I realize the title of this post is rather shocking. I was floored too, when I first heard this information from Rami Nagel, author of Cure Tooth Decay, in a casual hallway conversation at a nutrition conference.
How could whole grains possibly cause cavities? I mean, whole grains are hard to digest, sure, but cavities?
Isn’t white bread, after all, one of the common causes of tooth decay because it is devoid of nutrition and basically white sugar dressed up as food? Isn’t white flour one of the “displacing foods of modern commerce” as written about by Dr. Weston A. Price in his groundbreaking work Nutrition and Physical Degeneration?
Dr. Price himself recommended consuming the entire grain (bran and germ) as have many health experts since his time. Scientific analysis of whole grains indicates a much higher level of minerals and overall nutrition than that of refined grains.
Based on scientific analysis alone, it seems clear that white bread should be avoided in the diet of those seeking nutrient dense foods and vibrant health. The health and condition of the teeth and mouth is a window to the body meaning that oral problems are the canary in the mine for problems brewing elsewhere. Note the strong link between periodontal disease and heart disease and stroke.
But, could there be something else going on here – something that a blind recommendation in favor of whole grains is missing?
Fact is, I know a number of folks that eat a whole foods diet including cod liver oil, never eat white bread and even go so far as to make their own whole wheat bread with fresh flour and they are still having cavity problems in the family.
Let’s dig beyond the sterile walls of a lab and see what else might be in play ….
Traditional Societies Did Not Typically Use the Whole Grain
The argument against whole grains stems from Rami’s claim that traditional societies did not usually make use of the entire grain. Rami has studied this issue in depth and has confirmed that the practice of removing the bran occurs traditionally in the French Alps with rye, in Africa with wheat and corn, and in Tibet with barley.
Why did these cultures remove the bran? Apparently, the practice occurs because the bran is loaded with plant toxins such as lectins that cannot easily be removed by sprouting, sour leavening, soaking or even cooking.
In the second edition of Cure Tooth Decay
Quinoa, buckwheat, and aramanth appear to be exceptions to this rule. Rice falls somewhere in between as traditional rice eating cultures typically removed some or all the rice bran before cooking. This was accomplished by pounding the rice into what is referred to as partially milled rice. I wrote about this in a past article which discusses why white rice is healthier than brown.
Once the Bran is Removed, What’s Next?
Rami goes further suggesting that whole grains must be soured first to significantly reduce phytic acid. Phytic acid is another big reason why grains cause cavities as this powerful anti-nutrient very effectively blocks mineral absorption in the gut. Phytic acid causes severe rickets when given to dogs as discovered and studied by researcher Edward Mellanby.
Rami’s research also indicates that sprouting grains does not reduce phytic acid significantly enough to make them safe for consumption.
In addition, Rami told me that soaking whole or sprouted grains in buttermilk, clabber, yogurt or kefir does not seem to reduce phytic acid content significantly. However, he did say that soaking will reduce phytic acid content but that plain, filtered water plus liquid whey is the best method for accomplishing this (substitute fresh lemon juice or apple cider vinegar for dairy free soaking).
What Are You Going To Do about Whole Grains?
I greatly respect Rami Nagel’s work and I think what he is discovering regarding tooth decay and healing tooth and gum problems in general is truly ground breaking. Therefore, I plan to adjust the preparation of grains in my own home based on our conversation that is summarized in this post. Here’s what I plan to do:
- Since I usually prepare my freshly ground grains by soaking in yogurt or kefir, I will immediately modify this approach to soaking in filtered water plus liquid whey instead. The rule of thumb for soaking is one cup of filtered water plus 1 TBL liquid whey per cup of flour mixed well together, covered and left overnight on the counter.
- I will begin sifting my flour to remove most of the bran before soaking.
- I will be sifting and then soaking my sprouted flour before baking since sprouting alone does not seem to reduce phytic acid content significantly.
- I had already switched years ago to white basmati rice from brown rice so no change needs to be made there.
What changes to your grain preparation techniques will you implement based on this information, if any? Please share your ideas.
