Grain Poll

[GrandTrinity]

I am posting this because I ate a lot of grain today, whole weat grain and and some white flour. Some people call white flour white poison...

 

"WHITE FLOUR. Called "white glue" by herbalists, white flour has no fiber and thus clogs the intestines. White flour depletes the body's tissues of valuable minerals and vitamins which are processed away during refining. Epidemiological studies show the correlation between the introduction of white flour in America in the 1890s and the rise of colon cancer in the early 1900s. Found in pasta, bread, cookies, crackers, pastries, donuts, biscuits, pizza, and a host of other "fast foods," white flour contributes to low vitality, constipation, headaches, and migraine (Balch, 1997). Refined grains such as minute rice also lack fiber, minerals, and vitamins and should be eliminated from the diet. The average American adult has accumulated over 40 pounds of intestinal sludge as a result of a "refined" diet (Gant, 1997)."

 

The above quote taken from:

http://www.itss.brockport.edu/%7Elmazzola/keys.html

 

I am assuming that multi grain and whole wheat is the same, correct?

[sean]

I am transitioning into only eating whole grains via Kathleen De Maisons program and so have slowly been weeding out white flour breads, pastas, cookies, etc. It's a detox roller-coaster but it's worth it in the long run.

[neimad]

i pretty much don't eat wheat anymore (except the occassional slice on sunday of the fresh bread from the markets mum gets for my brother).

 

i will eat brown or basmati (essentially whole grain rice with a white coating instead of a brown one) rice but will also eat white rice occassionaly too.

i use millet flour if i want to make biscuits or cakes. millet acts like a protein rather than a carbohydrate and then can mix it with nuts to make a protein snack.

you can get millet cous cous also, and whole millet which can be used to make casserole type things.

 

i will eat rye bread also.

 

i usually eat a carbohydrate laden lunch, using sweet potato and pumpkin and avocado (which acts like a starch) and the like for my carbohydrates. and perhaps some rye bread or rice flour bread.

 

im not really eating potato at the moment either (which is a starch/grain also). and if you take the skins off the potatos, it makes them 'white' so leave the skins on if you do eat them.

 

quinoa is another good one to eat, i think that is more like a protein too. but i dont really eat that just cos i dont get around to it.

 

white bread really is white poison. i see people eating exculsively white stuff at work (usually laden with meat and no salad, plus a bag of chips or something like, and a can or two of coke) and i feel sad.

because they dont realise.

 

two things.

1. their support of these companies producing this crap is ruining the world for everyone. if we stopped supporting these greedy assholes, things really would change.

 

and

 

2. it will all catch up with them in the end. cancer on the rise and all... it's a diet like this that causes cancer (and virtually all other disease). toxic and parasitic and metabolic waste acidic overload coupled with mineral deficiencies (no minerals in that kind of food) and suffocation (not enough oxygen in the cells - causing anoxia or cell death and takeover by parasitic invaders responding to the increasingly acidic blood environment).

 

here's a great site:

http://biomedx.com/microscopes/rrintro/rrintro.html

 

read this and you'll get how most of it works.

[spyrelx]

I think virtually everyone agrees that whole grains are good for you and processed grains (white rice, white bread, etc) is bad. Despite all the different views out there on nutrition, pretty much everyone agrees on this.

 

I eat mostly whole grains, but I'm not religious about it. If I'm hungry and the only thing handy is white bread, I'll eat it. But I'd say 95% of my grain diet is whole grains.

 

Since this is a daoist discussion site, you should all be aware that there is a whole ancient school of thought in daoism that counsels to avoid grains (whole or otherwise). It gets very esoteric and involves one of the three "worms" that live inside you and thrive on a diet of grains (you have to try to starve the worm).

 

The basic idea is that eating grains will impede your spiritual growth.

 

It should be noted that the taoist advice against grain is not an Atkins "pump up the protien" diet. Rather, it is meant for people at very high levels, living in caves on less and less food and doing increasingly less physical labor.

 

So, in sum, I would STRONGLY advise thinking long and hard before eliminating grains from your diet. They provided fundemental fuel for your body and, along with vegtables, are what keep you healthy. You cut them out to the detriment of your overall health.

[thelerner]

I'm like Spyrelix, I know whole grains are better, and try to get them when available but basically I'm a Grainivore.

