If you're going to base your diet on the bible, then you shouldn't be eating pork (Leviticus 11:7), and you should eat plenty of locusts and crickets (Leviticus 11:22)

Oooh, wait'll the God-deniers get a load of this one.

Actually, I've wondered about the proper interpretation of passages like those mentioned, and this post is helpful for me.

I appreciate this & putting the verses into context - but was human excrement to be used as content in the bread, or the fuel source to bake it?

I'm pretty sure the dung was not to go into the bread, it was to be used as fuel for the fire over which the bread was baked. But your point still holds very well. They also omit the lying on your side for 390 days. If eating Ezekiel bread is so healthy, so must be lying on your side for over a year.

I prefer to "kill the fattened calf."

LOL

Dung was probably not an ingredient, but the fuel used to cook the bread.  (Still pretty unsavory, though.)

1) All religion is poetry...

-- Paul Tillich

2) I have a huntch that, uh, folks from a couple thousand years ago, uh, never heard of macronutrients, glucose, insulin, etc.

3) Peace

For those who are interested in the Bible's statements on food, here's a link to a brief overview of kosher laws:

http://www.kashrut.com/articles/soul_food/

Combining a lesson in both religion and medicine, Love It!!

I agree with you, Dr. Davis, that religious issues are very important to many people concerned about dieting. And it is important to discuss them, even though some people think that religious issues should not be part of any discussion related to diet.

In fact, a lot of people who think  about diet issues from a scientific standpoint tend to think that religiosity is a product of pure stupidity. This post and the comments in response to it illustrate what I am talking about:

http://healthcorrelator.blogspot.com/2010/05/atheism-is-recent-neolithic-invention.html

Waiting for my local library to get a copy of Pandora's Seed by Spencer Wells. In it, he examines the unforeseen costs of farming, which began to transform society 10,000 years ago (using a scientific timescale), such as diabetes and obesity.

Definitely one of man's worst inventions.

Interesting fact:  The Catholic church will not use anything other than wheat to make the wafers for the Eucharist.  If you have wheat intolerance, you can request a low-gluten wafer.  But a non-wheat wafer will never be used as part of that sacrament, no matter how badly one might react to wheat.

I think that stance is a bit much, but I am not a devout Catholic.

Dr. D.
As the Brits say; you are on a losing wicket.

No person of religion will be pursued to move from the crowd. That is why they follow.

Great post! I've never understood how people can take the Bible literally. As someone mentioned in the comments, it's mainly poetry, and it describes a frame of reference and customs of thousands of years ago. Would be very weird to apply all that literally to our high-tech society.

I looked the Bible fragment up in Dutch. It says he has to bake it on human dung (i.e. using the dung as fuel). The fun thing is that a couple of verses later Ezechiel complains and says he has never eaten anything impure in his life and then God gives in and says, 'OK then, you can use cattle dung instead of human dung.'

Sounds to me like the beginning work on "fecal transplant".

But, here's the question: do you think the Ezekiel Bread is worth eating for health reasons?

Other translations have the dung as a source of fuel.  
As much fat as I eat, you'd probably have to put a wick in it.
I don't think that would give it a nice smoke flavor or anything.

I think some of these comments are missing the point. Whether the dung was used as fuel or incorporated into the recipe makes little difference to the interpretive thrust of the passage. According to Mosaic ceremonial law (which was typological, not perpetual), excrement was to be covered with dirt. You don't touch it, and you certainly don't cook with it. The point is that the bread was polluted, and this served as a typological symbol of Israel's pollution and rejection. Israel, the elect and "clean" nation, has become filthy.

God didn't make Ezekiel write this stuff down so we could whip up a great recipe 2400 years later. And by the way, the same goes for the book of Daniel. Just because Daniel and his buddies ate nothing but vegetables and water for ten days doesn't mean that vegetarianism is the best diet. That's not even close to the original intent of the passage. Yet I see these kinds of non-contextual claims all the time. It saddens me when I see fellow Christians using the Bible this way.

FYI: The "Wheat and the Bible" article can be accessed in its entirety on my website here: http://www.reforminghealth.com/Wheat_and_the_Bible.pdf

David

Thanks, David.

For anyone else interested, David's article provides a very nice overview of the broader topic of Wheat and the Bible.

