There is so much confusion today regarding grains! Many realize that today, most grains contain gluten, and are acidic. Then there is the incredible difference between whole grains and refined grains. And besides all that there is the question as to what happens when we cook grains – are nutrients and enzymes lost?
These and many other questions regarding grains will be answered over the next few weeks in this Hallelujah Health Tip. But let’s begin by asking the question in the title of this article – “Did Adam and Eve Eat Grains?”
Did Adam & Eve Eat Grains?
This may come as a shock to you, but it is doubtful Adam and Eve ever consumed grains of any kind while they were in the Garden, and for sure they never consumed “refined” grains or “cooked” grains. How can we come to this conclusion?
First, grains are, as Webster’s Dictionary defines them: “a small, hard seed, esp. the seed of a food plant such as wheat, rye, oats, rice, or millet.” And though these grains (seeds) were present in the Garden, it would be extremely difficult to harvest enough to make a meal. Imagine picking enough seeds off of a plant to make a meal.
Second, there was no fire in the Garden with which to cook the grains! If fire was not available in the garden, how could they have prepared those grains for eating?
Third – Regarding the cooking of grains, the very first time the word “fire” is found in the Bible occurs in Genesis 19:24, when “The Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and FIRE. . . . .”
One could also assume that Abel’s offering in Genesis 4:4 required fire, though the word “fire” is not mentioned. Still, even this event was after expulsion from the Garden.
We also know that fire was available to Noah immediately after the flood, because in Genesis 8:20 he offered a “burnt offering” to the Lord, but even this use of fire occurred some 1,700 years after Adam and Eve had been ejected from the Garden.
In the Garden of Eden, some raw grains (seeds) could have been soaked for several days in order to soften their hard shell, sprout them, and make them edible, but that is extremely unlikely.
Yes, they could have cracked a coconut in half and used the shell as a container to soak the seeds, but with so many easily obtainable foods available in the garden that could just be picked and immediately eaten, it is doubtful they went to all the trouble of picking enough seeds to make a meal, and then soaking them several days to make them edible.
So with that as a little Biblical background as to whether or not Adam and Eve ate grains, let’s talk about the use of grains today, as well as the use of grains on the Hallelujah Diet.
Whole Grains On The Hallelujah Diet
Before we talk about refined grains, I want you to understand that some whole grains, in limited quantities, are indeed a part of the Hallelujah Diet. Whole grains are complex carbohydrates, which help us reach our caloric needs and help to ensure we receive sufficient protein from our diet.
However, even whole grains convert to sugar fairly rapidly, and thus it is not desirable to consume large amounts of even whole grains too frequently – probably not more than once a week.
Also, it is important to realize that wheat, even in its whole and unrefined form (as well as in its refined form), is today one of the most acidic and possibly least desirable of all grains. The best way to consume wheat is in the raw and sprouted form.
Sadly, relatively few whole grains are available on the market these days, and thus very few are consumed. Today, virtually all the breads, cereals, pastas, rice, corn, grits, etc. are processed and refined.
Americans, as well as much of the rest of the world today, have a love affair with soft, white pastries; breads made with bleached white flour; and cereals that have first been divested of most of its fiber — and then dipped in sugar, making most cereals a double whammy!
Whole Grains, When Cooked, Are A Dead Food
All grains have their beginning in the living seed of a living plant! This seed, before processing or cooking, contains life in the form of enzymes. In fact, each seed contains within it the very source of LIFE for a brand new plant.
But by the time it reaches the cooked or refined stage, all enzymatic activity (life), has been destroyed, and it has been reduced from a seed containing life to a very dead food, devoid of all enzymatic activity (or life form). Heating any living food above 122 degrees kills the enzymes, its life force.
Our physical bodies are living organisms, comprised of living cells that were designed by God to be nourished with living foods, foods high in enzymatic activity.
This most basic knowledge is also the key to understanding what is (and what is not) proper fuel or nourishment for the human body!
Consuming food in its living and raw form is also key to the proper nourishment of all species of animal life in the wild. Every animal in the wild, whether herbivore or carnivore, by instinct, ever since creation to this present day, consumes all of its food in its natural, raw, and living form!
For proof, look at how all animals in nature get and eat their foods.