Elizabeth, coming from a very traditional family, in Spain… this was unheard of. So for me, culturally, I need to stick to that. However, I'm still interested. How does one separate the bran? I grind my own wheat… if I were to sift that, equal proportion of flour will go through the sifter. It doesn't separate the bran from the endosperm or germ. It will all go through as it's just being sifted creating a lighter volume of flour. I feel the only way one can separate the bran from the rest of the berry is if it's man made… totally eliminating the value of grinding your own at home.
If there is something I'm missing, please let me know. I'm definitely not one to try and argue I'm honestly interested. Maybe there is a way?
In Cure Tooth Decay, Nagel says that 25% of all thr flour will be sifted away. Perhaps if you stone grind the flour, the germ will not be as finely ground as the white portion? Just guessing, but I know some whole grain flours look different than others. Grinding with a steel grinder might chop it all up into finer bits. To sift a portion away, it needs to be larger obviously and you’ll probably need a sifter with a certain size holes.
Diana, Stephan Guyenet from Whole Health Source has written a lot about how grains were traditionally prepared in healthy cultures. He mentions more than once than separating the bran was a common practice. Here is one of his quotes:
"To make sourdough bread, first the dry grains are ground into flour. Next, the flour is sifted through a screen to remove a portion of the bran. The earliest bread eaters probably didn't do this, although there is evidence of the wealthy eating sifted flour in societies as old as ancient Egypt and ancient Rome. I don't know what the optimum amount of bran to include in flour is, but it's not zero. I would be inclined to keep at least half of it, recognizing that the bran is disproportionately rich in nutrients."
This is just one random quote that I grabbed up quickly, but there are a lot of other good quotes from his site about this. The point is that even traditional cultures did not always eat the entire grain, although they still ate a much less refined version (and typically fermented) than the white flour we're familiar with today.
According to Nagel, most of the bran was removed including the germ, definitely much more than 50%. Maybe 95%, but not sure. Grains were not eaten for the micronutritional benefit so it doesn’t matter that the bran is rich in vitamins and minerals; it’s toxic just the same. When comparing white commercial flour with the Swiss’ rye flour, there was only a minute difference in nutrient content.
Sarah, I'm a little confused. When talking about the bran from whole wheat berries be it wheat, rye or spelt how would one separate the bran? The outer layer of the wheat berry? The bran makes up a considerable amount of nutrients including most of the fiber in the wheat. Once removed, your left with a small percentage of the germ and the endosperm… pretty much white flour. By sifting pulverized wheat berries (ground flour), there is no way to separate the bran from the rest of the wheat berry. I'm assuming if the bran is stripped the phytic acid would be nearly gone since all that is left would be the endosperm or white flour. Am I missing something? This is interesting though and would appreciate your comments.
I don’t grind my own grains, but looking at whole grain flour, the bran bits do appear to be slightly larger than the white bits, making it possible to sift them away.
Oh, and the germ is also removed. According to Nigel, I think about 95% of germ and bran is removed in the process.
Not all fiber is good for us. And the loss of nutrients in the sifting process is made up by eating other nutrient dense foods.
Sarah,
But Morgan is right in that for those that do fine w/o grains, it's a simpler way to go about this to just avoid them or reduce them significantly. Even if we do tolerate grains OK, most of us don't need as many as we eat now.
I seem to have whey on hand more than I do yogurt or kefir, so I've already been soaking my grains in it, but I have been using a lot more than you suggest, so I guess I could cut that back some.
Thanks Sarah!
Kelly
Everybody does fine without grains. Anyone needing more carb intake because of level of physical activity can just as easily get that carb from tubers–and that’s how human beings get their carbs when they aren’t grain farmers.
Actually, you might be mistaken, at least in one case I know of. For the sake of our son, my husband has attempted to cut down on grains in favor of other starches, but he does very poorly on them (tubers). Bread, refined that is, makes him feel great. I had a hard time believing it at first, but so it is. His ancestry is 50% Norwegian, 25% Austrian and the rest British Isles. Not sure that’s relevant to this or not. He has a particular affinity for pumpernickel.
