Get Real: Consistency

Just a quick mention- Jill from The Prairie Homestead has launched Your Custom Homestead! I received an advance copy of this amazing eBook and I recommend it highly. If you’re interested in homesteading, this is a wonderful resource. Use code “CUSTOMHOMESTEAD20” when you checkout to receive 20% off of the book’s price through the 24th. Look for a review and giveaway coming on my blog soon.

—

I have received a flurry of e-mails in the last couple of weeks asking questions about grains in a traditional foods diet. My readers have become confused because some are publicly flip-flopping on the subject. One day grains are practically of the devil, the next day they’re the best thing on earth. There’s eCourses, blog posts and books everywhere on both sides of the issue.

Where do I stand? In all things I do, I wish to be consistent. I never want to jerk my readers around chasing fads, money or notoriety. I wish to be transparent and ethical. I want my motives to be clear to my readers. My blog is about my own journey and as my journey chances, so will my blog. I hope you see a consistent journey to health, not a series of jumping from fad to fad and topic to topic, chasing the elusive result that never comes. However, if research comes to light that I hadn’t before been aware of or if I see my own health getting worse or start to develop health problems, I will tell you the truth and I will change what I am doing.

There comes a point in every person’s life where you have to step back and say ‘it is enough.’ Chart your course and stay on it for three to six months before you evaluate your progress. Don’t be blown about by other’s opinions. When that happens, you never know what caused the positive or negative changes in your health. You only frustrate yourself.

Here’s the bottom line: If you are in good health and you have no gut problems, autoimmune problems or other health problems that would necessitate temporarily removing foods or food groups from your diet, then you are fine to eat properly prepared traditional grains or any other properly prepared food on a traditional foods diet. If you have a health problem that could possibly be related to the consumption of particular foods or food groups, then you need to go off of that food and heal your gut. It doesn’t matter if we’re discussing grains, gluten, apples, raw milk or beef. If you react to a food, you shouldn’t consume it. That is the stance I have always taken.

Once your gut is healed and your health problems completely resolve, the foods you reacted to usually no longer make you ill unless you dealt with an auto-immune disease to begin with. With things like celiac, there is no solid research showing whether or not it is safe to consume gluten once your gut is healed, therefore I have chosen to remain off of them permanently. However, non-glutenous grains should be fine even with celiacs.

Even when I was at my sickest, I didn’t have to remove all grains from my diet, and I recovered in less time than what GAPS claims to take, and I was ill enough I was sent home to die and dropped 130 pounds. But I did go off of the foods that made me ill, including gluten. You can’t put out a fire while you continue to pour gasoline on it.

No, grains are not of the devil so long as they don’t make you sick. If a food makes you sick, no matter what it is, avoid it.

It’s as simple as that.

[boilerplate sig]