Only man, thinking he is so wise, and so much smarter than the dumb animals in the wild, could display such arrogance and such ignorance as to destroy the life (enzymes) found within living plant foods before placing them into his mouth.
The Bible tells us “The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.”
Friend, the Genesis 1:29 diet, which God the Creator gave that first couple, Adam and Eve, along with all the animals He created, was comprised of 100% raw, living (enzyme rich) foods!
Life begets life! Death cannot produce life, death can only beget more death!
Dead food cannot properly nourish a LIVING organism, whether it is the body of a human or that of an animal. When a predominantly dead food diet is consumed by either human or animal, physical breakdown is the penalty for that violation.
Many pet owners wonder why their dog or cat develops many of the same physical problems humans experience. Dogs and cats were created by God to be nourished with raw foods, enzymatic live foods, just like humans.
Most pet foods available today, that come in boxes or cans, have had the enzymes, their life force, destroyed in the heat processing of those foods. These dead foods cause physical breakdown, necessitating trips to the vet in an effort to undo the problems caused by the dead food diet the animal has been eating.
Try This “Living Food – Dead Food” Experiment…
Go to the health food store and buy a pound of raw, organic, whole wheat berries (seeds). At home, take half of the wheat berries (seeds) and simmer them in boiling water for 10 minutes. Then drain, cool, and place the cooked seed in a small mason jar with an old piece of clean nylon stocking over the opening, fastened in place with a rubber band, and place the jar on its side.
In a second mason jar, place the remaining raw, organic, whole wheat berries, with an old piece of clean nylon stocking over the opening, fastened in place with a rubber band as above, and soak the seed overnight in room temperature water. In the morning, drain completely, rinse the seed, and place the jar on its side.
Then each morning and evening, rinse the seeds in both jars with room temperature water, drain completely, and place on their sides. After a few days you will find that the jar containing the uncooked grain will start to sprout roots while the jar containing the cooked grain will not only not sprout roots, but start to rot, mold, and smell.
Right there before your very eyes, you will visually see the difference between a dead food and a living food.
Now, think about this: If even a whole organic grain becomes a dead food through the simple act of placing it in boiling water for a few minutes, think about how much living (raw) food you are placing into your body on a daily basis to nourish your living cells.
The average diet of the average person today, is predominantly (if not almost entirely) comprised of dead foods — and we wonder why we suffer from so many physical breakdowns! The Bible tells us that what we sow we will also reap (both in physical and spiritual terms)!
“Be not deceived: God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
~ Galatians 6:7
Why Does The Hallelujah Diet Include Cooked Grains?
The Hallelujah Diet calls for 15% of the foods consumed each day to be in the cooked form, including some grains. For instance, we recommend baked sweet potatoes, steamed vegetables, cooked soups, cooked whole grains and even some whole grain pastas, baked squash, and cooked beans.
This may sound like a contradiction after all we have said above regarding cooked foods, but there is a reason for these cooked foods being included in the Hallelujah Diet — based on almost 40 years of my personal experience and research, as well as the experiences of tens-of-thousands of others who have written to me and told of their personal experiences.
Following are a few of the reasons why cooked foods are included:
1. The average person is addicted to cooked food, and when that person tries to eat an all-raw diet, they are inclined to cheat. This cheating often gets out of control, and they get so discouraged they throw in the towel, so to speak, and go back to their old, nearly 100% cooked food diet. When given the opportunity to include 15% cooked foods on the Hallelujah Diet, it helps satisfy the longing for cooked foods.
2. Many find it difficult to chew enough raw plant sourced foods to obtain sufficient calories, especially if they have dentures. If sufficient calories are not consumed, the body may not receive sufficient protein. (More on this subject in next week’s Health Tip.)
3. We also need sufficient calories, especially in the form of carbohydrates, in order to have adequate energy. Some people, especially those who consume an excess of fruit (which we limit on the Hallelujah Diet because it contains so much sugar), find they have very low energy.
4. Some need more calories in order to keep from becoming too thin. Everyone strives to be trim, but some people become too thin if they do not consume some concentrated carbohydrates in the cooked form.
5. Adding 15% cooked foods to the diet provides all of the above benefits, along with making the diet much more doable, while obtaining at least as good (if not better) results than trying to maintain a 100% raw, plant-sourced diet. Interestingly, some nutrients are even more readily available to the body from foods when cooked – lycopene, found in tomatoes, being one of them.