Dr. Davis, I appreciate your courage in tackling this difficult subject. Dr. Kurt Harris has also discussed the fact that even traditional methods of processing wheat do not eliminate all of its negative qualities: http://www.paleonu.com/panu-weblog/2009/12/28/avoid-poison-or-neutralize-it.html.

Religious concerns are undoubtedly one of the trickiest issues that biologically appropriate diets raise. Everyone on the planet is not going to abandon what they see as their religion principles for health reasons, so I try to meet people where they're at. For those Christians who tell me that wheat must be healthy because it's in the New Testament and the Levitical diet, I say, sure, the Levitical diet is older and healthier than the SAD of today, but there was an even earlier diet in the Bible that's even healthier. It's composed of God-made foods instead of man-made foods. It usually occurs to them that this is the diet of wild foods available at the time of humanity's creation, which I also refer to as the "Garden of Eden diet", which was free of wheat bread, even unleavened, and certainly wouldn't contain any pizza, pasta or processed breakfast cereal. This doesn't always convince people, but it rarely fails to give them pause.

Plus, in Genesis 3:17-19, bread is part of a curse, not a blessing. So wheat could be regarded as a blessing compared to starvation, but a curse or penance compared to the original Biblical foods of the Creator's making.

Also, at times in the Bible, suffering is treated as an opportunity for penance or purification. It doesn't mean the bad stuff that causes the suffering (ie wheat) is "good" in and of itself. Perhaps this could be a way to explain Jesus' direction to eat bread in remembrance of Him? I generally avoid this subject as potentially too touchy, so I'm curious for input from wheat-avoiding Christians on how they deal with this.

On top of all the above, bread is no longer necessary for survival in wealthy modern cultures, like it may have been in some of the regions and times covered by the Bible. So the contexts are very different.

Hope this helps.

Paleo Phil,

As a wheat-avoiding Christian, I deal with this issue by actually trying to return the focus to the intent of the Biblical text(s). Was it the biblical author's intent to communicate wheat/grain as perpetually appropriate and required foods for all time (unlikely), or was it rather simply that the biblical narrative existed within an agricultural context and was thus accommodated to those times? I think the latter option is the reasonable one.

In the biblical account, all of creation is said to be "good" (as opposed to Gnosticism, which says that matter is intrinsically evil) but I think it is a mistake to take this as synonymous with "harmless," and it is important to remember that despite being "good," elements within creation can be either appropriate or inappropriate depending on the use and context. Plant toxins are "good" in the creational sense in that they make for a balanced and workable ecosystem, but are relatively "bad" for the unwary animal that eats them. The wheat/grain issue is no different. Grains might be creationally good and play an important role somewhere in the broader order of things, but this doesn't mean they're harmless if the circumstances are right (e.g. genetic modification, improper preparation methods, etc., etc.).

Appealing to the "Garden of Eden diet" might work for some Christians, but I think there's a deeper problem going on. Too many modern Christians see the Bible as a sort of "prescription" for what they should or should not eat. For instance, the Levitical diet (clean vs unclean foods) is often pointed to as the ultimate "healthy diet." However, the health aspects had nothing to do with the actual declared purpose of the restrictions. The diet was purely typological and temporary, and any health benefits were merely coincidental side-benefits. These typological requirements have had an antitypical fulfillment, however, so the diet should have no bearing on anyone today.

Likewise, many Christians point to the supposedly vegetarian diet in Genesis as the "original" diet that mankind was created for. But again, this misses the point of the author's literary intent. What was going on in the Genesis creation account? Was Moses telling us how to eat, or was he telling us something completely different? Most Christians are clueless here. As it turns out, the creation story has nothing to do with scientific explanations or dietary prescriptions. It was written in an ancient Near Eastern (ANE) context where creation myths abounded, and Moses was contrasting the Hebrew God with the surrounding deities of the ancient world. The account is not relating scientific facts, but is rather a literary polemic written to combat other ANE pagan religions point for point. The God of Israel is not like Ptah, or Shu, or Marduk, or Baal. The Genesis account powerfully overturns the Enuma Elish and other ANE creation stories. That was its historical intent.

