lol, well written doc. i miss pizza and naan.

i have been grain free for almost 4 years now.  just got my LDL particle size tested and was surprised to see i was predominately small particle.  i eat pretty low carb with very little sugar.

Hi, my name is Marie-Anne.  I am a carbivore - a whole grain junkie with a sweet tooth to boot.  Changing is hard but your blog is very helpful and informative, thank you!  Now if only I could get the rest of my household on board.

We tested einkorn flour to see how it would elevate blood sugar.

Einkorn wheat bread:

Blood sugar pre: 154.8 mg/dl (8.6 mmol/L)

Blood sugar post: 160.2 mg/dl (8.9 mmol/L)

Convention wheat bread:

Blood sugar pre: 149.4 mg/dl (8.3 mmol/L)

Blood sugar post: 190.8 mg/dl (10.6 mmol/L)

Post was based on 1 hour 15 minutes.  Quanity was about 1 oz.  (a slice of white bread)

Has anyone tried using Einkorn in any of the other ways
that wheat flour is commonly employed,
like as a thickener for sauces or in making noodles?

By the way, has Barley also gone through the mutations that wheat has?

Regards,

Scott

I would be curious if this were true of the "ancient" grains showing up in the bread aisle.

Thank you for cotinuing to remind us why wheat is not healthful.  I have been trying to give it up completely for about a year.  Gluten-free foods tasty gritty and chalky, not spongy and chewy like wheat, so wheat-free means no pastries or breads.  I picked the most challenging time, the month of December, to try again to banish wheat from my diet.  If I can get past Christmas without eating a cookie or cranberry-walnut scone, I'll have unacquired my acquired taste for wheat.  As an added bonus, my consumption of added sugars in any form will be zero since most of it came from pastries and sweet snacks.

Where do I find einkorn?  I've not been eating grains for about 3 months now, but I'd like to have something occasionally.

Re:  According to Dr. Allan Fritz, Professor of Wheat Breeding at Kansas State University, and Dr. Gary Vocke at the USDA,...

Have they got any hard data (and willing to make it public) that would allow statistically correlating the rate of coronary heart disease with the spread of this breed of wheat, historically and across various areas of the Earth?  

I wonder if they use the same variety in France and in other low heart diase countries?

If that dwarf variety of wheat is really more harmfull than the old wheat, that could perhaps explain the sudden onset of heart disease among the population of the UK and USA in the 1920-ties, and in other countries after 1945?

Stan (Heretic)

Would you add beer to this list?

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/obituaries/article_3af7cf24-af69-50f6-8d70-20ac78da15e9.html

Thought you might have something to say about his "egg white and granola" diet.

Chuck...what were the specific test results that you received?

Hi, Vick--

That's what I would have expected, though I'm a bit surprised that the standard wheat didn't send blood glucose even higher.

Experiences like yours make me more hopeful that einkorn may indeed be a reasonable alternative for some people.

Judy-

Try the Jovial brand pasta at Whole Foods.


Stan--

Great question, though I doubt it. We would probably have to perform the correlation ourselves, since their focus is not health, but agriculture.

I have finally found a substitute for toast/ bread at breakfast--organic green beans with organic butter from grass-feed cows. So far, I am not missing the wheat and the beans are very satisfying.

I will have unacquired my acquired taste for wheat. As an added bonus, my consumption of added sugars in any form will be zero since most of it came from pastries and sweet snacks.

some nit-picking: traditional pumpernickel is made from rye exclusively (at least in my part of the world where it originates). So, this has been dwarved, too, I am aware, but it ain't wheat. Period.

I tried the jovial "spirals" last week. Starting blood sugar  86. 2 hours later blood sugar 91. Gluten destroys my digestion but several days later no noticeable change in digestion. I plan on testing it again this week. One year of grain free lowered my average blood sugar from 124 to 86. our blog was a great resource. Thanks Doc!

