The consumption concept is key to understanding how we should be eating grains. Take wheat for example, the wheat grain that we eat is found inside a husk. So how much would we actually eat in nature?
Without removing the outer husk, the wheat plant itself is inedible.From an evolutionary perspective, it is extremely beneficial to harvest that grain from the husk. Grains provide us with an immense amount of energy while also being able to be stored for long periods of time.
Being disconnected from our food system has resulted in an overconsumption of these grains. If each human had to harvest their own grain by hand, how many times a week do you think you would be able to make pancakes with wheat flour?
Looking at grains from this perspective, we can start to understand how they should fit into our diet. Sugar addiction can be compounded by the consumption of too many grains. So what are some of the ways you can detect if grains are contributing to your sugar addiction?
1. Bloated tummy
Do you ever find that after eating bread, pasta or other refined grains that you soon have an unnatural bloat to your lower stomach. This is the result of the digestion of those carbs. This could be due to gluten or even the carbs themselves. If you are not adequately breaking down the carbs, bacteria can feed on them and produce gas in your gut.
2. Hazy hangovers
Eating a lot of refined carbs not only affects your digestion in the moment but the effects can drag on into the next day. Ever eaten some pizza for dinner and woken up the next morning feeling foggy and almost brain dead. This could be a result of the gluten or from eating too many carbs long term. A gluten sensitivity can be the reason for the brain fog and the sluggish feeling can be from overdoing it on the carbs and messing with your blood sugar.
3. You never feel satiated
As a species, we figured out how to remove the husk and access the high energy grain from inside. Now we’ve gone so far as to strip all of the nutrients from that grain grind it up into a flour and then bleach it. Consuming this product (refined wheat flour) is not beneficial for us the way it was to consume the whole grain. What we’ve created is a substance that is spiking our blood sugar without giving our body the nutrients it needs. This leaves us not only with a subsequent blood sugar crash but it also leaves us hungry. If we choose to try and satiate that hunger with more refined grains, the cycle will continue and your body will never get the necessary nutrients it needs.
If any or all of these apply to you, it may be time to take a look at your refined grain consumption. Sugar addiction can sneak up on you from any angle so make sure you’re thinking critically and most importantly, listening to your body.