It's been a long time since I've posted on the forum, and unfortunately I don't have the time to post much these days. I've done a complete 180º since I last gave dietary advice and I can only apologize for peddling in some of the fraudulent dietary advice that I had been spoonfed by the low carb movement. I unknowingly had been eating a high iron diet. I now believe that "whole foods" are healthiest—and while that sounds like an obvious statement, the fact of the matter is that a steak is not a "whole food." Let me explain...
All living plants and animals require a
balance of minerals (iron, copper, zinc, manganese, magnesium, etc). All living things require somewhat similar ratios of these minerals. An entire whole seed or whole grain (bran, endosperm, kernel) has certain ratios of these minerals to support life and growth—not to mention the iron isn't "free," but rather the iron is safely bound to phytates (what helps make phytates antioxidants). If you swallowed an ant or cricket, those insects would also have a balance of minerals to support life and growth. The plant or animal would not thrive without this balance. Soil depletion is real, and healthy soil is required for healthy plants and the animals that eat those plants.
Anyhow, the point is that most Westerners do not eat or swallow whole animals. When most Westerners eat a cow, they eat a steak. A piece of steak is not a "whole food." Look up the mineral balance of a steak and you'll see that it's mostly iron, a good amount of zinc, a little copper but hardly any manganese. Most of the manganese in a cow is in the tripe. In other words, eating a lot of iron-rich steak causes a mineral imbalance.
Most of the copper is in the liver, but the liver has a lot of iron. Carnivores get a balance because they don't just eat steak. Scavengers tend to be omnivores because the mineral rich parts are usually gone by they time they arrive.
Heme iron is easily absorbed. But even if you drink lots of blood the body will only absorb a maximum of
~2mg of iron in one meal.
However, meat is known to increase non-heme absorption and cooking transforms a portion of heme into non-heme. Tl,DR feasting on raw
whole animals and blood, like your dog does, does not promote iron overload or mineral imbalances, in part thanks to the heme ceiling.
Few people realize that cooking meat destroys the porphyrins around heme (an antimicrobial that probably prevents pathogens in the gut from blooming on the raw iron). Eating a lot of cooked steak
will promote iron overload and pathogens will feast on the iron in your gut. But they key here is that meat greatly increases the absorption of non-heme iron and there is
no limit to the amount of non-heme iron you can absorb in one meal. The good news is that eating plants without meat or vitamin C will result in very poor iron absorption. So, while the iron absorption of whole grains is relatively poor (again, thanks to the phytates) meat or vitamin C will promote iron absorption (not necessarily a bad thing if you don't have enough iron).
This doesn't mean meat is "bad". It just means that eating a LOT of cooked meat may promote iron overload and a mineral imbalance—particularly if you aren't getting a proper balance of minerals. I still eat meat, but much less than I used to—and I tend to favor low-iron meats. But that's just me, and it's because my ferritin was high last year (better now). Some cultures weren't able to obtain much meat and they made an effort to mix cooked meat and iron-rich plants. Everyone and every situation is different.
As for grains, I've concluded from my research that they are very healthy—if for the fact that they are easy-to-swallow whole foods that already contain a balance of phytonutrients, fiber, antioxidants and minerals necessary to support life. Some cultures, like the Japanese or the French, are able to mix refined foods and whole foods to create their own balances (think white rice and seaweed... or dark chocolate and white bread), but these cultures do so without enrichments. The idea that traditional grain-eating cultures were unhealthy due to the grains is largely unfounded and full of misinformation as best as I can tell. Much of their health problems can be traced to other unrelated issues. McCarrison and Price are the only doctors to have properly studied perfectly healthy whole-grain eating cultures, and their findings are striking. Additionally, whole grains—and wheat in particular—were always revered and worshipped in historical literature for their ability to fight diseases and keep populations healthy. 150 years ago, gluten and gliadin were once considered the most nutritious phytochemicals. Today we don't eat real wheat—we eat refined, enriched, bromated and fumigated wheat. Most "whole wheat" flour is actually processed white flour that's been reconstituted with the bran. And then we wonder why we can't tolerate it. Not everyone does well on wheat, but for those who can, try finding
real whole wheat and try it for a few weeks (get past the adjustment period).
Enrichments are the
anti-whole foods—too much iron and
zero copper/zinc or manganese. In other words it promotes an imbalance. (Btw, the reason why enrichments are added to food is because the food industry knows that you will eventually lose your appetite for them if the enrichments were not there. B vitamins sustain appetite—it's a natural defense mechanism in all animals to prevent them from relying on nutritionless foods as staples. Rats would not eat their chow without enrichments, and this has been known since Osbourne & Mendel discovered B vitamins in the 1920s).
Eastern medicine believes that diseases happen from imbalances. I think they are on to something. Whole grains are a super easy way to obtain a balance of minerals, phytates and fiber (perhaps the most important nutrient of all).
There is plenty of evidence that whole grains are healthy—it's not hard to find. But the next time someone tells you that whole grains are worthless, and toxic (likely hormetic if anything) take a look at the following review and then look at this image summarizing what they provide.
New hypotheses for the health-protective mechanisms of whole-grain cereals: what is beyond fibre? (2010)
[align=center]
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So, it's not
just the fiber in whole grains. It's not just the mineral balance. It's not
just the fact that the antioxidants are often underestimated. It seems to be a
combination of all those elements, that support the life of the seed coming together to keep our bodies in balance in ways we barely understand.
I hope that makes up for some of the confusion I've caused in the past (I'm very sorry for that). We may never have all the answers, but I'm confident that we can learn more as we go and admit our mistakes. I don't mind being wrong so long as I become
less wrong over time. Cooked WGA isn't to be feared—it's below the toxicity level and is said to kill cancer cells.
Eat whole foods and be well. Give blood when you have the iron to spare. Our ancestors used to do bloodletting all the time—whenever they felt off—it's a lost art.
Addendum: I'm aware that not everyone can tolerate grains. That's fine. There are plenty of ways to get your balance without grains. For me, there was an adjustment period for re-introducing whole grains. After about 3 weeks I felt great. YMMV.
