Studies Indicate That Grains Suck Balls

There are many websites that claim that grains are not as healthy as they are made out to be. As the staple of the modern diet, they must be essential to our health, right? Well, no. Not even close. In fact, they harm you more than they do you good — which is not that hard, since whatever is in them that doesn’t harm you is very low on the ‘goodness’ scale.

I will not break down grains’ antinutrients and explain the harm they do to you in detail. You can find that information on your own. This post is for people like me who can’t trust what others say just like that without going to the source. Since the source is scientific studies, this post is supposed to be an ever-growing list of grain-bashing studies. I have already collected a few but feel free to email me some more or post them in the comments. Here’s the list:

1. Reduced plasma half-life of radio-labelled 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 in subjects receiving a high-fibre diet.
2. Gluten Causes Gastrointestinal Symptoms in Subjects Without Celiac Disease: A Double-Blind Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial
3. Is gliadin really safe for non‐coeliac individuals? Production of interleukin 15 in biopsy culture from non‐coeliac individuals challenged with gliadin peptides
4. Cereal Grains: Humanity’s Double-Edged Sword
5. Decreased absorption of calcium, magnesium, zinc and phosphorus by humans due to increased fiber and phosphorus consumption as wheat bread.
6. High phytate content of rural Iranian bread: a possible cause of human zinc deficiency.
7. Effects of brown rice on apparent digestibility and balance of nutrients in young men on low protein diets.

As a bonus, here’s another list of studies evaluating a paleolithic diet, which excludes cereal grains:

1. Low carbohydrate nutrition and metabolism
2. Low-carbohydrate-diet score and risk of type 2 diabetes in women
3. Enhanced endurance in trained cyclists during moderate intensity exercise following 2 weeks adaptation to a high fat diet
4. Metabolic and physiologic improvements from consuming a paleolithic, hunter gatherer type diet
5. [Evaluation of biological and clinical potential of paleolithic diet].
6. Paleolithic nutrition: twenty-five years later.
7. Is there a role for carbohydrate restriction in the treatment and prevention of cancer?
8. Paleolithic vs. modern diets–selected pathophysiological implications.
9. Paleolithic diets as a model for prevention and treatment of Western disease.
10. A Paleolithic diet improves glucose tolerance more than a Mediterranean-like diet in individuals with ischaemic heart disease
11. Beneficial effects of a Paleolithic diet on cardiovascular risk factors in type 2 diabetes: a randomized cross-over pilot study
12. Evolution of the Human Diet: Linking Our Ancestral Diet to Modern Functional Foods as a Means of Chronic Disease Prevention
13. Cardiovascular Disease Resulting From a Diet and Lifestyle at Odds With Our Paleolithic Genome: How to Become a 21st-Century Hunter-Gatherer