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Originally Posted by Kitsune
Someone has to explain to me why flour, something mankind has consumed for thousands of years, is suddenly off-limits. Same with sugar. I'm going to continue baking bread and enjoying it.
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Kit, not everybody has the same metabolism. You may not have a problem with wheat, but billions of people worldwide do. It is just plain not digestible compared to many other things like potatoes and rice. It really causes you to "pack on" the insulation, something which might have once been desirable in some climates and economic conditions. The reason wheat is such a pervasive part of the American diet is found in history. The grain of the Bible and of Egypt was NOT our wheat. What they called "corn" (sometimes translated in contemporary texts as "wheat") in those days was a wild grain common in the hot middle east. Wheat is a COLD climate grain, and it became popular in such northern climates as England. When this country was colonized, they brought the wheat with them, it grows great in the northern Midwest as we all know. We also know that nowdays it is a bleached and adulterated product in many cases and is used as a cheap filler in many processed or frozen ready-to-eat products. In other words, it's not the whole-grain wheat which is evil, it's what we have done with it and how we use it in our foods.
Americans had also tried to introduce wheat into indigenous diets as a substitute for corn. Especially in Mexico, where corn tortillas were a staple of life, there has been a great campaign to switch to flour tortillas (wheat) on the logic that is it more nutritious. But the fact is that the epidemic of obesity - worldwide - did not exist until the switch to processed American-type foods, many of which contained wheat flour, began in the 20th century. Many native tribes were characterized in folk art as having plump women, this is true, but it was a symbol of prosperity and not bad diet. Now the wide availability of junk food, made from wheat flour and sugar, has turned all ages and both sexes even in the poorest countries into walking bowling balls. It is obvious that these people do not have MORE to eat nowdays and that is why they are becoming fat, it's that they have easy access to the WRONG things to eat, namely wheat and sugar.
I am not a chemist and can't explain to you with charts and diagrams why this happens inside the human body, and why it happens to some people more than others. I can only say that in many people these two food elements are a deadly combination. Take them out of your diet, and, all other things being equal, you will lose weight. Although potato chips and avocado dip would be allowable under such a regimen, and fried chicken too provided you did not bread the meat with flour (so no KFC), we have to hope that a person is not so mentally unbalanced that this is all they would eat. Somewhere a brain has be be involved in any diet. If you sit on your ass in front of a TV during every waking hour, stuffing your face with all the foods which do not contain flour or sugar, would you honestly claim you were trying to lose weight? Yes, exercise, even if you only walk 5 blocks a day to and from the bus or across the campus. But eating the best foods for your body to process also makes exercise easier and more pleasant.