I worked on a wheat farm in the early 70's. The shorter varieties raised the yield per acre because they put less energy into building stalk, and were less likely to fall over during high winds and become difficult or impossible to harvest. Nothing nefarious, just practical. Also around that time the Russians, who were huge importers of wheat, started paying for the protein content rather than just by volume. High protein yield became important as a result.

Other than the dwarfing mutation, which seems to be a symptom rather than a cause, what changes have taken place in the dwarf mutant wheat, especially chemically and nutritionally?

Speaking of costs ...
my own CEO of my own HMO (I live in this quite stupid country now) "made" in 2007 over 1 BILLION and nobody investigated the deaths.

Wow, a miraculous disappearance of intelligent posts.

Anonymous--

I didn't think that penis enlargement ads were "intelligent." I can forward them to you if you'd like.

Also, I think you meant "curious," not miraculous.

Even organic whole wheat suffers from "genetic manipulations"? Really?

Are you familiar with StressEraser? It seems to be like HeartMath but not as sophisticated. I have used it some but have not used mine in a while.

I'd add a scale and body fat calipers to the list as well. Both can be found for pretty cheap.

Although BMI is pretty worthless by itself, it can be an extremely valuable metric when looked at alongside body fat %.

I have huge veins in my arms without flexing. Does this mean my arteries are clean?

i know of pretty much no one else (incl. thyroid experts) who still believe measuring temperature is a "great" way to assess thyroid status.. it's certainly not. there are too many other metabolic, nutritional and lifestyle factors that influence temp.

That looks more like a mechanical pulse-o-graph. The stylis is drawing the pulse as the waxed paper strip is run by a wind-up clock movment. The waxed paper strip (black wax on white paper) was used in many physics lab experiments before there were ocilloscopes ca. 1800's.
Ed

Thanks, Darrin.

How could I have forgotten those?


Hi, Qualia--

Sorry, but I disagree. For one, I don't care what the prevailing view among endocrinologists happens to be. A more recalcitrant, unwilling group to learn I've never seen.

Two, the notion of thermoregulation is not bizarre or unconventional, but grounded in good science. The correlation with thyroid function just requires better validation. On a practical level--and having suffered through substantial hypothermia myself from hypothyroidism--temperature assessment can be a useful adjunct.

Age is a time when the horomone cortisol hormone "runs" higher. A few hours before dawn it's level is also programed to rise and rouse us at daybreak .Hypo-throid jacks up the sympathetic nervous system; and thus adrenaline, which normally peaked at +/- 1 to 2 a.m. provokes yet more cortisol in circulation.

Poor sleep and fits of coming awake are symptoms worth mentioning; older people complain about this. Infants and the young show stable metabolic temperature; they sleep through anything.

With age hypo-thyroid patients can have 30 times the hormone adrenaline than normal. The hormone produces skin vaso-constriction as part of a survival mechanism to save our core body temperature, heart and brain. Upshot is you feel cold hands, feet, etc.

Morning, upon arising, our bodies are "fasted" overnight and in a state similar to hypo-glycaemia. Hypo-glycaemia also coincides with increased adrenaline. First meal gives blood sugar, and the adrenal/cortisol stimulation normally (ie: thyroid good) lets off from "trying" to keep us alive.

The confounders of a low morning temperature indicating hypo-thyroid are rare paradoxical endocrine and/or extreme conditions. Schizophrenia, manic depressive, during hot flashes, extreme protein deficiency and major sodium deficiency are clinical cases that might cause an a.m. reading to be  high despite hypo-thyrnoidism.

I have to quarrel with your "97.3 is normal" statement. That may be true for men, but for a healthy woman of childbearing age who is not on hormonal birth control, waking body temperature can vary quite a lot depending on where in her menstrual cycle she happens to be. If her temperature were always around 97.3 in the morning, it would mean she was likely not ovulating.

Anonymous,

I'm certain that Dr. Davis is aware of the fluctuations in temperature during a woman's menstrual cycle.

The most accurate temperatures (for assessing true lows) are obtained during the first week of the follicular phase.

http://ajpregu.physiology.org/content/279/4/R1316.long