Grain Fed

Haven't posted lately because of busy-ness, and distraction in the form of a couple of books by a writer who was new to me, namely Don Winslow. I'm not sure how to categorize his writing, but The Power of the Dog is excellent. Highly recommended.

I continue to run across studies and analysis that reinforce why it is important to eliminate or drastically reduce the intake of gluten grains, particularly wheat.  Now I've seen one that, even if gluten grains were innocuous, makes one wonder what the nutritional point of eating grains is anyway.

In "Evidence of decreasing mineral density in wheat grain over the last 160 years", Fan et al examined whether lower dietary micro nutrient density was the result of soils becoming poorer. I've heard as much many times, and it does seem kind of intuitive that extracting the same minerals from soil by continually farming it with the same kinds of crops would result in less of those minerals in the foods that result. To find out the answer, the researchers analyzed soil and wheat samples that had been archived since 1845. Their findings are quite surprising, at least to me.

The concentrations of iron, copper, and magnesium remained stable between 1845 and the mid 1960s. But since then those levels have declined significantly, while the soil levels have remained the same or risen. Why the drop in the wheat levels? Well gosh, that's when new high-yielding semi-dwarf varieties were introduced and becoming ubiquitous. Agra-business, don'tcha know.  So, we now get higher yields, which improves the bottom line, but at the expense of dehanced nutrition - I know, but 'dehanced' was what came to mind.


So, we're left with a bigger problem: even if our pre-agriculture ancestors had been adapted to eating gluten grains, the genetic makeup of what they would be eating was very different than what is in all those boxes and cellophane packages in the vast center of the supermarket. If grains are relatively new in terms of human adaptation, how well adapted could humans be to the stuff that is so different and really new? Like, forty or fifty years ago.

Now I'm really glad wheat's genetic code has been "cracked". Can't wait for all the enhancements that will be coming online once the folks in lab coats really get to work. We may get new, improved, "heart-healthy" stuff every few weeks. If our bodies could tell us what they think about all this new stuff, I wonder what they would say?

Oh, wait. Maybe they are telling us by way of all the DOCs that beset us. Diseases Of Civilization.

"Grab & GO" - an unfortunate connotation

It's positive reinforcement to have confirmation that money spent on quality food isn't wasted.

A story at CNN.com tells about the recall of 380,000 pounds of deli meat sold exclusively by Wal-Mart which has been found in an isolated occurrence to be contaminated by Listeria monocytogenes.

According to the description at Wikipedia  "It is one of the most virulent foodborne pathogens with 20 to 30 percent of clinical infections resulting in death^[1]. Responsible for approximately 2,500 illnesses and 500 deaths in the United States (U.S.) annually, Listeriosis is the leading cause of death among foodborne bacterial pathogens with fatality rates exceeding even Salmonella and Clostridium botulinum. <sup>[2]"

So far the only confirmed cases have been related to deli meats used in ready to eat sandwiches with the brand name, Grab and Go. In my experience, anything with a name like that is best dealt with by averting one's eyes and quickening one's pace toward other areas where real food can be found.

According to the article, "</sup>The meats were produced on dates ranging from June 18 to July 2, 2010. The "Use By" dates range from August 20 to September 10, 2010".  So, at the least, the little critters have only had about seven weeks to strengthen their numbers. And how about that two month shelf "life".