 

Peas

 

Michael

 

Probably healthier to keep even healthy grains to a miniumum and mostly do fruits and veggies and chocolate

[neimad]

Since this is a daoist discussion site, you should all be aware that there is a whole ancient school of thought in daoism that counsels to avoid grains (whole or otherwise).  It gets very esoteric and involves one of the three "worms" that live inside you and thrive on a diet of grains (you have to try to starve the worm). 

 

The basic idea is that eating grains will impede your spiritual growth. 

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yes, this has recently been confirmed by science/medicine... however not mainstream (not really alternative either, its like the alternative mainstream if you get me).

 

wheat especially is often contaminated with mycotoxins which fuel the yeasts living in our bodies.

grains are also always acid producing. so if grain is the biggest part of your meal then you are essentially having an acid forming meal. if you aren't eating a larger bulk of alkaline fruits and veggies you will not be able to eliminate the metabolic acid wastes that form and your blood will become more acid and more parasites will begin to thrive in the body.

 

dr mercola advocates getting off grains totally for this reason.

 

yes we need carbohydrates, but there are many sources of vegetable carbohydrates without having to revert to grains. these are usually alkaline forming too (essentially more of our original diet, grains are only a fairly modern thing to us).

 

we need about 80% alkaline and 20% acid forming foods in our diet. bulky grain and meat diets will always be way too acid.

 

hehe im glad someone started up these health posts, cos this is something i actually know something about. ever since i did a whole project on "what's in the food we eat?" for my last year of uni.

i was supposed to give a 15 minute presentation, but i ended up speaking for an hour with even more to go but i got cut off. the audience was enthralled too. it was a very interesting assignment for me and my knowledge in this subject increased substantially.

[GrandTrinity]

I came accross a taoist master who recommends this:

http://www.metabolictypingonline.com/

http://www.healthexcel.com/

Anyone familiar with it?

 

Everything is different for different people, its all relative. If I dont eat some grains I feel like I will miss out on a lot of energy. There is so much about what NOT to eat that it leaves one feeling, well, hungry. Is there a difference between whole wheat and multigrain? Perhaps multi is better? Like they got this 12 grain bread. How come rye is good?

[peter falk]

i eat frosted flakes, pop tarts, donuts, chocolate cake, chocolate chip cookies, popcorn, pound cake, apple pie, cherry pie, pancakes, waffles, pasta, and doritos. i don't feel guilty about it. oh, and oreos too. oreos, mmmmmmmm.

[GrandTrinity]

i eat frosted flakes, pop tarts, donuts, chocolate cake, chocolate chip cookies, popcorn, pound cake, apple pie, cherry pie, pancakes, waffles, pasta, and doritos.  i don't feel guilty about it.  oh, and oreos too.  oreos, mmmmmmmm.

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ARE YOU ON CRACK?

[peter falk]

who needs crack with a diet like that?

[neimad]

Everything is different for different people, its all relative. If I dont eat some grains I feel like I will miss out on a lot of energy. There is so much about what NOT to eat that it leaves one feeling, well, hungry. Is there a difference between whole wheat and multigrain? Perhaps multi is better? Like they got this 12 grain bread. How come rye is good?

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yes everything is different for different people. for example one of my friends thrives on raw food and has no problem eating a diet with that as a big proportion.

myself however waste away if i try to eat a diet with too much raw foods. my digestive system is quite weak and lightly steamed veggies suit me better. my bloodline is from a more recently evolved strain of human genetics, whilst he is from a more primitive strain. he is more able to digest meat than i am, but that being said it doesn't mean he needs to eat meat, and he doesnt. and he looks fantastic (without the addition of any chi kung, meditation or any other equivalent).

 

some people require larger amounts of protein, some require more carbohydrates, some like a balanced amount of both.... that kind of thing.

 

however NOONE needs grains. i mean we can eat em, but we dont need them at all. they dont really belong in our diet... they were only introduced in the last thousand years, if that.... a small proportion of our time on the planet . nutritionally speaking they actually have very little value for us. all are acid producing. they are just bulk foods... eat them to fill yourself up (and give a nice meal to all your internal parasites). grains suffocate our bodies and interfer with our utilisation of oxygen (chi).

 

oh oh oh but we need our carbohydrates!!! yeah we do, but we get a much better quality of carbohydrates from veggies such as sweet potato, pumpkin, carrot, etc. also fruits have an element of carbohydrates to them too.... fruit and vegetables, its essentially all we really need.

