic foods like bagels first thing in the morning prevents fasting from ever taking place.

Seeing the benefits of fasting can be as easy as skipping one meal a day to start off. Skipping breakfast can take advantage of the average 8 hours of fasting you are doing every night by sleeping. If you eat a late dinner at 8PM, say, skip breakfast, and eat lunch at noon, you will have just completed a 16 hour fast.

The applications for this in a true survival scenario are myriad. First, food supplies can be conserved if the window for eating is smaller. Not having to worry about eating first thing in the morning is a load to be taken off the mind. The benefits of increased HGH for your health will keep you strong, prevent aging and accelerate repair of any wounds. Not to mention protect from muscle loss to keep your ability to move and defend yourself.

There has been a big hullabaloo lately over a TED talk by anthropologist Christina Warriner. Paleo haters have been sending these links out to their whole-food eating friends in droves, presumably while eating a bagel with a smug grin on their face. Does the science even hold up? Let’s see what Warriner is ACTUALLY saying.

What’s really being debunked?

straw man

Noun A person compared to a straw image; a sham. A sham argument set up to be defeated.

I was very intrigued with what this video could have contained due to the amount of press surrounding it. Christina is a very intelligent young woman and actually brings a number of very good studies from the forefront of the field of anthropology to the table! Unfortunately the main hypothesis isn’t that eating a paleo diet may not be all it has cracked up to be uses a ‘straw man’ conception. Eat what the cavemen eat, they say! Live forever!

So the talk continues to go on to how actual cavemen ate differently than what we consider a natural paleo diet today.

The good

Professor Warriner brings some great insights into what was actually consumed by our ancestors. According to recent research, legumes and grains may have been consumed earlier than we anticipated, according to dental plaque analysis on ancient bodies. In addition, the stable isotropic readings used by many to justify meat consumption of our ancestors may be somewhat flawed. Finally, for all the demonization of agriculture, it has produced the edible forms of the fruits and vegetables paleo folks around the world eat every day. You couldn’t eat a full calories load off of foraging, which many agree with.

The bad

Shades of a vegetarian agenda in attacking the consumption of red meat in the paleo community. While getting a fair amount of fat may be easier in red meat, paleo folks eat meat of all kinds, from fish to fowl. In addition, describing paleo as being targeted towards men is way off the mark and there are thousands of women on the internet to prove otherwise. Finally, the conception of paleo as a fad diet is a bit distasteful. The earliest conception of the paleo diet can be traced back to William Banting’s Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public written in 1863. As long as diets have been discussed, the damage of grains has been part of the conversation.

The confusing

An attack is launched on there being no single paleo diet. In general this is a ridiculous argument – it would be like saying there’s no cure for cancer because there are so many ways to get there. Regardless, this leads to a great section on the end which argues about eating seasonally and locally. I don’t really understand why this is presented as evidence against because it’s been part of the paleo conversation forever. This brings the bulk of the nutritional advice to the presentation (predictably).

Conclusion

In reality we are looking to reduce consumption of toxin laden survival foods produced by modern agriculture, grains and legumes containing antinutrients of all sorts, avoiding inflammation by consuming healthy fats, and eating more vitamin rich, organic sources of vegetables and meat. Being healthy is more important than following some hokey, quasi-religious set of rules based off of some pop-culture conception of our past.

We follow the research. I would bet dollars to donuts that any paleo guru follows the nutritional science community closer than the anthropological community because it’s about health!

That being said, it’s important for those of us who follow paleo diets to be informed about research like this. The cliff notes version of paleo diet (“We’re not evolved, man!”) might not be enough today. If we buy into dogma we’re no better than the ‘fad dieters’ this talk is trying to go after.

We know how wheat can potentially affect every cell in the body through transglutaminase. We also know how wheat has been changed throughout the years. A fascinating and terrifying article just came across my desk which brings to attention consequences that could be far worse than the effects of transglutaminase.

While lawmakers in the US sign bills to protect Monsanto from investigation, our friends in other developing nations are taking steps to protect their citizens. Australian scientists have taken steps to force investigative action on GMO wheat developed by Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. Press conference footage is below:

In a nutshell

Using genetic modification, exposure to toxins and radiation wheat was transformed into the current popular form of dwarf wheat

This quote was taken from my article a few weeks ago on how wheat was changed. Essentially, the ability to force changes in the genome of wheat is partially due to epigenetic  mechanisms. Where breeding new forms can take decades, epigenetic modification can be done over a single generation. Bomb the DNA with chemicals, methylate part of the code, and change what is expressed.

