Re: gluten/appetite (was warrior diet question)

[Guest guest]

>>Wheat consumption in the US reached a low in 1970, then started to

>>rise rapidly.

>

>Interesting, that's just when I started to get sick, early 70's. I didn't

>have a lot of wheat as a kid in the 60's, a sandwich sometimes, but the

>slices were small, and one piece of bread with lots of butter for a snack

>after school. But never much in the way of snacks, and I don't remember

>anyone else overeating either. There was maybe one kid in the class at

>school who was a little overweight, but that was unusual.

That was true when I was a kid too. We DID have sandwiches, and pancakes

sometimes. We had more homemade dinners. But really, there were NOT many fat

people! Esp. not kids. And we ate all we wanted, and at my school we usually had

these sugar-drinks for recess. SOMETHING changed but it's hard to pin down what.

>>Also, the gene that causes gluten intolerance is rarer in southern

>>Europe and gets more common the further north you go. And

>>they test for it routinely, I'm told, so probably the people with

>>the most problem know it.

>

>Have you come across any data about gluten intolerance in eastern Europe?

>My ancestors are from Austria and Russia, but I have no idea how far back

>they go in that area.

I don't know. No data on Asia or South America either.

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

Heidi Schuppenhauer wrote on Monday, September 29, 2003 2:14 AM

<<Eating a slice of French bread with butter and/or olive oil is different.>>

we found it curious on our visit to France in Aug. that the bread [mostly

baguette] served with the meal in all of the restaurants and cafes we ate at,

was NOT accompanied by a small pot of butter... the bread was there, it seems,

to mop up juices etc.... it was easy enough to pick up commercial biscuits and

cookies in supermarkets and shops made with butter... no HO... the only place I

could get raw butter was at a farmer's market... plenty of raw cheeses

everywhere though.

Dedy

[Guest guest]

Heidi-

One thing that changed is that manufacturers started substituting high

fructose corn syrup for cane and beet sugar.

>And we ate all we wanted, and at my school we usually had these

>sugar-drinks for recess. SOMETHING changed but it's hard to pin down what.

-

[Guest guest]

> That was true when I was a kid too. We DID have sandwiches, and pancakes

sometimes. We had more

> homemade dinners. But really, there were NOT many fat people! Esp. not kids.

Same here. Each grade in my elementary school had maybe one " fat kid "

at most, and s/he was known (and taunted) as " the fat kid. "

I agree that diets were significantly different then (late 1950's -

early 1960's) in that everyone ate home-cooked food --- plenty of meat,

fish and eggs, with vegetables and potatoes on the side, and junk food

(mainly potato chips and Hostess Twinkies) was a rarity. Lard and

butter were used much more frequently than vegetable oils, and I

probably had 3 or 4 big glasses of milk (pasteurized but

non-homogenized) every day. Wheat wasn't a big menu item: we ate

spaghetti occasionally --- every 2 or 3 weeks --- and used a couple of

pieces of bread to hold in the contents of a sandwich; the nutritional

emphasis during the 1950's was on high-quality protein.

But candy was considered just fine (so were cigarettes, LOL but not too

heartily --- my mother just died of lung cancer at age 75), and I never

knew a family where the parents limited their kids' candy. Of course

none of us had endless pocket money, so the candy thing was

self-limiting in a way, but I do remember my overflowing Halloween bags

and Christmas stockings and Easter baskets --- candy corn, marshmallow

peeps, jelly beans, and chocolate, chocolate everywhere --- and my

mother was quite nutrition-conscious. (We did help put our dentist's

kids through college, however!)

Yet my siblings and I were all slender, and we never participated in

organized sports or went to any lengths to obtain " exercise " --- which

was thought to be something that should only be inflicted on pampered,

overweight middle-aged ladies. But kids were *much* more active

throughout the day when I was young. At school we had 20 minutes of

recess in the morning, half an hour at lunch time, and another 10 or 15

minutes in the afternoon, and the nuns *rarely* kept us in because of

bad weather --- it took a torrential downpour or a genuine blizzard to

call off outdoor recess. There was many a day I jump-roped in my

raincoat and galoshes.

