WheatBelly Wheatbelly Lifestyle Institute

Think about what you have been eating for the last twenty or thirty years.  If you are like many people, your main meals probably consisted of the following:

Breakfast

Cereal - wheat or corn, sugar.

Bagel - wheat flour

Donuts - wheat flour, sugar

Pancakes/Waffles - wheat flour

Eggs - minimized, because we were wrongly told eggs are "bad" for you

Lunch

Hambuger - primary ingredient is wheat flour, with a protein in between.

Deli sandwich - primary ingredient is wheat flour, with a few thin slices of meat or cheese

Pizza - primary ingredient is wheat flour

Dinner

Pasta - primary ingredient is wheat flour

Pizza - primary ingredient is wheat flour

Meat with starch, one vegetable, and bread (wheat flour)

Feed

It is not a stretch to suggest that up to fifty percent or more of what we have historically eaten was wheat, and perhaps up to seventy-five percent wheat and other grains.  When you look at it this way, what we thought of as "food" was more like "feed."  In fact, at the time when humans adopted agriculture, the majority of grains were actually grown to feed livestock.  Perhaps in times of famine or desperation, humans raided their grain bins.

"Feed" in Disguise

This bad habit must have stuck.  Perhaps it was easy.  And 10,000 years later we  have morphed agriculture into a processed food industry where we take wheat, corn, and soy and either a) make it sweet with sugar or high fructose corn syrup, or b) make it savory with salt and spices.   Then we mold and press the feed mixture into the desired shape - thick or thin, short or long, big or little, round or square, soft or dense - choose a color, and then add chemicals so it will last a year or more.  We fool ourselves into thinking this is food, but if we were honest, we have to admit this is more like how we feed our dogs.   The packages all look different, but pick any of these things and imagine if we all ate with our mouths open, we'd see it for what it is - just a mush of wheat or corn flour.  They might as well just sell this feed in 50lb bags.   It'd be much more honest... and cheaper too.

Enter REAL FOOD

After decades of eating just a few crops, it's no surprise that we have forgotten what REAL FOOD is, and people enlightened enough to reject the standard Western diet often struggle initially with determining what to eat.  In fact, many are too quick to substitute wheat with other things that are just like it.  If you have decided to reject "feed as food," consider exploring real food instead and letting the notion of real food serve as your litmus test before putting something in your mouth.  Ask yourself, "is this real food...or made with real food?" 

Change

We all enjoy our treats here and there, but imagine replacing that 75% "feed" in your diet with food!  One of the joys of rejecting grains is a reintroduction to the so many things this planet provides us to eat.  With a little time, you'll get the hang of it. 

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