It would be so convenient if it weren’t for the fact that these same chemicals work on us.

What this means for you

Did you ever hear the one about humans sharing half their DNA with bananas? It’s an old tidbit that illustrates the fact that we share a lot of genetic code with other living organisms. This is because there aren’t too many chemicals that can be used for energy within cells – glucose, starch, ATP and glycogen. We all run on the same fuel for the most part.

Here’s where it gets scary, if we share the same DNA code, something that modifies that code will work regardless of the organism it’s found in. Professor Heinemann has found over 7 pages of direct matches between the code being modified by wheat which exists in humans. The wheat on store shelves contains these chemicals and can modify that code within your body.

The DNA in question was being modified to change the way that the wheat produced carbohydrate, presumably to create a higher yielding crop. This can change how carbohydrates are produced in the human body as well.

Glycogen is what we convert all carbohydrates into in order to move and function. It is stored in the muscles and liver for use in short burst activity as well as a number of other tasks. It is essential to life. Professor Judy Carman points out that children who lack the enzyme to produce glycogen tend to die by the age of five, and adults get sluggish, sick and eventually die. (Sound like anyone you know?)

What to do?

Devil’s advocates, I know you are pointing out that this is taking place in Australia. Don’t be fooled into thinking it isn’t happening over here. In a country where the president is protecting corporations instead of the people, it’s likely we’re just not paying attention to it.

If you’ve been waiting to cut out processed wheat here is another reason. People with children should be even more concerned. If you absolutely must eat wheat, be 100% certain you know of its origin. Bargain basement flour for your survival foods store is unlikely to come from a small farmer. Question your sources and stay safe.

Taking a brief detour from our scheduled programming on genetics for preppers, wanted to do a quick write up on an article that crossed my desk. According to recent research involving brain scans, gluten may not be the only thing that can cause you to overeat.

Fructose entered the diet in the 1970s through the promotion of high fructose corn syrup. The percentage of high fructose corn syrup used in 1978 was 16%, and by 1999 it had risen to 42%. Look at the label of anything from your local supermarket and you’ll probably find HFCS in the first 5 ingredients.

Why should you care? If maintaining a healthy metabolism and body composition are important to you, cutting out refined fructose can save you a lot of trouble.

The brain doesn’t lie

The study was conducted by Dr. Robert Sherwin of Yale University. Note: unlike many popular nutritionists who believe a calorie is a calorie, researchers at top institutions are on to the fact that hormones may be more important to health.

It used magnetic resonance imaging to show the brain’s reaction to two different sugars, glucose and fructose. Specifically, activity in the hypothalamus, insula and striatum, better known as the limbic system which regulates reward pathways and goal seeking behavior. By measuring bloodflow to this area, the brain’s response to each sugar could be measured. Less bloodflow, less hunger.

Results that leave you hungry for more

Glucose, the sort of sugar found in natural sweeteners such as honey, created reduced bloodflow in the limbic area. This corresponded with an increased feeling of fullness and reduced desire to seek out more food. Fructose on the other hand, did not have any such effect.

In effect, fructose does not make you less hungry. These are ‘empty calories’ to the mind. While you continue to seek out more food, fructose is wreaking havoc on your body.

Fructose metabolism 101

Unlike glucose, fructose is metabolized by your liver. After a complicated process in which the sugar is broken down, the nutrients are released as very small fat particles into the blood stream in a process known as lipogenesis. These are the perfect mortar for creating massive, heart attack causing plaque deposits on your arterial walls.

In addition, the whole process of metabolizing large amounts of refined fructose is stressful on the liver. When eating fructose in it’s natural form, fruit, fiber in the fruit slows the digestion.

Getting refined fructose hits the liver with all of the fructose at once. For example, drinking a can of cola (42g of fructose) places a load on your liver of eating over 7 bananas (5.72g of fructose) all at the same time.

The end result? Non alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), the most common form of liver disease found in the world. Associated with metabolic syndrome and diabetes for years, the connection to fructose is gaining momentum finally within the scientific community.