Kids today are a *lot* more sedentary than we were, and they snack

endlessly on junk food --- this is a disastrous combination, in my

opinion. Look around you --- I see a *lot* of really overweight kids

everywhere I go! I really do worry about the diabetes they're going to

be living with in later years.

Pat

[Guest guest]

Pat,

That's exactly how I remember it! And we were outside playing ball all

evening too, in the street in suburbia. We'd just stop for the occasional

passing car, which was always going slow enough. I remember always being

out until dark, riding bikes and playing ball, and parents didn't have to

watch our every move or chauffeur us everywhere. I was taken to piano

lessons, but that was considered special, and that was the only thing..

otherwise, we walked or biked everywhere.

My grandmother was very interested in nutrition, listened to Carlton

Fredericks on the radio. So she made cakes without frosting, and halved the

amount of sugar in the recipes. One small cake pan for a family of five,

and it lasted a while.. only because no one was inclined to overeat. It was

delicious even though we kind of scoffed at her sugar restriction.

I remember 's soups, which probably had much different ingredients

than now, and some fast food like White Castle hamburgers, but going there

was a special ritual, not an everyday habit. And I remember eating just

burgers with the tiny buns, not loading up on starchy or sugary side dishes.

Meals at home were usually meat, veggies and baked potato with butter. And

fresh milk from the milkman! Although I remember it being homogenized. We

had some great food between the Jewish delis and bakery, and the bready

stuff (bagels, danish, knishes, etc.) were there at times but never seemed

to dominate the meals, and they were never snacks. When company came, they

might bring a box of chocolates, and after dinner we'd pass the box around,

and everyone would take *one*!

Alcohol was always around.. my parents had a bottle of Cointreau (?)

sitting on the coffee table in a decorative serving tray, and they'd serve

it to company, but the bottle seemed to last forever. At least I don't

think they kept refilling it!

Looking at family photos, it does appear that everyone on my mother's side

had a protruding carb belly, especially my grandmother and uncle. With my

uncle it looked unusual, because he was otherwise thin even in the upper

abdomen; it was just the lower abdomen. But my grandmother was distended

all the way from the upper torso down. And she had terrible arthritis and

looked old and haggard even in her 50's.

Of course she was very poor and was probably eating more starchy foods

growing up. My mother said that when they were short on food, she (my

mother) would get the meats and best quality food and her mother probably

sacrificed a lot.

-

At 09:08 AM 09/29/2003 -0400, you wrote:

> > That was true when I was a kid too. We DID have sandwiches, and

> pancakes sometimes. We had more

> > homemade dinners. But really, there were NOT many fat people! Esp. not

> kids.

>

>Same here. Each grade in my elementary school had maybe one " fat kid "

>at most, and s/he was known (and taunted) as " the fat kid. "

>

>I agree that diets were significantly different then (late 1950's -

>early 1960's) in that everyone ate home-cooked food --- plenty of meat,

>fish and eggs, with vegetables and potatoes on the side, and junk food

>(mainly potato chips and Hostess Twinkies) was a rarity. Lard and

>butter were used much more frequently than vegetable oils, and I

>probably had 3 or 4 big glasses of milk (pasteurized but

>non-homogenized) every day. Wheat wasn't a big menu item: we ate

>spaghetti occasionally --- every 2 or 3 weeks --- and used a couple of

>pieces of bread to hold in the contents of a sandwich; the nutritional

>emphasis during the 1950's was on high-quality protein.