In fact, as part of the Hallelujah Diet, Rhonda and I consume a moderate amount of cooked grains most every week.
When I first started advocating that 15% of a vegan diet should be consumed in cooked form, I was seriously criticized by most of the raw vegan community. It is interesting to note that today, some 20 years since I started encouraging some cooked food be added to the all raw vegan diet, most vegans have adopted what I have been advocating all these years. Why? Because adding some cooked food to the raw diet gets better results!
I adopted a 100% raw (living), plant-based diet 38 years ago, along with large quantities of 100% raw (enzymatically alive), freshly extracted vegetable juices, after being told he had colon cancer in 1976. After one year on a 100% raw diet, with my cancer gone, I added 15% cooked plant sourced foods back into my diet, and my diet has been at least 85% raw, plant-sourced foods, along with some cooked plant sourced foods, along with an abundance of vegetable juices every day since.
As I approach my 80th birthday, I still have most the physical abilities I had as a teen, and a mind superior to when I was a teen. This Hallelujah Diet has not only worked for me, but for Rhonda also, and for millions of others around the world. I highly recommend it!
To be continued . . . .
If you are not already on The Hallelujah Diet, click here to give it a try! Multitudes have made this diet change that we teach here at Hallelujah Acres, and experienced normalization of weight, as well as the elimination of almost all their physical problems.
Next week, the good Lord willing and if the creeks don’t rise too high we will return with another exciting issue of the Hallelujah Acres Health Tip. Trust you will join us and that you will share these Health Tips with friends and loved ones.
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In response to this statement “Sadly, relatively few whole grains are available on the market these days, and thus very few are consumed. ” I must point out Bob’s Red Mill GMO free/organic flours have been greatly received by those who are Gluten Free. There are many different grains used in cereals & breads and we searched them out about 3 yrs ago, yet it has taken 3 yrs to find a friend with an wonderful bread with great elasticity. Living Without (Gluten) is a great magazine to help those that need replacement recipes for their families, so they can eat tasty meals with out Gluten.
Mosm you are so right about Bob’s Red Mill products. And for me I have found them to be available and afforable in my area of NC, of all places…Big Lots! I love their brown rice w/red rice and their brown rice w/ wild rice! Thank you sir Malkmus for a good news letter. I have several hard copies of your news letter way back when you were still printing them!!!!!!!! Still enjoy reading the old stuff. For me it’s kinda like the Bible…the info never gets old!
THE BREAD OF DEATH
In looking at the cheapest foods you will be looking at wheat. So how does
wheat, this so called staff of life, make a person fat? This new modern wheat
may look like wheat, but it is different in three important ways that all drive
obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia and more. 1. It contains a
Super Starch known as amylopectin A, that is super fattening. 2. It
contains a form of Super Gluten that is super-inflammatory. and 3. It contains
forms of a Super Drug that is super-addictive and makes you crave and eat more.
Our ancestors ate Einkorn heirloom, or Biblical wheat, which is something
modern humans never eat. Instead, we eat dwarf wheat, the product of genetic
manipulation and hybridization that created short, stubby, hardy, high-yielding
wheat plants with much higher amounts of starch and gluten and many more
chromosomes coding for all sorts of new odd proteins. The man who engineered
this modern wheat won the Nobel Prize. It promised to feed millions of starving
around the world. Well, it has, and it has made them fat and sick.
This new super starch, amylopectin A, which makes bread nice and fluffy, but
just two slices of whole wheat bread will raise your blood sugar equal to more
than two tablespoons of table sugar. In people with diabetes, both white and
whole grain bread raises blood sugar levels 70 to 120 mg/dl over starting
levels. We know that foods with a high glycemic index make people store belly
fat, trigger hidden fires of inflammation in the body and give you a fatty
liver. This problem now affects every other American and is the major driver of
nearly all chronic disease and most our health care costs. It’s estimated that
diabetes now sucks up one in three Medicare dollars. The Super Drug in wheat
are converted polypeptides, called exorphins. They are like the endorphins you
get from a runner’s high and bind to the opioid receptors in the brain, making
you high, and addicted just like a heroin addict.
