Cereal Grains

Q: Wayne, in your Healthy Kitchen Manual certain breakfast grains are not mentioned – what about organic puffed millet as a cereal, or cooked amaranth or quinoa? – Grace P.

A: Dear Grace,
Teff is great and healthy substitute for oatmeal. Amaranth and millet can also be used for breakfast cereals. The reason I prefer these freshly cooked grains to puffed is that puffed grains are highly processed, and are very high on the glycemic index. This is a no-no for diabetics and people with low blood sugar. Many clients I see have poorly balanced blood sugar. They eat at irregular times, and a diet high in refined carbohydrates.

Refined carbs is one reason many North Americans are overweight, have high cholesterol and triglycerides, all of which are major factors in many illnesses. In fact being overweight is the number one cause of preventable death in North Amercia! This means we have a choice and we need to choose healthier foods.

Many grains have gluten – a sticky, gluey property of grains. Rye, oats, wheat, kamut, spelt, cous-cous all have gluten. Gluten free grains are millet, quinoa, teff, amaranth, corn, buckwheat and brown rice. Eliminating gluten can, not only alleviate and eliminate bowel problems from constipation to irritable bowel, but is a major factor in eliminating depression in many people who cannot break down and digest the gluten.

In addition gluten causes a build up of a plaque like reside in the digestive tract. It can take months to get rid this build up. Nature’s Biotics is an excellent total bowel cleanser in one pill that I recommend to many clients to help cleanse their bowel and eliminate constipation, yeast, irritable bowel and food allergies.

Although spelt and kamut have much less gluten than regular wheat, I still recommend that people stay away from them. Also we recommend eating low glycemic foods for better balanced blood sugar.

For a complete list of the foods on the glycemic index you can purchase our Healthy Kitchen manual full of charts on grains, food combining, herbs, shopping and supplier lists, healthy substitutes for many addictive foods and much more.