>

>But candy was considered just fine (so were cigarettes, LOL but not too

>heartily --- my mother just died of lung cancer at age 75), and I never

>knew a family where the parents limited their kids' candy. Of course

>none of us had endless pocket money, so the candy thing was

>self-limiting in a way, but I do remember my overflowing Halloween bags

>and Christmas stockings and Easter baskets --- candy corn, marshmallow

>peeps, jelly beans, and chocolate, chocolate everywhere --- and my

>mother was quite nutrition-conscious. (We did help put our dentist's

>kids through college, however!)

>

>Yet my siblings and I were all slender, and we never participated in

>organized sports or went to any lengths to obtain " exercise " --- which

>was thought to be something that should only be inflicted on pampered,

>overweight middle-aged ladies. But kids were *much* more active

>throughout the day when I was young. At school we had 20 minutes of

>recess in the morning, half an hour at lunch time, and another 10 or 15

>minutes in the afternoon, and the nuns *rarely* kept us in because of

>bad weather --- it took a torrential downpour or a genuine blizzard to

>call off outdoor recess. There was many a day I jump-roped in my

>raincoat and galoshes.

>

>Kids today are a *lot* more sedentary than we were, and they snack

>endlessly on junk food --- this is a disastrous combination, in my

>opinion. Look around you --- I see a *lot* of really overweight kids

>everywhere I go! I really do worry about the diabetes they're going to

>be living with in later years.

>

>Pat

[Guest guest]

> One thing that changed is that manufacturers started substituting high

>fructose corn syrup for cane and beet sugar.

:

That is a good point!

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/28/03 8:08:47 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

karenr@... writes:

> Well, even if they do eat wheat, they may not have the multitude of forms

> of wheat in every shape and size that we do, and maybe they don't eat it as

> a main dish like we do pasta. I heard that in Italy pasta is sort of an

> appetizer before the main course, not a main course like it is here.

I don't think that makes any difference whatsoever-- it makes it quite clear

that people can eat wheat and not have the diabetes and obesity problems we

do. A whole country is significant epidemiological evidence, unlike throwing

out anecdotes like mine about Mercola or Heidi about her family (which have

their own value).

The Egyptians got diabetes first, so far as we know, and they didn't eat the

myriad forms of refined wheat like we do.

Chris

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/28/03 8:23:50 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

heidis@... writes:

> >>Of course if you are looking at mind-benders, there is

> >>good ol' MSG. Maybe not the synthetic kind, but it comes in

> >>seaweed and mushrooms (?)

> >

> >Are you thinking of psylocibin? ;-)

> >

> >Chris

>

> Oh sheesh. My experience with these things is sooo limited ...

> my mushrooms are purely the ones they sell in the stores.

> Though sometimes the flavor is mind-bending ...

Oh me too. But for those who are looking for experience, you really need

look no further than your back yard. Washington might be too far north, but it

warm climates (summers in moderate climates, all-year in florida), there is a

species of psylocibin mushroom that grows on a daily cycle. I think it either

dies or sleeps during the night, or mabye it's the day and you have to go out

in early morning to get them, I forget.

I personally wouldn't eat mushrooms I didn't buy at a store unless I used

someone else as a guinea pig first!

Chris

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/28/03 9:08:41 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

heidis@... writes:

> I think is right on this one ... they eat wheat, but it is

> full of butter. And eaten with a glass of wine. Wine and wheat

> is MUCH better than pure wheat, according to my tummy --

> again, I don't know why. And they eat wheat WITH a meal,

> so the starch gets surrounded by all that olive oil and is

> more slowly digested with protein. They don't snack, which

> probably gives the gut time to recover.

Well this is *very* interesting, considering the cornerstone of traditional

Greek health philosophy, which values " wheat, wine and oil. " (olive). Maybe

the wine explains how they got away with valuing wheat.

Chris

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/29/03 8:44:31 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

heidis@... writes:

> We have about 30 species that I've seen out back, one of which I swear

> is a Portobello. But I've heard enough stories I'm not willing to try it!