Yes, Josafina, I agree. Not everyone does fine without grains. I don’t. I almost destroyed my health by going paleo. I had a low metabolism, and my adrenals and thyroid were shot. I was dizzy, shaky, fatigued, couldn’t stop eating, and was loosing weight. I also had heart palpitations. After researching, I decided I must be sensitive to grains and decided to do the paleo diet. Worst thing I could have done. I was so hungry no matter how much I ate and the dizzyness and heart palpitations got worse. Every so often, I just couldn’t take it and I would binge on carbs – and then I would feel great. I finally ran across Matt Stone’s blog – 180 degree health. By following his RRARFing program, which includes eating a lot of carbs, I have been able to heal myself. I feel better now than I ever have in my life. I do believe that grains need to be properly prepared – but in this day and age where people’s metabolism’s are shot, more often than not we need to just eat what our bodies tell us we need. For some of us, that is going to include grains!
No offense but your comment mingles two topics. Eating low carb and eating no grains are not the same thing. You can go grain free and still eat a high carb diet. Clearly something made you feel grains were an issue. Maybe you should have eliminated grains and increased your consumption of potatoes, sweet potatoes, plantains, rice, etc. vs. going to the extreme opposite that is paleo.
I've reduced our grain intake because grains are a little more difficult to properly prepare, and I always found myself wondering if I was doing enough. Not relying on them so much gives me the freedom to not worry so much about doing it perfectly.
We aren't grain-free by any means, but I do make the effort to make sure grains aren't our only source of carbohydrates. We do fruit, dairy and plenty of potatoes.
Elizabeth, I couldn’t agree more. That is why we do what we do. Leave the worry to us as we test every batch to make sure the sprouted benefits are intact. Check out the gold standard of sprouted flours at essentialeating.com to save you time and give you peace of mind. And keep focusing on fruits, raw dairy and plenty of veggies, including properly sprouted whole grain flour!
Ok, for a working woman, this is overwhelming!!! I don’t have the mental energy to sort thru all of this and soak or not soak my own grains, or sprout, or take out some or all of the brown….. where can I buy some healthy bread for my kids to pack in their lunch? Brands?
Hi Morgan, not everyone does well on paleo. There are many healthy, vibrant traditional cultures that include grains so stating that humans can't or shouldn't eat them is ignoring this historical fact.
Saying that some groups eat grains and do OK is not the same as saying that not everyone does well on paleo. If you define “paleo” as “the way human beings eat when they do not engage in grain agriculture” then there are lots of ways to do paleo and any human being would thrive on at least one of them.
Plus, grain’s just a waste of good grazing grounds. It’s a heck of a lot of work to put into a food that, let’s face it, does not give you a lot in return nutritionally. I can get lots of bioavailable nutrients from bone broth; I don’t need to eat grains for that.
If you LIKE grains and know safe ways to prepare them then great, by all means eat what you prefer. But it’s a myth that anyone *needs* them.
I do not think that entire societies would go through the trouble of growing, harvesting, ageing and preparing grains as properly and involved as they have done were it not for the health benefit of ’empty’ carbs. What Nagel has touched on in his book has had me looking and finding proof for how carbs do not have to be nutritional powerhouses in order to provide healthy nourishment. For example, lichen has been an important staple for many populations in northern climates, and most species don’t contain much of anything in the way of micronutrients. As long as the diet includes plenty of other nutrient-dense foods, there is no danger in consuming highly starchy foods. As far as grains go, yes the Swiss had a higher rate of cavities, but from what I remember, the rate was still fairly low.
I speak as someone with an anthropology degree who has studied the reasons for the change from hunter/gatherer lifestyles to agriculture. Growing grains for health benefits is NOT one of the reasons people settled and began labor-intensive crop growing! Carbs are addicitve — the more you eat the more you want. Your body produces carbs. You do not need to consume them (as proven by Inuit and other “Paleo” people).
Agriculture has led to nothing but problems — property rights, large families (children to work the land), wars over territory, materialism, etc. Read “Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn and some hard-core science by Jared Diamond to understand what I’m talking about.