Unless one is familiar with ANE culture, many of the subtleties within the Genesis account will not make sense, and you will end up with an interpretive disaster, like Young-Earth Creationism or Vegetarianism, for instance. The Bible does say that God created, but it does not tell us how He created. This is nowhere near the intent of the original author.

(Continued)

As I read the chapter, it looks more like Ezekiel is instructed to act in a symbolic manner.  He is instructed to symbolically lay seige to a model of Jerusalem that is drawn or built on a tile--even building miniature seige engines. In essence, the call to moral behavior in the book is a "seige" against the transgressions done within the city.  Thus, the "bread" is also to be made and eaten as a symbol.  The context is fairly plain.  Nowhere is there any statement that Israel, or even just Jerusalem, is to make or eat the stuff.  Ezekiel is told to bake and eat the bread "in their sight" or "in the sight of the people" and then tell anyone who sees him that this is the level of wretchedness they will be reduced to, I presume because of their faithlessness and obstinacy after many warnings, given the general context of the Book of Ezekiel.

Thus, "Ezekiel bread" is actually a symbol of the wrath of God against the obstinately faithless and not a "recipe" for what God wants a faithful believer to eat daily.

Two years ago when I discovered I was intolerant to them, rather than go "wheat free" I went "grain free", I cut out all the grains. I don't miss grains at all, and doing a test with my blood glucose meter after a piece of bread was final confirmation of how bad they are ! When we go to friends for a meal it's so much easier to say I don't eat any grains at all than to say I'm intolerant to this one or that one or to gluten. Dh has also virtually cut out grains but it's obviously an addiction because he can't completely cut them out and has the occasional rice cake :-( You can tell grains are a cheap way of feeding people though as our food bill has gone up a lot since I stopped eating them and replaced them with lots of fresh veggies. I didn't know how much it would help my HDL, that's nice to know...mine is 2.4 (93).

Anne

Celiacs today are lucky, depending on how you look at it.  There are just so many ready made foods for them to choose from these days.  Additionally food manufactures now label if their food has wheat in it - some even volunteer to label if gluten is present!  There is a health food grocery store a few blocks from our place and one whole isle is dedicated to only gluten free foods!!  I'm jealous because I used to have a grumpy gut 20 to 15 or so years ago and different doctors would suggest I try eating gluten free.  Back then plain old Quaker rice cakes was about as tasty as it got when it came to a quick meal.

Thanks for the wonderful blog Dr Davis.  I enjoy e-mailing it out to friends and family.  As I tell them, your blog wittings are too good to keep to myself.  Received two e-mails yesterday from others wanting to learn more about TYP.  Primrose

I have non-celiac gluten sensitivity. I have to eliminate gluten 100% in order to feel well. I found out very quickly, if I want feel my best, I must avoid all the processed gluten free(GF) foods too.

As more and more people get diagnosed with celiac disease/gluten sensitivity, more and more processed GF products are showing up on the grocery shelves. You are right to point out that a GF diet is not always a healthy diet. That is a common misconception. Yesterday I spoke with a doctor who said she was going to eat GF in order to lose weight. When I told her Snickers and Coke were GF, she was surprised.

By sticking with whole foods and eliminating all grains, I regained my health.
Anne

I am in complete agreement with your stance that refined/processed sources of wheat should be avoided. But are moderate glycemic load whole grain foods such as bulgur wheat, kasha, brown rice, and 100% whole wheat bread, which are important sources of fiber and B vitamins, truly "evil"  when CONSUMED in moderation? I may be somewhat unusual because I do not need to lose weight or decrease my blood sugar (or, for that matter, reduce TG's or raise HDL) but I have the "dreaded combination" of genetically induced Lp(a) and small LDL. Do I actually have to feel that I am "doing damage" to myself by eating a few whole grain products a few times a week?

So where does a highly processed product like Bran Buds (wheat bran, sugar, psyllium seed husk, oat fiber, high fructose corn syrup... uh oh!) come out?  Lots people eat this one for a fiber boost, but is it really just another Frankenstein food, masquerading as "healthy"?

1/3 cup serving has 70 cals., 1 gm fat; 200 mgs. sodium; 300mgs. potassium; 24 gms. carbs of which 8 gms are sugars; 13 gms fiber, of which 3 gms are soluble and 10 gms are insoluble fiber; 2 gms protein

I may have answered my own question.

