So the other day I got the test results back for an innovative new service called 23andme. Founded by the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Anne Wojcicki, their goal is to bring affordable genetic testing to the masses.

Being a huge geek (which most of you should know by now) I of course sprung to get my genome tested when the price dropped to $99 for the holidays last year. It took some time to get my sample up across the border and covertly beneath it to avoid the international fees, but in the end it was worth it.

In addition to some cool features like finding out the history of your maternal and paternal line throughout history and neanderthal DNA percentage, there are a number of actionable items that can be useful for determining you health.

(For anyone interested, help me keep the lights on by using my affiliate link here)

Health Risks

This section of the test goes over how susceptible you are to various conditions, diseases and things in general that could make your life more difficult. What’s interesting is that it goes down into the percentage of each trait that is determined by genetics, possible action plans for dealing with the condition in question and even includes message boards for people to discuss the trait in general.

Overall very actionable advice that you can work into your life. Stay tuned for a  post on my results and the action plan I’m making to change it.

Drug Response

There is a strong genetic basis towards the use of a number of drugs. Since all people are different, it’s tough to make a one-size fits all solution. Ranging from whether a certain drug will work for you to if you are sensitive to side effects, this section provides the full dirt. Not super actionable for preppers but good to know in the mean time.

Inherited conditions

This is definitely one of the scariest sections and includes your status on the worst genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis, tay-sachs or sickle cell anemia. While you would probably know whether you had any of these, you will also find out your carrier status, which can sometimes have effects as well. Important for those who are looking to have healthy children.

Traits

This is where it gets fun. Traits range from physical to mental and include a lot of stuff that have to do with everyday life. How do you react to alcohol? Are you likely to respond to diet or exercise? Do you have the muscles of a marathoner or a sprinter?

These are interesting but also could have big consequences in a survival or self-defense scenario – especially pertaining to the physical traits. Knowing whether you’re better off outrunning a pursuer or overwhelming them with a charge could be largely determined by your muscle fiber type.

Verdict: Should you buy?

Genetic testing like this cost $2-300 only a few years ago and still costs over $1000 for the more advanced variety. For $99 you don’t exactly have to mortgage your house to get a 23andme test.  The data is available forever, can be exported (to open source platforms like snpedia), and will continue to become more useful as research continues.

If you’re a geek like me the price of $99 is worth it for the fun factor alone. Being able to rationalize not drinking a post dinner coffee because I’m a slow metabolizer is an interesting way to stave off peer pressure.

For those that are strictly motivated by utility, the price is a steal as well. If you’ve taken the time out of your day to read this blog, it’s fair to say you are interested in your health. The amount of actionable information you will gain from getting your genome tested will avoid you running into health issues that will cost you tens if not hundreds of times more in medical bills, if the world stays together, and could possibly save your life if the SHTF.

So my verdict – go for it! If you’re spending time reading this blog, you’ll appreciate the results and it’s one of the technologies that makes you feel like we’re living in the future.

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?

If I told you there was a chemical that could adversely affect every tissue in your body, what would you do?

According to the USDA, the proper response is to have it make up 30% of your diet. Also, make sure to tell any of those pesky nonconformists that everything is perfectly ok and to ignore the research at hand.

What I’m talking about is transglutaminase, an enzyme that is present in all foods that contain gluten, like our lovely dinner rolls. It is located in gluten based proteins.

Mechanisms and Action

Transglutaminases are actually a class of enzymes, many of which are produced in the body and are responsible for actions such as blood clotting. For the purposes of this discussion, I will be referring to transglutaminase that is found in wheat proteins.

As an enzyme, it acts to break down and reform bonds between protein and the amino acid glutamine. This allows for some pretty fun stuff to happen. For example, transglutaminase is being used in some avant garde restaurants today to make dishes like pasta made almost entirely out of shrimp. By breaking down proteins and rebonding them, it can turn almost anything protein based into a glue.

Sound fun? Now imagine those same bonds being formed within your body. Now obviously eating a bagel won’t turn you into a big pile of meat glue, but on a cellular level, reactions like that can take place anywhere transglutaminase can reach. In the context of your body after eating wheat, this means any tissue that is nourished by your bloodstream.

Acute Nastiness

Transglutaminase is responsible for many of the inflammatory effects of gluten. Proteins make up some of the most important tissues in the body and transglutaminase has the ability to alter the bonds of any of them. As protein’s effectiveness is determined by it’s shape, this can drastically change the functions of many cells and tissues.

It should come as no surprise that some serious diseases have been linked to transglutaminase. The most obvious one is celiac disease, in which gluten proteins wreak havoc on the intestinal lining. It has also showed up as a factor in Huntington’s Disease, in which cells of the brain are altered causing mental decline and certain death.

Posttranslational modification – Every cell

But you don’t have to have a disease to be affected. The scariest consequence of transglutaminase is that it has the potential to alter the way your DNA is expressed. Posttranslational modification (PTM) refers to the process in which DNA is modified after leaving the nucleus in the form of RNA. Without directly changing the DNA, it affects how it is expressed, which can completely change the function of the protein being coded and the cell itself.

An increasing amount of research is pointing to the fact that transglutaminase from gluten can and will affect your cells through PTM. From affecting T-cells in your immune system to the ability to recognize cancer cells, the consequences of including gluten in your diet are cropping up everywhere.

Science can only progress so fast and while the individual effects of gluten based transglutaminase are still being found, people have known for years that removing grain from the diet can result in better health and wellness. Think about it next time someone passes you the rolls or you consider adding a drum of flour to your survival foods store.