Fructose for preppers

Take the time to read the back of the label when it comes to choosing your survival foods. From MREs with sweetened desserts to canned fruit in high fructose corn syrup, this stuff is everywhere. You need to conserve the food you have in a survival situation and fructose will not only keep you hungry, it will hurt your body while doing it.

So far we’ve looked into how wheat can affect the human organism as a whole. From creating inflammation, to making us hungry, to affecting how DNA is expressed, the evidence is stacked fairly heavily against wheat for the human animal.

We also know that to think of the human body as a single organism is a bit short sighted. While we have roughly 10 trillion cells in our body, we also have over 100 trillion bacterial cells. While we have gone into the connection between gut bacteria, inflammation and nutrient absorption before, there are many more uses for these little critters.  They influence what we crave, and our ability to resist food borne pathogens.

And guess what? Wheat isn’t too good for these little guys either.

Good bacteria, bad bacteria

Not all gut flora is created equal. You can think of your gut flora as a bunch of little gangs running through your intestines, sometimes fighting turf wars, but usually content to hang out and do their thing.

And although many of them can work for us, they work in an opportunistic fashion. That is, they will eat whatever we end up putting down into our gullets. At the end of the day, food is what determines which bacteria persist and which ones die out.

The bacteria that have been shown to be the most beneficial for health, weight control and minimizing cravings include Bacteriodetes and Bifidobacterium. Bifidobacteria are among the first to develop in the infant gut, grow strongly on mother’s milk and protect the immune system of a newborn baby. It’s what we all start out with.

Your friendly neighborhood bacteriodetes

As we age, bifidobacterium and other beneficial bacteria typically give way to the much less beneficial firmicutes. Interestingly enough, the ratio of firmicutes/bacteridcetes is even higher in obese people, and shifts lower as weight is lost. Correlation does not necessarily equal causation but it’s an interesting connection nonetheless.

Some nasty firmicutes, looking to work over your gut

Adding wheat: What team are you sponsoring?

Studies have shown that the addition of wheat does two things: feed bad bacteria and starve good bacteria. It doesn’t stop at firmicutes either, experimental paradigms have showed the introduction of wheat can feed even nastier critters like salmonella.

One of the most relevant implications of missing out on proper gut bacteria to preppers is their use in absorbing food. Animal studies have shown that, all other things equal, rats with no beneficial gut flora needed to eat 30% more calories in order to get the same amount of nutrition. Think about the implications this has on a limited food supply in a survival situation.

In addition to the correlation with obesity, firmicutes have been connected to inflammation.This is because many firmicutes produce a substance called lipopolysaccharide(LPS) when they shed their cell walls. LPS is highly inflammatory, can directly create insulin resistance and even has effects on leptin resistance. It’s a bad news triple header.

Stay tuned for an upcoming post on how to maintain a healthy gut biome through food and lifestyle choices.

Picture this:

The world has ended due to your apocalypse of choice. You are hunkered down in your well stocked and fortified fortress of solitude and need to survive indefinitely. Wisely, you have prepared yourself by stockpiling enough food for you and your loved ones. Somewhere in that bunker you have a limited amount of calories because darnit, you didn’t get a chance to set up your homestead.

You have a choice. Consider how long the stores last, health, and physical fitness

A. Have everyone eat a standard amount of calories

B. Have everyone eat the same amount of calories plus 400 extra per day.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while I hope you chose option A. But the reality of the situation is that the inclusion of wheat has been proven time and time again to have the effect of option B. That’s right, even aside from the calories contained within it, wheat can cause your appetite to increase.

Gliadin and appetite stimulation

According to Dr. William Davis, wheat accounts for an average 400 extra calories consumed per day. There are a number of mechanisms which can account for this.

1. Addition of the addictive, opiate like exorphins contained in wheat proteins such as gliadin cause a constant drive to seek out wheat products.
2. High glycemic index carbohydrates such as amylopectin-a cause a spike of blood sugar which, when it falls, will cause the seeking out of more carbohydrates to stabilize energy levels
3. Lectins contained within wheat have been linked to creating resistance of leptin, the ‘fullness’ hormone.
4. For the skeptics – wheat is in many products so by allowing for it witihin our diets the options for food available to eat can dramatically increase.

Regardless of the mechanism, the effect over a number of studies has showed a consistent average increase of 400 calories spontaneously consumed while wheat is in the diet. If you’re a fan of the calories in calories out model of weight gain, this would theoretically translate to over 72 lbs of fat gained per year(400 x 635 / 3500). No surprise that a recent analysis of the China Study’s raw data revealed that wheat consumption was one of the biggest correlations with BMI.

