My wedding ring keeps falling off my finger, shows how much my inflammation levels have dropped - Client after 2 weeks on the 12 week transformation.

Key Primal Concept: Grains are Totally Unnecessary

My own personal story involves a grain based diet along with excess body fat, inflammation and a complete ignorance about the effect of grains on the planet. Ditching grains was my first foray into Primal Living - excess fat came off, inflammation dropped (no more hay-fever or sweaty/swollen hands) and ultimately... a new lease of life.

Odds are, if you’re living what might be called the ‘average lifestyle’ today then you’ve probably, at some point, eaten a meal containing grains.

• Bread

• Pasta

• Breakfast cereals

• Oats

• Most snacks and junk food

… and the list goes on

These have become the staples of our modern day food supply and the backbone of the agricultural industry. Bizarrely these ‘essentials’ (think about the food pyramid you were taught in school) were not part of our diet if we rewind around 10,000 years or so.

That may seem like a long time but in evolutionary terms it’s a little bit like someone turned up yesterday with plate of spaghetti as a new invention and suggested we all try it because it was quick, easy and made a rich land owner a quick coupe of quid.

But what’s the issue here…

… It’s twofold.

First off, we haven’t evolved to eat grains. Our DNA is expecting a specific set of inputs that our bodies have adapted to over millennia. In terms of food, our DNA is expecting animals and a diverse offering of plants grown in a mixed bag of very large salad – known as a forest. Alongside some of the creepy crawlies living in that big bag of salad… from actual creepy crawlies to more animals or the much more meaty variety (which is where I tend to focus my attention).

Introducing what are perceived as foreign objects, in the way of grains, causes our body to go a little haywire. We have a a calorie surplus, leading to weight gain, a dis-regulated appetite – leading to more eating and a cascade of inflammation as our body tries to fight off the foreign invader. Multiply that over a lifetime and you have a great recipe for obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and a cacophony of related diseases.

Grains – in the quantity you need them to produce any thing close to a meal – do not grow in a forest, but in a human controlled agricultural environment. To be grown effectively and in a way that is economically viable – grains are often grown in mono crops (one type of plant in a large area). Mono-cropping is a disaster for the environment and leads to huge decreases in biodiversity, habitat loss, soil erosion, global warming and that’s before we’ve even got on to pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and all other other nasties are frequently used to prop up companies wanting to max out on production. Those nasties make their way into our bodies along with the grains.

So what is the alternative for producing the food all of the bodies of the human race need?

A Forest – check out this great video to see how!

In transitioning away from a grain based diet you have the opportunity to reset your own DNA triggers and health as well as get on board with doing your bit for mother nature. Interested in knowing more? Check out our coaching packages to start transforming your health.