Gluten is everywhere. We eat bagels and toast for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and rolls with our dinner. The USDA recommends we eat 30% of our calories from grains and prior to myplate was recommending 6-11 servings of grain per day. Doctors and nutritionists in the mainstream media push whole grains as a solution to the problems caused by the standard American diet, which is about as effective as putting out a fire with gasoline.

We talk about being paleo and optimizing health a lot on this site but the reality is that most of the time it isn’t that easy. Whether it’s choosing a sandwich when you have 15 minutes to prepare lunch or buying flour by the drum instead of setting up a homestead, wheat is the easy way out a lot of the time.

The purpose of this series is to illustrate the health problems related to gluten specifically. This series is aimed at those of you that eat gluten occasionally, knowing it is bad but trying to minimize as much as you can.

For a while I was completely paleo compliant except on weekends, where I took ‘cheat days’ which I needed for training to epic proportion. Since cutting out gluten entirely I have seen a huge improvement in health and my hope is that by the end of this series, you’ll be able to see improvements too. And next time you eat out, you’ll feel comfortable in saying pass the rolls.

Also, for those of you that are die-hard paleo already, there should be some fun ammunition for your inevitable conversations with vegans, bageltarians, and low fat advocates.

On to the knowledge

Why the government is making you sick

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect

It’s common knowledge that fat is evil, grains are good for your heart and wheat is the bedrock of your diet. We all learned this in school, saw it supported by politics, and see it in pop culture. This serves as evidence for the majority of people who are comfortable with not questioning authority.

Many of these recommendations were developed by what our good friends over at Survival Sherpa refer to as alphabet agencies, such as the AHA and USDA. Much of the research that formed the basis for these recommendations  was done in the 1950s, on research that was far from conclusive (see Todd Walker’s excellent post on that over at Survival Sherpa). However, there are many reasons that it was not looked into more.

Follow the money

Wheat production is big business. The US has produced 50-60 million tons every year for the past decade. Much of this is controlled by massive agrobusiness outfits such as Monsanto. The consolidation of local farms into these huge companies happened over the 20th century and considers to accelerate.

Where there is money, there is political influence. But surely the people responsible for our health are looking after us, right? Not trying to help out big business at the expense of our health?

In many cases they are the same people. The above diagram is from a right-leaning website but I’m sure the list would expand if you put a magnifying glass to the republican party as well. For further evidence of the government’s support of agrobusiness, check out the subsidies on wheat, which amounted to over $34 billion of your tax dollars from 1995 to 2011.

Hiding behind the image of the farmer, many justify the actions of these companies but the fact of the matter is the local farmers you see don’t need subsidies because they aren’t competing in international markets. These are the companies that in many cases turned them from business owners into employees.

And if you’re open to making your extra tinfoil into a hat, there are also those that say that big pharma is involved, keeping the population sick. After all, how much lipitor can you sell to a healthy nation?

Full circle

Regardless of what you believe, the fact is that there are ulterior motives to the recommendations of the government. If this cannot be trusted, the bottom falls out for any rationalization made by the mainstream media and consumers. Think for yourself and stay tuned for some of the consequences the grains we are pushed can have on your health.

Hey everyone. It’s been a while since my last post but I have been tied up with some big things which will be announced soon! I’ve been working with some really smart people to deliver a product that you all will love. Unfortunately I can’t say more than this but stay tuned for future updates!

In our last post on plants as a sole source of survival foods, the question of a minimum diet was brought up. If you were forced to survive on only one or two dietary staples, what would your health look like?

The video pointed to examples of the grain and legume diets used by impoverished people living all around the world. From corn tortillas and beans in Mexico to rice and soy in southeast Asia. the combination is widespread. Many preppers take it upon themselves to weight heavily on a single staple. It does seem a lot easier to just buy rice by the drum and seal it off in the garage.

A question of protein

By this point you should know that all proteins are not created equal. While it is possible (although difficult) to get the recommended dose of protein. For example, to get the recommended dose of 50g of protein would require almost 3 cups of white beans or (God forbid) over 12 cups of white rice.

While this is inefficient and unrealistic for limited food stores, it gets even worse. The conversion rate on protein from these sources is much worse than others. The conversion rate for soy, one of the highest touted forms of vegetable protein is only 17%.

What does that mean? Even if you’re getting 50 grams on paper, after conversion you’re body is getting roughly 8.5g. The rest are converted into carbohydrates via the process of gluconeogenesis.

It could also be considered a question of amino acids. A diet consisting entirely of grain or legumes is lacking in animal foods. If you recall our series on amino acids, there are a number that are either impossible to get from plant sources, or so poorly converted that it is effectively impossible. These would include lysine, methionine and tryptophan

What about vitamins?

Grains have one of the lowest nutrient densities of any food. White rice, corn and wheat all lack the vitamins contained in vegetables, healthy animal fats and nuts. There is a reason bread is fortified in many parts of the developed world, because it’s useless otherwise!

What’s worse, legumes and many grains actually contain chemicals which bind to vitamins called phytates. Grains and legumes are seeds, for the most part. Their purpose is to germinate to produce a new plant. In order to prevent this from happening in the wrong conditions, phytates exist within the seed to prevent them from sprouting.

How do they work? By binding to the essential vitamins and minerals required from growth. When you’re eating grains and legumes, you are not only unable to access the vitamins and minerals which may show up on a calorimeter, but inhibiting your ability to absorb the other nutrients in your diet!

The verdict

The ability of impoverished populations to survive on legumes and grains alone may be exaggerated. In order to get the amino acids needed to survive, some animal based protein must have been worked in.

There is also a difference between surviving and thriving. People in poverty conditions have a lower average height, likely because of insufficient nutrition caused by diets like this. We shouldn’t aim to provide only this for ourselves or our families.