 

that being said, the stresses, availabilities and ridiculous concept of money in our modern lifestyles makes it difficult if not impossible to afford to eat a diet exclusively of just fruit and veggies. so we fill it out with grains (which sadly the cultivation of has destroyed ridiculous amounts of natural land displacing many animal and plant species, which could produce easily enough fruits and veggies for all of us).

 

so we supplement with grains to keep us nice and full. we dont need em, but then again we dont need a lot of the shit that is now associated with our horribly stupid modern lifestyles.

 

now the difference between whole grain and white or multi-grain is this. whole grain has all the outer layers intact (of which there are 3 or 4 or even more i think) which provides bulk fibre which pushes all the other stuff through our digestive system so we can poo, thats about all that grains, even whole ones, do for us along with perhaps a couple of b-vitamins which we could easily get from other sources.

white or multi-grain (which is just white wheat with different grains added in afterwards- so you feel like you are doing the right thing while still being able to eat white bread) has none of these outer layers. all that stuff is stripped off in harsh industrial processes. so now we are getting nutritionally devoid (the b-vitamins and niacin and whatever other little nutrition that was there is now gone, being present in the outer shells) gluey gunk that rather than pushing the stuff out our rectum, instead sticks to the walls of the intestines and makes it harder for us to shit as well as blocking the nutrient uptake from any good foods we might actually be eating.

 

white grains are right up there with the most ridiculous concepts ever conceived. grains themselves are pretty ridiculous.... i mean we aint cows!!!! cows eat grass, humans eat fruit and leaves and roots and nuts and berries, we are foragers with diverse diets from our dexterous hands which can dig up, pick, crack, etc to access many different sources of nourishment.

we have complex stomachs (unlike that of carnivores) but not quite as complex as real grass eaters.

 

the modern diet (both east and west) has become so absolutely ridiculous. no wonder disease and obesity are becoming so rampant.

[GrandTrinity]

Thank you for clearing that up. So multi grain is shit, on par with white grain. And

whole grain is not SOOO bad because it has some fiber in it.

 

So unless you can afford to get all your carbs from fruits, veggies, roots, nuts, etc etc...then the least worst (of the evils grains!) is whole wheat.

[mbanu]

I think virtually everyone agrees that whole grains are good for you and processed grains (white rice, white bread, etc) is bad.  Despite all the different views out there on nutrition, pretty much everyone agrees on this.

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Processed grains are less nourishing, but easier to digest. This was the original reason for why people bothered processing grains to begin with. The big problem with processed grains nowadays tend to be that many are not only processed to remove the fiber, but are also chemically treated and mixed with additives.

[neimad]

Thank you for clearing that up. So multi grain is shit, on par with white grain. And

whole grain is not SOOO bad because it has some fiber in it.

 

So unless you can afford to get all your carbs from fruits, veggies, roots, nuts, etc etc...then the least worst (of the evils grains!) is whole wheat.

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in my opinion, yes. although i would not say whole wheat... wheat has been used wayyyyy too much and i think a pretty large proportion of the population has begun to develop (like myself) an intolerance to gluten. so i would go with brown rice, rye, millet, quinoa, etc rather than wheat.

 

but also beware of breads in particular, because brown does not necissarly always = whole grain. sometimes they get white bread and dye it brown.... they are a nasty lot, playing with our health like that.

[Lozen]

My rule for myself is that I can only buy and cook whole grains when I'm grocery shopping, etc. but if there's other grains around, I take what I can get, and I eat whatever I want between meals... But the more I eat whole grains, the less I crave the junk food. Of course I eat lots of oatmeal and brown rice, but I'm absolutely in love with quinoa... especially quinoa salad, mmm! Amaranth, buckwheat and millet I can do without... I like cooking with barley and to bake with cornmeal.

 

If anybody's trying to find grains appropriate to their condition(s), here's some notes I took, probably from Healing With Whole Foods, or some workshop or other...of course to judge against your own experience, take these with some grains of salt (haha pun intended).

 

Grains for excess: amaranth, rye, whole barley and wild rice

 

Grains for deficiency: rice, wheat, barley (pan roasted before cooking), spelt, well-cooked oats

 

Cooling grains: millet, wheat, amaranth, wild rice, blue corn, whole barley

 

Warming grains: oats, spelt, sweet rice, quinoa, basmati rice

 

Neutral grains: rice, rye, corn and buckwheat

 

Drying grains: amaranth, buckwheat, unrefined barley, corn, rye, wild rice, basmati rice (in small amounts), dry roasted oats

 

Moistening grains: wheat, rice, sweet rice, quinoa, millet, barley (pan roasted before cooking), spelt and well-cooked oats

 

Grains that calm wind: quinoa, cooked oats and wheat (avoid buckwheat)

 

Grains that quell summer heat: roasted barley tea or drinks, long-grain brown rice

[neimad]

Amaranth, buckwheat and millet I can do without...