These wheat polypeptides are absorbed into the bloodstream
and can get across the blood brain barrier. They are called gluteomorphins,
after “gluten” and “morphine.” These super drugs can cause
multiple problems, including schizophrenia and autism. But they also cause
addictive eating behavior, including cravings and bingeing. The bottom line is
that wheat is an addictive appetite stimulant.
ON THE EVILS OF WHEAT
Dr.
William Davis on why it is so addictive, and how shunning it will make you
skinny
by Kate Fillion on Tuesday, September 20, 2011
William Davis, a preventive cardiologist who practises in Milwaukee, Wis.,
argues in his new book Wheat Belly that wheat is bad for your health—so bad
that it should carry a surgeon general’s warning.
Q: You say the crux of the problem with wheat is that
the stuff we eat today has been genetically altered. How is it different than
the wheat our grandparents ate?
A: First of all, it looks different. If you held up a
conventional wheat plant from 50 years ago against a modern, high-yield dwarf
wheat plant, you would see that today’s plant is about 2½ feet shorter. It’s
stockier, so it can support a much heavier seedbed, and it grows much faster.
The great irony here is that the term “genetic modification” refers to the
actual insertion or deletion of a gene, and that’s not what’s happened with
wheat. Instead, the plant has been hybridized and crossbred to make it
resistant to drought and fungi, and to vastly increase yield per acre.
Agricultural geneticists have shown that wheat proteins undergo structural
change with hybridization, and that the hybrid contains proteins that are found
in neither parent plant. Now, it shouldn’t be the case that every single new
agricultural hybrid has to be checked and tested, that would be absurd. But
we’ve created thousands of what I call Frankengrains over the past 50 years,
using pretty extreme techniques, and their safety for human consumption has
never been tested or even questioned.
Q: What extreme techniques are you talking about?
A: New strains have been generated using what the wheat industry
proudly insists are “traditional breeding techniques,” though they involve
processes like gamma irradiation and toxins such as sodium azide. The poison
control people will tell you that if someone accidentally ingests sodium azide,
you shouldn’t try to resuscitate the person because you could die, too, giving
CPR. This is a highly toxic chemical.
Q: Can’t you just get around any potential health
concerns by buying products made with organically grown wheat?
A: No, because the actual wheat plant itself is the same.
It’s almost as if we’ve put lipstick on this thing and called it organic and
therefore good, when the truth is, it’s really hardly any better at all.
Q: A lot of us have switched to whole wheat products
because we’ve been told complex carbohydrates are heart healthy and good for
us. Are you saying that’s not true?
A: The research that indicates whole grains are healthy is
all conducted the same way: white flour is replaced with whole wheat flour,
which, no question, is better for you. But taking something bad and replacing
it with something less bad is not the same as research that directly compares
what happens to health and weight when you eliminate wheat altogether. There’s
a presumption that consuming a whole bunch of the less bad thing must be good
for you, and that’s just flawed logic. An analogy would be to say that filtered
cigarettes are less bad for you than unfiltered cigarettes, and therefore, a
whole bunch of filtered cigarettes is good for you. It makes no sense. But that
is the rationale for increasing our consumption of whole grains, and that
combined with the changes in wheat itself is a recipe for creating a lot of fat
and unhealthy people.
Q: How does wheat make us fat, exactly?
A: It contains amylopectin A, which is more efficiently
converted to blood sugar than just about any other carbohydrate, including
table sugar. In fact, two slices of whole wheat bread increase blood sugar to a
higher level than a candy bar does. And then, after about two hours, your blood
sugar plunges and you get shaky, your brain feels foggy, you’re hungry. So
let’s say you have an English muffin for breakfast. Two hours later you’re
starving, so you have a handful of crackers, and then some potato chips, and
your blood sugar rises again. That cycle of highs and lows just keeps going
throughout the day, so you’re constantly feeling hungry and constantly eating.
Dieticians have responded to this by advising that we graze throughout the day,
which is just nonsense. If you eliminate wheat from your diet, you’re no longer
hungry between meals because you’ve stopped that cycle. You’ve cut out the
appetite stimulant, and consequently you lose weight very quickly. I’ve seen
this with thousands of patients.
Q: But I’m not overweight and I exercise regularly. So
why would eating whole wheat bread be bad for me?
