Topic: Gluten and Sugar

Gluten in grains and wheat has most impact on the stomach. Kamut has less gluten than wheat. Complete avoidance of gluten is near impossible; it is hidden in almost everything, especially packaged foods. Gluten can cause problems when we overdo it in one meal, such as in a sandwich. A few croutons in French onion soup are not as bad, but adding garlic bread with it for a meal is overdose. But again this is mostly for celiac (stomach) problems. What I notice now is how sweet store bought bread is. We have a bread maker at home and even this with two hours of yeast eating the sugar is still fairly sweet. A Wendy's burger bun is like cake to me.

Things that taste bitter or sour have low sugar. We personally are even having trouble with some of the Thai foods now because they cut the spice with sugar, and have also started using fructose in restaurants. This is because fructose takes one sixth less stirring to dissolve into foods and is cheaper. The cooks find it easier to use, the employer pays less wages, and the customer has less lumps and crystals in the food.

This is why they put fructose in table salt; it is less lumpy therefore pours freely from the salt shaker, and reduces the cost.

Digestion must make food nutrients small enough for the blood stream cells to carry it. Food is digested down to many carbohydrates. We are built on carbon and when this carbon is hydrated with water we call it a carbohydrate. We need water and this gives us fuel. The six carbon molecules that are hydrated give us energy called sugar. The scientific term for sugar is saccharide. A single sugar that is small enough for a cell to carry is called a mono-saccharide. Blood stream cells capture sugar and when ‘full’ the cell cannot capture anymore, this is when an enzyme in the cell attaches phosphorus to make the mono-saccharide larger so it cannot escape back out of the cell wall. When the enzyme is gone or all the phosphorus is used up the sugar that floats in will freely float out to make its way to other cells in the body.

These enzymes are called hexase, where hex means six for the six carbon sugar and the suffix -ase is the identifier of all enzymes. Then there is an enzyme for the fructose called fructo-kinase that only works on the fructose that enters the body. Only the liver contains fructo-kinase. This means that only the liver cells can trap fructose, the six carbon sugar found mostly in fruit. When they feed mice a high fructose diet their liver looks like that of a seriously sick alcoholic. This is because fructose is toxic to human cells. The liver is next to the stomach and can trap the fructose before it reaches the blood and gets carried to the brain, bone marrow, heart kidneys and skin. If the liver is overwhelmed with fructose the kidney will spill this sugar into the urine trying to get rid of it. If the liver is exhausted with fructose overdose the kidney will constantly spill fructose but the right sugar dextrose is close in size to fructose, so the kidney spills all sugars and then starts spilling protein as well; as it is overwhelmed and sick from the deadly fructose. Fructose then reaches the nerves, that become sick, stop working, and we experience numbness. This in general is diabetes.

So grains have a double problem; fructose and gluten. Yeasted bread helps, as the yeast eat some of the sugar and break up some of the stickiness of gluten. The outer layers of grains have more gluten than the inner layer, so whole wheat contains more gluten. This is why whole wheat takes more yeast to get it to raise than white flour. If we consume a small amount of gluten and/or add some wine or vinegar to balance the sugar with acid to ‘unstick’ some of the stickiness we reduce the harm. Wheat/gluten is cheap, but is still is not a healthy food. Is your body worth being cheap with?

Healthy food is valuable for our body. Some of the most valuable foods for our body happen to also be cheap. Rice and potato contain low fructose and high glucose. You also need fibre; great low fructose and high fibre foods are the vegetables. Fruit and bread are sweet which we are addicted to because of the sugar. Tomatoes, peas, and carrots are sweet, but valuable to the body and also cheap to buy. Except that healthy foods are usually more work to prepare. Fruit and bread is as fast to prepare and fast food is. We want sweet fast food at home, just like a fast food drive through, grab the bread, grab the apple and away we go off to the doctor’s office.

Think about the kitchen of the past where we turned on the stove and cracked and egg and fried a potato with butter and made a pot of coffee. “Who has time for this, I need to get to the gym to burn off this fat” you say.... Where did the fat come from? A new thought to the Rebound Diet, "if you don't use the stove, don't eat". Try it for a week and notice how much you enjoy the food and how your energy levels change. The stove style of cooking is really fast once we set up the kitchen and foods for cooked meals. Re-invent your bread box and replace it with rice cooker. Put in the bread box an easy open container with the measurer and the measuring cup for water inside. Now it is a rice box. Forget making kamut bread, make rice twice a week.

Now set up on the counter an electric can opener and in the cupboard above it a selection of cans of salsa, pasta sauce, diced tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, canned black olives, canned green olives, cans of pimento olives, big cans, little cans, snack size cans and on the shelf above have five different kinds of corn chips in different sizes (but read the ingredients before you buy!!). Making homemade salsa, it takes five minutes and your can match the flavor to your mood; cheesy, spicy, creamy, real thick sour cream, fill the fridge with all kinds of cheese to snack on. Poof-bang... salsa, cheese, olives, corn chips and Tabasco sauce... and off to the TV room.

Next on the counter full time, a hot air popcorn maker, get a bigger bread box and keep the popcorn in a container with the right size cup for one batch and the oversize salt shaker (sea salt) in the cupboard with the salsa or in the bread box. Cinnamon and butter popcorn is delicious!

Also on the counter put an on demand hot water dispenser with a cocoa container (real dark cocoa, not the sugary stuff) beside it with a measuring spoon for a cup. Add a slab of butter and a dash of cinnamon seven days a week right after school or a pick me up to get through all the homework or bills.

So the rice cooker has hot rice, lasts all day. If there is some left in the fridge I put a scoop in a container, throw in some raisins (a marginal cheat) with a sprinkle of cinnamon and off to school with a packet of pickles, olives, cheese, a big slick of roast beef, and a peeled hardboiled egg.

Make the kitchen like a restaurant that is really easy to use. Too many of us want the kitchen to look like the living room. It is a kitchen for healthy eating first. I know a family that is so worried about making a mess that they pay each other to go out to eat. Is your kitchen good for healthy eating or is it set up for fast food?

Can your family make a healthy beverage as fast as easy as opening a can of coke and pouring it in a glass and adding ice and a wedge of lemon? The same time it could take to make a hot cocoa with a shot of cream or butter and a dash of cinnamon.

If a rice cooker had some hot rice in it every evening and you put some in the fridge or used it in another meal or even tossed some away what would the money difference be from tossing some spoiled fruit or old muffins and bread? How much does a box of corn flakes cost as opposed to a bag of rice? Rice from the fridge mixed in a scrambled egg is very fast. Butter, salt and pepper makes it real good. The non stick fry pan could be designated just for breakfast eggs and a paper towel wipe is usually enough of a cleaning. Set up a very accessible and easy to use garbage next to the stove for the egg shells.

Every weekend we make a container full of pre-cooked potatoes and add two or three to the eggs every morning. Beside it is a container of raw snow peas and mood depending a few get tossed in beside the eggs in the morning. If there is toast with breakfast it is homemade and only half a slice, but this is the day that there is also some peas, potato and egg so that the liver has a variety and not just an overdose of wheat. Rules of order, the toast is last to add to a big meal and not ‘The Meal’. On Weekends we hard boil four eggs and leave them in separate zip lock baggies for the grab-and-run days.

Next to the door we have a box full of personal size peanuts, and bags of nuts and seeds; as I load up at a wholesaler. Healthy eating can be fast too!!

This is not intended to make any claim nor is it intended to be a diagnosis.  It is my opinion. -- Bryon