Your choices for survival

Going back to the scenario outlined in the intro, there is serious consideration to be taken when including wheat in your survival foods. The introduction of wheat will force you to deal with higher calorie consumption or chronic hunger . This is in addition to the number of negative health effects we have outlined in the series so far.

In the interest of maintaining health, fitness and sanity you have to make the choice as to whether these are a worthwhile tradeoff for the ease of stockpiling wheat.

So far we’ve learned about how addictive wheat that may be propped up for nefarious reasons can increase risk for heart damage, and even affect every cell in our bodies. Fun stuff, right?

One of the most common objections to why eating bread and wheat is ok is it’s long history. Agriculture and the production of bread were essential to the rise of many societies around the world.

The Bible is one of the biggest sources of bread references. Those who study scripture will often reference these passages as a reason to eat bread.

But it’s not the same. The bread eaten by our ancestors, the people of biblical times and even the pioneers that colonized the west is very different from the bread you eat. And these are not just superficial changes, they affect the very compounds that create all of the problems outlined throughout this series.

In the beginning…

Common wheat developed as a hybrid from several of the naturally occurring grasses all across the world. Common wheat was a much hardier plant than the wheat we have today as it was forced to survive in the wild without the help of modern humans.

Proportionately, there was much less seed and much more husk in the early forms of wheat such as einkorn wheat, which is still grown today in many parts of the world. It was hardy and could be grown almost anywhere, making it a favorite of settlers around the world.

However, as the economy progress with the agricultural and industrial revolutions, the production of wheat shifted from a decentralized model of homesteaders producing what they needed for their families and communities to larger, consolidated agrobusiness operations. The hardy wheat that had been around since biblical times was not good enough anymore.

Changes and motivation

Driven by profit, larger farms needed to produce a greater yield on the wheat they were grown. As the limiting factor was often land, so the more seed that could be harvested in a given area, the better. Ancient wheat, once four feet tall, began to be replaced with semi-dwarf wheat which was shorter but had more seeds. This started as early as 1873 with the crossbreeding of different strains.

As technology developed, so did the ability to bend natural wheat into a vehicle for production. Using genetic modification, exposure to toxins and radiation wheat was transformed into the current popular form of dwarf wheat. Standing 2 feet tall, it is laden with seeds which make it incredibly profitable per square foot. But at what cost?

The effects – your body on the new wheat

The manipulations of wheat’s genetic structure were not without their consequences. The new wheat was less hardy and is almost impossible to grow without heavy use of pesticides and fertilizers. (Fortunately, there was no shortage of money to be made on this by agrobusiness companies).

But the worst changes for consumers were the changes to wheat protein. DNA codes for protein and the gliadin of today’s dwarf wheat has been dramatically altered. The negative affects of wheat; inflammation,weight gain and heart disease are all made worse with the modified gliadin which is rampant through the modern wheat supply.

For example, the wheat protein most damaging to celiacs, glia-α9, has been shown to be absent from the strains of wheat cultivated before 1960. Coincidence?

Who to trust?

If someone wants to quote scripture while buttering their toast, they should make sure the bread wasn’t purchased at the supermarket. The wheat you see today likely comes from dwarf wheat which is grown worldwide.

If you don’t know where it came from, you must assume it contains the inflammatory proteins that cause so much damage.

Conversely, if you grow yourself a hearty strain of einkorn wheat, you will probably be less affected by it. But know that this is a lesser evil.

After seeing that bread can cause heart disease, diabetes, and adversely affect genetic expression that we’re only beginning to discover, most of you have probably passed the rolls by this point. But I know that some of you out there are still sneaking in toast with your continental breakfast, or breaking down and ordering a subway sandwich after being clean for a few days.

You’re not alone. Research has pointed to compounds in bread that could be stacking the deck against you being able to quit it for good.

Opiate of the masses?

Marx was wrong, it isn’t religion, it’s bread.

Compounds produced from the digestion of wheat proteins have been shown to have an effect on the way we feel. Research has classified these compounds as exorphins. Like endorphins, those neurotransmitters that flood your brain after a run or getting injured, they have a subtle analgesic and euphoric effect.