> Now my German grandma didn't like buying mushrooms at the store,

> because, she said, if you couldn't see the root you couldn't be sure

> it wasn't poison!

The ones I'm referring to aren't poisonous-- and they don't look like

portabellas either! They are white stemmed with a red top. They are very

small, and

the top is almost bubble-shaped.

Supposedly there are tests you can do by cutting the mushroom and putting it

on paper to see what color residue it has.

However, I'd have to hang around with a real mushroom expert and get LOTS of

information before I ever ate a mushroom in the wild.

Chris

[Guest guest]

>Oh me too. But for those who are looking for experience, you really need

>look no further than your back yard. Washington might be too far north, but it

>warm climates (summers in moderate climates, all-year in florida), there is a

>species of psylocibin mushroom that grows on a daily cycle. I think it either

>dies or sleeps during the night, or mabye it's the day and you have to go out

>in early morning to get them, I forget.

>

>I personally wouldn't eat mushrooms I didn't buy at a store unless I used

>someone else as a guinea pig first!

>

>Chris

We have about 30 species that I've seen out back, one of which I swear

is a Portobello. But I've heard enough stories I'm not willing to try it!

Now my German grandma didn't like buying mushrooms at the store,

because, she said, if you couldn't see the root you couldn't be sure

it wasn't poison!

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

>> Well, even if they do eat wheat, they may not have the multitude of forms

>> of wheat in every shape and size that we do, and maybe they don't eat it as

>> a main dish like we do pasta. I heard that in Italy pasta is sort of an

>> appetizer before the main course, not a main course like it is here.

>

>I don't think that makes any difference whatsoever-- it makes it quite clear

>that people can eat wheat and not have the diabetes and obesity problems we

>do. A whole country is significant epidemiological evidence, unlike throwing

>out anecdotes like mine about Mercola or Heidi about her family (which have

>their own value).

The Italians DO have a lot of problems with wheat and it is a major

health issue there. However, they test for it and have special pasta

for those with problems. I've heard every kid is tested for

gluten intolerance starting at age 6, which has got to change

the epidemiology for the country. They also test fairly routinely ...

a lady on the celiac group was diagnosed when she passed out while

viewing a cathedral in Italy and was treated by paramedics! If the gluten

intolerant people in the US stopped eating wheat, or just ate less of it,

a lot of disease patterns would change, if you use the

numbers in Dangerous Grains.

I kind of think their eating habits help

though -- eating meals with no SNACKS. The gut heals very quickly,

given a chance, so even eating wheat pasta with each meal might not be

so bad if it was with sauce, olive oil, wine, and 6 hours from the last

meal.

>The Egyptians got diabetes first, so far as we know, and they didn't eat the

>myriad forms of refined wheat like we do.

No, but they were among the first to eat wheat. T1 diabetes

(which is probably what they got)

is very much related to gluten intolerance -- they have identified

the antibody that attacks the pancreas, and it stops getting produced

if some people (or mice) stop eating wheat. Although wheat

isn't the only cause, casein is in some mice I guess, they don't

know with people but some of them seem to be reacting to

something else. In that case it doesn't matter if it is refined or

otherwise.

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

>Well this is *very* interesting, considering the cornerstone of traditional

>Greek health philosophy, which values " wheat, wine and oil. " (olive). Maybe

>the wine explains how they got away with valuing wheat.

>

>Chris

The fact it makes folks *feel good* probably helps us value it too!

Back in the old days a large portion of the really gluten

intolerant people died as children (one reason for the high

death rate among infants and toddlers). But the wine I think

is really key -- I note in the New Testament one of the few

references to wine as a drink is " take some wine for the

sake of your stomach " . And the French just don't consider

it a meal without wine, ditto with the Spanish and Italians.

I think it was Krispin Sullivan (?) who made the point that lectins

are really easy to disable in the correct food combinations.

Kind of like the South Americans dipping toxic potatoes in

the right clay.

-- Heidi