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probably three of the better grains. buckwheat is more like a vegetable even than a grain.

 

i have been working on getting rid of grains as much as possible from my diet.

 

i still eat them sometimes, but when i do i try to make them the smallest portion of a meal. usually they are the biggest portion for most people... but as i mentioned this leads to acid blood and subsequent parasite infestation.

i dont miss them either when i dont have them.... i just try and eat other forms of starch/carbohydrate... for example avocado, pumpkin, sweet potato, banana and they are plenty satisfying. also dont get bloated or gassy if i exclude grains from a meal too.

 

however.... if i have been eating good for several days, the cravings for refined foods completely subside, but say i slip... i get offered some somewhere... suddenly... the cravings return. the parasites, who were beginning to die off, get reawakened "there is a chance, we can still live! eat more eat more eat more!!!"

 

we are all infested with parasites to some degree or another anyway, unfortunately. this modern day society with its callous disregard to environmental cleanliness (clean air, water, food, etc) and its overuse of toxic chemicals has caused us to become sacks filled with dirty, toxic, parasite filled water.

 

no matter who you are, unless you are eating a perfect diet and supplementing with oxygen (to take out the trash), you are full of dirty water.....

 

lovely thought, innit?

[Lozen]

I just haven't had bad experiences with grains... I feel pretty good after I eat them... They really satisfy my hunger and I like the taste... I feel more energy after I eat them, sleep better and feel calmer and clearer...

 

For parasite infestations I'll do a parasite prevention cleanse a couple times a year... usually i just eat a handful of raw brown rice for breakfast, eat a couple cloves of garlic and some lightly roasted pumpkin seeds between meals, and then after dinner I'll have a cup of mugwort tea. That kills them, I do it for ten days, stop for a week and then ten more days...

 

Cravings for refined food...hmmmm, I'm on day 14 of a purification diet right now, which basically I am just avoiding sugar, caffeine, refined or processed food (esp. fatty or sugared), drugs (incl. tylenol, etc.), alcohol (incl. tinctures), meat, etc. and I did crave food a lot esp. for the first few days, but now I'm just not craving it at all anymore. In fact they had this bake sale at a workshop I went to yesterday, and the chocolate (which I'm addicted to, btw) just smelled gross and gave me a headache.

 

Anyways, I am okay with tweaking my diet and trying to figure out what I need to eat or not eat, but I'd rather not obsess on purging my body of impurities, or parasites, or dirty water, or whatnot. If there's any guilt or shame involved with a diet, that's when I stop. Our cells replace themselves--every single one of them--and of course the stories of the monks who could inhale poison in caves and still live...it's all just qi, right?

[neimad]

...it's all just qi, right?

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sure is.... qi = sunlight activated oxygen. the stuff of life!!!

 

not just ordinary O2, but up in the ozone layer 3 molecules of O2 splits apart into 6 molecules of O1-, these negative ions get charged by the suns energy and form O3, ozone. they also form larger molecules of oxygen... O4, O5.... O64.... who knows how many O's joined together. anyone heard of sylphs? sylphs are supposed to be energy (elemental) beings that float around in our atmosphere... i think they are probably extremely long chains of O molecules (sunlight activated oxygen) i.e. pure chi.

 

anyways the ozone eventually breaks up, bonds with some other stuff (e.g. water, to make H2O2, hydrogen peroxide) and falls to earth. the suns energy, however, is still stored in that O1- molecule. that stuff is taken up through the soil by plants and used, with more of the suns energy, to make the plant... we eat the plants or the animals that eat the plants and eventually that O1- is passed into us. we have gotten our chi. we can also breathe it in.... it floats around in the air as negative ions and ozone which we breathe in and this stuff provides the energy pretty much to our cells (along with the 'wood' which is all the carbon and other phytochemical orginsations that are used in our bodies). it burns the little fires blazing away in each cell and the amount of it is how strong they are burning. like you blowing (oxygen) on a fire to get it burning strongly.

 

so yes its all chi, qi, ki, prajna, O1-.