Eating muffins, bagels and cake feels good to some people. But on some level their brain might be seeking out another ‘hit’.

What’s worse, due to the consumption of bread by default in western society, most people are addicted to this exorphin without even knowing it. Roughly 30% of people are genetically predisposed to suffer from ‘wheat withdrawal‘. Not unlike someone trying to quit the hard stuff cold turkey, this is emotionally, physically and mentally stressful.

The smoking gun? Naloxone, a drug used to prevent overdose and relapse for heroin addicts, has been shown to reduce calorie consumption of certain foods. Which foods? You guessed it, wheat and those containing gluten.

The Blood Sugar Rollercoaster and Reward Pathways

I want to keep this brief because this could be said of carbohydrates at large, so here is an infographic to explain it.

Wheat is incredibly high glycemic and produces the same effects as sugar for all intents and purposes. Actually, in many cases it is worse, like white bread which has a HIGHER glycemic index than table sugar. But because it has the perception of being healthy thanks to alphabet agencies like the AHA, it flies under the radar often.

Conclusion

Quitting wheat is hard. For most people, it’s easier to lay back on what they were taught in grade school, reference whatever diet was on Dr. Oz that week and say that the research wasn’t substantial. Almost none of them know that they are quite literally consuming opiate like compounds.

If we treated it like a drug, people wouldn’t be supportive. Wheat consumption may not have the drama of dying with a needle in your arm, but taking the fastlane towards metabolic derangement and heart disease will kill nonetheless.

Do we need to have these conversations with our friends and family? Personally I would say no. It has all the appeal of having a conversation with an militant vegan about animal cruelty. I think the best way to change is to lead by example. When others see you getting (or staying) in great shape as they operate with low energy, gain weight and get sick, it’s all the proof you’ll need.

We already know that eating bread can make you fat, sick, inflamed and possibly alter every cell in your body. But what you might not also know is that it happens to be a real heart breaker.

Flying in the face of the recommendations of ‘healthy whole grains‘ by alphabet agencies like the AHA, there has been a lot of opposition to grains coming from the medical field. And the most damning thing of all? It’s coming from cardiologists who operate solely on the heart.

Dr. William Davis, author of the book Wheat Belly and the excellent Wheat Belly Blog is one of the most vocal anti-bread proponents on the internet. His reason? Over years of operating a high risk cardiology practice, he has seen the worst when it comes to heart disease. If you were seeking out Dr. Davis, it meant you had already undergone a bypass surgery or two and likely wouldn’t make it if you had another.

The single biggest factor he found in his patients being able to stay healthy was the removal of wheat from the diet. Despite the AHAs condemnation of cholesterol, the actual build up of plaque was more dependent on wheat and other carbohydrates because of a little known process known as lipogenesis.

Cholesterol 101

Heart attacks are caused by the buildup of fat on the walls of the artery. Over time, these eventually make the arteries stiff to the point where increased pressure can cause them to burst. Cholesterol is currently demonized as the fat which layers on the arteries causing this problem.

Cholesterol can actually be broken down into at least two categories: HDL (good) cholesterol and LDL (bad) cholesterol. LDL also has a range of sizes within the class, ranging as far down as VLDL.

H, L and VL stand for high, low and very low respectively and refer to the size of the molecule. The smaller the molecule, the more likely it is to stick to the arterial walls. HDL is known as good cholesterol because it is generally too big to stick and can even catch smaller molecules to clear them from arterial walls.

Lipogenesis: carbs or fat?

Lipogenesis is the process in which the liver turns certain carbohydrates into fats. Many of the easily digestible sugars such as glucose are susceptible to this.  What kind of fat? VLDL of course.

One of the most common carbohydrates found in wheat is amylopectin-a, a highly digestible carbohydrate which stimulates lipogenesis. AHA, eat your heart out.

The X factor

Fred Kummerow, a 98 year old researcher with over 6 decades of research into heart disease, recently declared that cholesterol was not the culprit, but could even be beneficial to the heart. The x factor is whether the body is an inflammatory state or not. Inflammation causes an attack on the plaque of the arterial walls, which even mainstream researchers agree can modify the lipoproteins by a process known as glycation.

HDL cholesterol = good. LDL/VLDL cholesterol = bad. Inflammation + VLDL = very bad. Eating wheat creates both VLDL and cholesterol. Would you pass the rolls over here now?