Thanks for the great blogs, Dr. Davis.

madcook
Cypress, TX

I've been reading about coconut flour, which is supposedly lower on the glycemic scale, and is high in fiber -- according to the sites promoting coconut flour.

Do you think baked items made from 100% coconut flour would be ok for blood sugars, and not causing increases in LDL and triglycerides, if eaten in moderation?

Glycemic Index of Coconut Flour Products in Normal and Diabetic Subjects

S

I always thought you picked on wheat because of something in particular about wheat.  However, I have found that all grains definitely play havoc with my blood sugar and ultimately lead me to getting fat(ter) and unhealthier.  

Since I've gone "Paleo" and eliminated all grains and dairy products I found a lot of strange health issues that I can trace directly to removing them from my diet (and their subsequent reappearance when I add them back) disappeared like:

Terrible IBS (wheat)
Low blood sugar feelings (grains)
Brain fog and memory problems (wheat)
Insomnia maybe lack of D3 (wheat)
Arthritis (wheat)
Sinus problems (dairy)
Muscle spasms (dairy)
Acne (dairy)
Constipation (dairy)

Anyway, wheat is the worst for me but the other grains are right behind it.

Absolutely correct in my experience.  My body composition didn't start to change until I cut out grains and starchy vegetables entirely (except for one weekly cheat meal).

Wheat may be the worst of the bunch, but it's the carbs within the wheat that are really the problem, and those carbs are found in lots of places.

One thing that's really suprised me are how many "low-carb" foods are also low-fat.  What's left?  I don't want a high-protein diet, I want a high-fat diet with fats from natural animal and vegetable sources.  It's frustrating that it's so difficult to find healthy food in the grocery store these days.  I'm really looking forward to the day when the era of "low-fat = healthy" is broadly regarded as an embarassing lapse of judgement by an entire culture.

But the Gummi Bears are Organic! They must be healthy. I'm wondering if I can get some organic arsenic.

Many low carbers eliminate all grains, not just wheat. There certainly isn't any reason why we should be eating grains!

Personally I think wheat, corn and soy should all be eliminated....and one or more is in almost every processed food in some way.

No one explicitly mentioned oats.   I try not to eat many grains, but I do feel better with a bowl of Scottish oatmeal for breakfast and it is mostly soluble fiber which is good for your digestion.  I'm really not much of an "egg person" and get really tired of them everyday.

Noreen

I just tell people I'm allergic to grains.  Since most desserts also have flour in them, that covers me on 95% of anything people might try to serve me as a main dish or dessert.  The last 5% would be potatoes or legumes, and those are usually served as a side dish, so I can just avoid them.

With rare exceptions, we don't eat grains very often at our house anymore.  I still do get some sprouted wheat bread for my son, but I have to freeze it because he eats it so slowly.  I do add some very small amounts of quinoa to stews and soups, or sprout it to add to salads, but even that is minimal.

Another commenter mentioned coconut flour.  Last year I started baking again, using recipes from a coconut flour cookbook (Fife).  Be aware, that without gluten, 100% coconut flour (as opposed to a flour blend) requires a lot of binder, usually eggs, or else the item will fall apart.   I also have to watch my blood sugar with a low carb diet, and if consumed sensibly, low sugar coconut flour  cookies fit in well.

@ Anna re: Coconut flour

Thanks for the feedback about coconut flour; I''m going to give it a try for the occasional baked goods replacement.

I was aware that without gluten, extra binder would be needed. I originally thought about what the celiacs use, guar or xanthum, but Gluten A Go Go has been using ground flax or chia as her binder for her celiac baked goods. So I'll play around with those too.

S

My 87 year old father has been told his mitral valve is "a rock". He is not ready to give up. He has always been very healthy. Do you think there is any downside to have him start a D and K2 supplement?
Thsnks
Kelli

What about fiber?  

For what it's worth, I recently discovered Chia seeds, which are high in Omega-3 and fiber.  Mixed 15 grams with 8 oz water, and you get a gel that's easy to slurp down.  The taste is neutral, too.

I wonder what kind of effect supplemental digestive enzymes what have in gastric emptying.