A: You can trigger effects you don’t perceive. Small
low-density lipoprotein [LDL] particles form when you’re eating lots of
carbohydrates, and they are responsible for atherosclerotic plaque, which in
turn triggers heart disease and stroke. So even if you’re a slender, vigorous,
healthy person, you’re still triggering the formation of small LDL particles.
And second, carbohydrates increase your blood sugars, which cause this process
of glycation, that is, the glucose modification of proteins. If I glycate the
proteins in my eyes, I get cataracts. If I glycate the cartilage of my knees
and hips, I get arthritis. If I glycate small LDL, I’m more prone to
atherosclerosis. So it’s a twofold effect. And if you don’t start out slender
and keep eating that fair trade, organically grown whole wheat bread that
sounds so healthy, you’re repeatedly triggering high blood sugars and are going
to wind up with more visceral fat. This isn’t just what I call the wheat belly that
you can see, flopping over your belt, but the fat around your internal organs.
And as visceral fat accumulates, you risk responses like diabetes and heart
disease.
Q: You seem to be saying that aside from anything else,
wheat is essentially the single cause of the obesity epidemic.
A: I wouldn’t go so far as to say that all obesity is due to
wheat. There are kids, of course, who drink Coca-Cola and sit in front of video
games for many hours a day. But I’m speaking to the relatively health-minded
people who think they’re doing the right thing by limiting fat consumption and
eating more whole grains, and there’s a clear subset of people who are doing
that and gaining weight and don’t understand why. It causes tremendous
heartache. They come into my office and say, “I exercise five times a week,
I’ve cut my fat intake, I watch portion size and eat my whole grains—but I’ve
gone up three dress sizes.”
Q: You write that wheat is “addictive,” but does it
really meet the criteria for addiction we’d use when talking about, say, drugs?
A: National Institutes of Health researchers showed that
gluten-derived polypeptides can cross into the brain and bind to the brain’s
opiate receptors. So you get this mild euphoria after eating a product made
with whole wheat. You can block that effect [in lab animals] by administering
the drug naloxone. This is the same drug that you’re given if you’re a heroin
addict; it’s an opiate blocker. About three months ago, a drug company applied
to the FDA to commercialize naltrexone, which is an oral equivalent to
naloxone. And it works, apparently, it blocks the pleasurable feelings you get
from eating wheat so people stop eating so much. In clinical trials, people
lost about 22.4 lb. in the first six months. Why, if you’re not a drug addict,
do you need something like that? And of course there’s another option, which is
to cut wheat out of your diet. However, and this is another argument for
classifying wheat as addictive, people can experience some pretty unpleasant
withdrawal symptoms.
Q: For how long?
A: Generally about five days. And once you’re through
withdrawal, your cravings subside, your calorie intake decreases and your
alertness and overall health improve.
Q: So do you believe food manufacturers are putting
wheat into more and more food products, not just bread and crackers, because
it’s addictive and stimulates appetite?
A: These are not stupid people. The research showing that
wheat stimulates appetite didn’t come from some little alternative health
practitioner. It comes from the NIH. It stretches credibility to believe they
have no awareness of the evidence.
Q: If there’s all this evidence, why does the government
encourage us to “eat healthy” by upping our consumption of whole grains?
A: That’s the million-dollar question. Wheat is so linked to
human habit, it’s 20 per cent of all calories consumed by humans worldwide,
that I think there was the presumption, “Gee, humans have consumed this for
thousands of years, so what’s the problem?” I don’t think the misguided advice to
eat more whole grains came from evil intentions.
Q: Wheat is a huge industry. What do you say to all the
farmers who grow it?
A: To me, it’s reminiscent of tobacco farmers, who would
say, “Look, I’m just trying to make a living and feed my family.” Nevertheless,
tobacco is incredibly harmful and kills people. It could turn out that if we
wind back the clock 100 or 1,000 years, and resurrect einkorn or some of the
heritage forms of wheat, maybe that would be a solution. Of course, wheat
products would then be much more expensive. Instead of a $4 loaf of bread,
maybe it would cost $7 when grown with a heritage wheat. To me, it’s similar to
free range eggs or organic beef 20 years ago. Everyone said, “No one will pay a
premium for those.” But people do. And when it comes to wheat, my main goal is
to inform people, including farmers, that the prevailing notion that cutting
fat and eating whole grains will make you healthy is not only wrong, it’s
destructive.