 

p.s. mugwort tea is good for parasites? i have mugwort at home, i find it a bit bitter taste for tea and often just smoke it instead. do you sweeten it with honey?

[Lozen]

p.s. mugwort tea is good for parasites? i have mugwort at home, i find it a bit bitter taste for tea and often just smoke it instead. do you sweeten it with honey?

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No, I don't sweeten it... bitter is good for liver. I suppose you could, though. You can also use the tincture... What species artemisia do you have? Again, though, you really only need to do this once a year.

[GrandTrinity]

What about granola?

 

(Prompted to ask this because I love the band Granola Funk Express and I have been eating very yummy granola cereal non-stop.)

[neimad]

i got artemisia arborensis.... the moxa one.

 

i have built up quite a large continuously replenished stock of herbal teas now and i dont really take them as remedies.... i just drink different combinations each evening usually.

 

its fun playing with herbs

 

im on the st marys thistle seeds (4-5/ 3 times daily) and also shizandra berries (10/day for 100 days) both for the liver.

thats as close as i come to a remedy.

[Lozen]

They use artemisia arborensis for moxa? I thought it was artemisia vulgaris??? Ran into my acupuncturist at this awesome tea shop we have, and we were talking about our local artemisia (ludoviciana) and how he thinks the properties are different--more cooling--than other subspecies. I wanted to make my own moxa (twenty years later, right?) but he told me not to use the local stuff.

 

It is an amazing plant. It is excellent for dream work. One time I smudged with it and two guys who were crashing at my house that night both had exgirlfriend dreams, they had gone travelling to try to get PAST those memories, but mugwort has a way to bring your subconscious stuff out.

 

One time I was severely dehydrated (kids, don't try this at home) and one taste of that plant brought me back. One time I ate a tiny piece while out on a hike with a group of people and I sware it took me to a whole different PLANET for about ten minutes... It is great for journeying. I have heard from one of my favorite herb teachers that it is good for dreamwork in that if you can't lucid dream, it will help you, and if you CAN then you won't be able to.

 

I am making mugwort oil right now which I want to experiment with (externally) for cramps. (Don't drink herbal oils unless you want to get botulism and die...or as Eddie at Tracker School says, 'go on a permanent involuntary vision quest' heh heh.)

 

What else about mugwort... There is so much to write. I have studied this plant heavily... Interesting about arborensis--where did you hear that?

 

Herbal teas you buy in the store are usu. too old to provide any kind of medicinal value, with the exception (sometimes) of root teas...or if you buy them in the bulk section and they still smell and look very fresh. Nothing in a box.

 

I have heard of schizandra berries as a heart tonic but never for liver... Never heard of st. mary;s thistle seeds--do you know the latin name perchance?

 

For liver NETTLES is awesome--the tea, and also dandelion root tea or tincture (glycerite), milk thistle tincture (also glycerite), red clover combines very well, too. In the desert we have creosote which is a HARDCORE liver detox herb, I always add milk thistle to it for safety... Also there is cleavers (which is great for lymph detox)--I have a tincture and a vinegar in the making right now... FOOD: green leafy vegetables, root vegetables (esp. burdock), miso soup (not the powder), whole wheat grains (+ psyllium husk) oh sorry you don't like grains but they are still good for liver... VEGGIE JUICE especially carrot juice. Apple and cranberry is good too. Cutting back on fried and greasy or fatty or sugary foods can only help. Drinking lots lots lots of water is good. Epsom salt baths and dry brush scrubbing...massage...lots of stretching... mmmmm... I love detoxing. It feels so good.

 

i got artemisia arborensis.... the moxa one.

 

i have built up quite a large continuously replenished stock of herbal teas now and i dont really take them as remedies.... i just drink different combinations each evening usually.

 

its fun playing with herbs

 

im on the st marys thistle seeds (4-5/ 3 times daily) and also shizandra berries (10/day for 100 days) both for the liver.

thats as close as i come to a remedy.

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[Lozen]

Just looked up schizandra berries in my herb notes, and I was wrong, I was thinking of hawthorne berries. OOPS!

[neimad]

perhaps i was wrong with the mugwort.

 

i have one of the two... the more useful variety im sure, so perhaps it is vulgaris i have.... but i was pretty sure not.

can check.

 

herbs i buy are as fresh as you can get, from the markets from an expert herb woman, probably one of the best in australia.

 

all organic too, of course.

 

not in teabags!!!