Fenugreek is another way of delaying gastric emptying, slowing carbohydrate absorption and inhibiting glucose transport.

I've been experimenting with fenugreek myself since buying a blood glucose meter and finding I spiked at 181~199.8 although eating low carb wheat free diet.

Only used fenugreek for a few days but so far have stayed under 126. Indian grocers sell it in bulk bags at reasonable prices.

Hi, Ted--

Great results! there are some data on fenugreek, but we have not used it in any systematic way. Perhaps we should give it a try,.

Chia is a remarkable food.  3:1 n3 to n6 ratio, and absolutely complete protein, missing no amino acids.

Check it out:

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/3061/2

"If eating one gram a day of cinnamon reduces blood glucose levels 20 percent, then three grams or six grams will reduce it a lot more. Wrong.

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, including Dr. Richard A. Anderson, and Agricultural University, Peshawar, Pakistan, gave these doses of cinnamon to volunteers. Some 60 volunteers divided into six groups participated. Three of these groups got the three different doses and three groups received a placebo.

They found that less than one-teaspoon—one gram—of cinnamon worked as well as higher doses."

C Leigh Broadhurst, PhD explains how to make a cinnamon water extract.
http://www.mendosa.com/cinnamon.htm

Good thing too. Cassia is also high in toxins like coumarin.  I eat true cinnamon every day, I don't know if it works like Cassia, but it's so tasty it just must be doing some good!

Hi, Dr. Davis: I'm a long-time fan of your blog & LEF articles. I'm wondering if you can help. My husband (50 y.o., thin but muscular) is in extremely good health except for one thing: he is a very light sleeper (genetic, it seems). The insomnia is caused by his extremely fast transit time--exactly 12 hours, no more, no less--which means that if he eats more than one meal a day, it wakes him up in middle of the night. He doesn't drink during meals, he takes plenty of cinnamon, has taken apple cider vinegar (which, perversely, sped up his digestion), and because he is allergic to gluten, eats a high fat, high protein diet. He's tried adding fiber but that hasn't helped. (As you can imagine, his fast transit time leads to awkward social situations!) We're at wits end. Any help you can give us would be greatly appreciated!

I have found that all of these work very well for some people and NONE of them works for everyone.  Some will great effect at lowering bg w/ some botanical while another person will have no effect whatsoever w/ same substance.

2 quick - additional food intolerances?  has he tried a few weeks without fiber - counter-intuitive but could help.

Hi Anonymous,

No, my husband does not suffer from any other food intolerance.

That increase in fiber was a one-time, disastrous experiment. For the past several years my husband's diet has been free of fiber (except for the occasional bowl of berries and cream). This has helped his digestion tremendously but it has not slowed down his transit time...

2 Quick--

Sorry, but beyond wheat elimination, I have no specific insights.

Occasionally, iodine deficiency will show up with odd gastrointestinal phenomena.

You might try taking the probiotic, Culturelle, for a few weeks.  It causes your stools to bulk up.  It stopped a prolonged case of diarrhea for me. I know diarrhea is not your husband's problem but maybe Culturelle will normalize his digestion.

Alternate day fasting might reset him.  I just started an alternate day fast.  Yesterday was my 1st day of fasting and it increased my transit time from 24 hr to 48 hr.  I know one day is too soon to make a judgment.
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/86/1/7

What's the time frame arround meals in which luquids should be avoided? Does it include hot liquids like soup or tea and coffee?

What a great resource!

Smaller, more frequent meals is a better approach to limiting AUC and peaks. Slowing gastric emptying just invites acid reflux.

Having trouble reconciling something on this topic:  Magnesium supplementation can supposedly be helpful in glucose control (as mentioned in past blog comments).  Yet my understanding is that it's mag's ability to *increase* the gastric emptying rate which causes the loose-stools side effects at high doses.

I'm especially interested in any thoughts on this apparent contradiction because my pre-meal cinnamon supplementation seemed to lose its great benefit on postprandial glucose just about the time I triple my magnesium dose to 1200 mg (about 10 days ago).  Coincidence?

Not everybody should slow gastric emptying. Diabetics with a condition called diabetic gastroparesis should not use these methods, as they can further slow the abnormal gastric emptying that develops as part of their disease, making a bad situation worse.