Large families are a problem?
Yes, I have read Ishmael and a couple other books by Quinn. I was swayed by his rhetoric at first, but I think the fact that Ted Turner, a huge population control advocate, sponsored its publication, speaks for itself.
I do like Jared Diamond. A little more substance to his theories. Still theories though, always come with a bias despite being grounded in hard science.
What in your anthropological research has had you conclude that the starches in grains (as opposed to those of tubers and other pre-agricultural food staples) are more addictive?
“Growing grains for health benefits is NOT one of the reasons people settled and began labor-intensive crop growing!”
And what is the reason you think that people even began to grow cereal grains, if they didn’t have any previous experience with high starch foods and its effects on their bodies? How did they get ‘hooked’ before they got hooked? I fail to see any similarities between cocaine addiction and grain addiction in this sort of situation. People getting hooked on cocaine don’t typically start producing their own cocaine first, and then get hooked.
If high starch foods are eaten ONLY because we’re addicted to them, how come entire populations are able to maintain a high standard of health eating them?
Annie, yes large families are a problem if your interest lies in controlling an unruly and uncomfortably expanding populace. The never ending concern of any civilization’s ruling class;).
I have don what Morgan suggests and although I did not have a cavity issue, I certainly had a gum issue. Six months ago, I could make my gums bleed just my pressing them firmly…they were so inflammed and swollen at times. And reading you post just made me realize that they have not bled in weeks, even when brushing and flossing. I can't prove anything, but sure is an interesting coincidence!
Hi Patty,
I wish I had a way to get in touch with you directly, but perhaps you will see this. I just came from the dentist with the same problems. My gums are totally inflamed and I’m looking at a $1500 bill for all the work they have planned for me. I definitely want to explore other options. Do you have any update on your gum health???
Thanks!
Anna,
Have you tried oil pulling? It does wonders to the gums. You swish whatever oil you can tolerate, the sunflower and teh safflower ones don’t have any taste, for 20 minutes first things in the morning. It may seem a lot but try it, it’s a daily detox too, you get more energy besides a fresh breath, I do that while I prepare my kids lunchboxes and breakfast.
But yes, diet is number one! You have a diet rich in sugar and grains, low quality meats and fats, that’s the cause of your inflamation. One quick experiment, two weeks off of grains and sugars will give you pleanty of reasons to not touch grains too often.
I would just cut out grains altogether and eat a paleolithic diet.
It’s interesting–if you go to the PPNF site and look at their summation of Dr. Price’s work, somewhere on the site they have a chart of all the traditional groups he visited and the rate of caries in each group.
Guess who had the most cavities? The Swiss.
Guess who had the fewest? The Inuit.
Big difference between the two: the Swiss ate a lot more bread!
I love grain… it just doesn’t love me. I want to learn how to prepare it to reduce phytate content but I don’t ever want grain to be the foundation of my diet again. It’s done my health no favors, that’s for sure.
I respect the paleo diet, and I think it is consistent with the WAP teaching. It is consistent in the sense that it doesn’t conflict with it. But I think it is unnecessarily restrictive. Many of the traditional cultures that Dr. Price studied ate foods that the paleo diet excludes, yet these cultures were supremely healthy. Of particular importance are raw dairy foods, which many traditional cultures considered the cornerstone of their diet. Properly prepared grains is another example.
I have a blog called The National Fork, http://www.nationalfork.com/, on which I discuss topics surrounding nutrition and politics. I included a post a while back on this very subject.
How will this change recipes? What if it doesn't call for that much liquid? I'm kind of in the dark on some of this…maybe you can fill me in. Would you pour off the liquid?
Also…would you mind making a vlog of the sifting of your flour so I can see what is supposed to be left behind?
Thanks!
Since we are dealing with some teeth decay issues right now (just got Rami's book in the mail today) I most likely will be implementing the same things you are. I already try to use water and whey for soaking because it feels like such a waste to use my good raw yogurt or kefir (we have our own milk cow) that will eventually get cooked to soak grains.
Thankyou! This post couldn't have come at a better time.